Since the graduation of our first Epilepsy and CNP fellows, our programs have excelled in training the next generation of epilepsy and CNP specialists and clinician-scientists.
Our program mission is to provide an organized and comprehensive educational experience addressing all aspects of epilepsy medicine in inpatient, outpatient, and acute care settings. Under the direct supervision of highly qualified faculty, fellow physicians will be provided ample time for clinical practice, instruction, and training. During this time, the fellow is able to develop the necessary skills and positive professional attitudes essential for the highest quality patient care and for independent practice. We support the development of knowledgeable, skillful physicians who provide compassionate care. We are determined to engage in practices that focus on mission-driven, ongoing, systematic recruitment and retention of a diverse and inclusive workforce of fellows, faculty members, and administrative staff members in alignment with the mission of our Academic Institution.
All fellows that have graduated our program have gone on to have successes in their own right and have fulfilled much needed roles at their respective institutions and/or communities, whether as clinicians, clinician-educators, clinical trialists or leading researchers. Our program prides itself in having the capacity to produce the future of Epilepsy researchers, clinical trialists, educators and clinicians alike.
The Epilepsy and CNP fellowship programs at UM are 12-month ACGME accredited programs devoted to assisting trainees in developing expertise in the diagnosis and management of seizure disorders in adults and children including the interpretation and implementation of many neurodiagnostic evaluations currently used in the treatment of epilepsy.
We offer a second year in Advanced Epilepsy training (non-ACGME accredited) for additional experience with surgical techniques and neuromodulation (RNS, DBS), or mentored research in our basic science or clinical areas. The second-year trainees are provided with opportunities of attending a formal course on medical education. The structure of the second-year fellow’s curriculum is uniquely flexible and tailored to their needs and professional goals.
Our fellows have a wealth of clinical experiences to choose from across the two years of training.
The strength of our programs lie in the diversity of offerings exposing fellows to clinical care in Epilepsy, EEG of adults, children and neonates, Evoked Potential studies in children and adults, all aspects of epilepsy surgery including SPECT, PET, pediatric and adult inpatient long-term EEG recordings, intracranial EEG monitoring, intra-operative and extra-operative cortical mapping, functional MRI, quantitative EEG, Wada procedures, and devices: VNS, RNS, DBS. We do intraoperative evoked potential monitoring (IOM) for many types of surgical cases and do critical care EEG monitoring. Fellows learn about ethical issues, professionalism, and resources available to our patients as well. In addition, fellows learn about clinical and basic epilepsy research, work on a research project with a mentor and present a poster at the departmental Neuroscience conference at the end of the year.