Carleton Virtual Breakfast Club August 8, 2024

Conor Gormally’s ‘20 Carleton experience and career trajectory were altered before they’d even set foot in a classroom. Conor suffered a fourth concussion during New Student Week, two days after arriving on campus. After one week of struggling through classes with intense fatigue and a constant headache that hadn’t improved, Conor took medical leave for the fall term after being on campus for barely two weeks. Despite working with sports concussion specialists and a neurologist once at home, Conor didn’t get answers or proper referrals from healthcare providers when their concussion symptoms persisted—beginning a family journey to find answers that would lead Conor and their mother, Malayka, to found Concussion Alliance, a concussion education and advocacy nonprofit. Concussion Alliance now hosts the most comprehensive collection of evidence-based concussion resources for patients and their advocates in the world through its website and newsletter. These resources are built with the help of undergraduate interns from around North America through a unique remote internship program that began as Carleton’s first-ever remote externship. Conor will discuss how their search for answers led to their discovery of a hidden epidemic, what we know (and still don’t know) about mild traumatic brain injuries, and how working with Carleton’s externship program and Career Center laid the groundwork for Concussion Alliance’s growth.