Our Mission & Curriculum

U-M Sleep Medicine Fellowship Mission Statement:
To train outstanding physicians from diverse backgrounds to provide exceptional patient care for any sleep or alertness problem, and serve as future leaders in sleep medicine clinical practice, research, education, or advocacy.

Our curriculum is designed to give our fellows a depth and breadth of clinical exposure to all aspects of sleep medicine in a supportive, collegial environment.

Clinic:

In order to gain robust experience with multidisciplinary aspects of the diagnosis and management of sleep disorders, our fellows spend time in the following clinics on a throughout the training year:

  • Assisted Ventilation Clinic
  • Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia Group Visits
  • Dental Sleep Medicine Clinic
  • Multidisciplinary Insomnia Clinic
  • Multiple Sclerosis and Sleep Clinic
  • Otolaryngology Clinics
  • Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery Clinic
  • Pediatric Refractory to CPAP Clinic
  • Pediatric Sleep and Behavior Clinic
  • U-M Adult Comprehensive Sleep Clinic (includes fellow continuity clinic)
  • U-M Pediatric Comprehensive Sleep Clinic
  • Veterans Affairs Medical Center Comprehensive Sleep Clinic

Polysomnography interpretation:

Fellows gain experience with a wide variety of adult and pediatric cases, utilizing nocturnal polysomnography, home sleep apnea testing and Watch PAT, advanced positive airway pressure modalities, and multiple sleep latency tests (MSLTs). Fellows have a personalized review of each study they read via epoch-by-epoch review and teaching with a faculty sleep medicine specialist.

Our fellows also receive a strong foundation in the technical aspect of sleep medicine including staging, scoring, equipment evaluation, mask fitting, common artifacts, and other technical factors that affect patient evaluation.

Continuing Medical Education:

Each week the Sleep Disorders Center holds multiple CME-accredited educational experiences for our fellows. These include Sleep Disorders Center Grand Rounds, interactive workshops reviewing different aspects of sleep medicine with faculty, and polysomnogram reviews led by our faculty, and a “morning report” style fellow-led case conferences. Our sleep medicine fellowship quality improvement curriculum has received national recognition and provides a collaborative, team-oriented experience. All fellows also lead a journal club discussion and present a year-end Grand Rounds.

Sleep Medicine fellows are required to present a poster (case presentation or research abstract) at the University of Michigan Neuroscience Day or other meeting. Most of our fellows have the opportunity to present a poster at the annual SLEEP meeting. The annual SLEEP meeting is also the home of our beloved Sleep Medicine Fellowship Reunion! At that time we get to reconnect with U-M sleep medicine friends and colleagues from all over the globe.

Research Opportunities:

For those fellows who are interested in research, ample opportunities exist for clinical and preclinical sleep research. Many Sleep Center faculty conduct sleep research, and additional clinical, human, and basic sleep research opportunities are available with the multidisciplinary faculty members of the campus-wide Center for Sleep Science.