In Memoriam

Kathleen McPeck Principe was the recipient of the ASET Distinguished Service Award in 2012. As a single mother of two, in early 1970s Boston, looking for a way to provide for her family and her quest for knowledge, Kathleen began her career with determination in the burgeoning field of what is now more comprehensively referred to as “Neurodiagnostic Technology.”

Kathleen quickly went on to become Chief Technologist at Tufts New England Medical Center. At Tufts, she had the rare privilege to work and learn under Dr. John R. Knott during his time there. Dr. Knott was very fond of Kathleen and her work. Her EEG tracings were among the selected samples in Fundamentals of EEG Technology, Volume 1. Also at Tufts, Kathleen helped to piece together equipment to synchronize black and white analog video and analog EEG for long-term monitoring and for recording in the operating room during surgery. She loved to teach and her lab was known as one of the toughest clinic rotations in the city. Even today, those she taught in the 1970s and 1980s (some of whom hold their own leadership positions around the country) credit her with honing their clinical standards, technical skills, and work ethic.

Kathleen then managed the Intraoperative Neuromonitoring Program at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). Spending more than a decade at MGH, Kathleen helped develop this Intraoperative Neuromonitoring Program into one of the most advanced in the world and co-authored numerous research publications. Despite working long hours and raising two children, Kathleen also spent time attending night classes at Northeastern University, ultimately earning a B.S. in Healthcare Management, Magna Cum Laude.

Kathleen eventually re-married and relocated to California where she worked at UCLA and spent more than a decade as the Epilepsy Program Coordinator for Kaiser Permanente in Southern California.

Throughout all of these career positions Kathleen has been a leader in her field striving for excellence and to progress the field Neurodiagnostic Technology. She has always loved to teach and has mentored dozens of students over the past nearly40 years. She held the highest standards and never compromised. However, Kathleen was always excited about and open to new ideas and ways of achieving the high standards she set for herself and others.

Because of her many ideas, in 2007, Kathleen relocated back to Massachusetts where she became a founding partner and President of HydroDot, Inc. Her main reasons were to further progress the field of Neurodiagnostic Technology and bring her own ideas and inventions to fruition.

Kathleen is inventor of the StatNet which is a pre-gelled, pre-10-20 configured, single patient use EEG headpiece. She has successfully fostered her invention to market and FDA approval, an arduous task, as well as a completed a number of clinical trials. The invention is still undergoing the patent process and many new versions she designed are still planned for market. In addition, she has used her knowledge and creativity to foster numerous other products that she wanted to aid technologists and increase patient care and satisfaction. These include designing the very successful “Skinsavers” pads and “10-20 Measuring Nets”, a standardized method of repeatable accurate head marking.

Kathleen has also always wanted to give back and takes action. She has given many presentations and posters at ASET and regional meetings over the years. She had also taken great pride in her participation in two missions to Amazonian Ecuador where she personally performed hundreds of EEGs on native people (some that even traveled by canoe) who would otherwise have never been able to obtain an EEG followed by an appointment with a neurologist. Kathleen donated thousands of dollars in EEG supplies as well as frequent flyer miles to help make this possible. This mission became a passion that she hoped would become an annual tradition. Unfortunately, that hope would be cut short by a diagnosis of Melanoma in 2012.Despite a brave and aggressive 10-month long fight with the disease, Kathleen passed away at home in January of 2013 surrounded by loved ones.

In addition to all of her career achievements, Kathleen ‘s most important legacy was as Neurodiagnostic Matriarch of her family. Her oldest child Sheila Hill attended Labouré College in Boston, achieving an A.S. in Neurodiagnostic Technology and the R. EEG/EP T., CNIM credentials. Sheila went on to work at Children’s Boston, Beth Israel Boston, and held the Intraoperative Monitoring Chief Technologist position for many years at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Kathleen’s son John was accepted to Children ‘s Hospital Boston’s EEG Technology Program and went on to also work at Children’s Boston, Stanford University, and Keck USC Medical Center. John also provides successful neurodiagnostic consulting services and has earned the R. EEG T. and CLTM credentials. Not only do her children hold multiple registrations but Kathleen has influenced two other family member s, her sister and niece, who are both now Registered Polysomnographic Technologists with rewarding careers.

Kathleen dedicated her life to her career in health care and her family. We plan to honor her career legacy by continuing to provide excellent care in the clinical setting and to pursue her vision of forward thinking for our field. Kathleen envisioned that one day EEG would be available for the thousands of patients here and around the world who every year go without this very important clinical information for many reasons. Many of these reasons can be solved.

Kathleen has been vocal about skin protection and the dangers of Melanoma for at least a decade to those who knew her well. We kindly request to those who are able to send donations in any amount for additional research badly needed for Melanoma to the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in the name of Kathleen Principe. Many big breakthroughs have happened regarding Melanoma just recently but so much more is needed and so many do not realize the dangers.

Thank you to all who knew, admired, and worked with her, and all that have reached out to her family. Anybody who would like to make a donation or simply spread awareness about Melanoma would be most appreciated.

– John McPeck, R. EEG T., CLTM
Sheila Hill, R. EEG/EP T ., CNIM

Originally published in:

The Neurodiagnostic Journal, 53: 99–101, 2013
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/21646821.2013.11079894