Southwest’s first female Native American sports neurologist

Born and raised in Flagstaff, Arizona, Yvette Brown-Shirley, MD, is believed to be the Southwest’s first female Native American sports neurologist.

Her mission as a new sports neurologist at Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix is to address neurologic health inequities in Arizona Native American communities.

One inequity exists in high school athletics, where Native American student-athletes often do not have access to the same neurological care available to peers.

To address this, Dr. Brown-Shirley has a goal to provide baseline concussion testing for high school student-athletes on Arizona’s Indian reservations.