Sleep/EEG fellowships

[Phantom Spike]

Does anybody know of fellowship programs a neurology resident could apply to, that are primarily geared towards training in Sleep Medicine, but give you a lot of training in EEG as well? I guess what I'm looking for is a clinical neurophysiology fellowship primarily in Sleep with exposure to EEG as a secondary area of concentration. I'm not sure the vast majority of Sleep fellowships, that are run by pulmonologists, give you more than basic EEG training, that a majority of neurology residents most likely already have by the time they graduate.

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[BrainBuff]

Dude, you need to make up your mind. Do you want a Clinical Neurophysiology fellowship, a SLEEP fellowship or an EEG fellowship??!!

You can not have all three. First of all, a Clinical Neurophysiology fellowship should have EMG/EEG fairly well distributed. The rest, the name says it all. You have to realize that these fellowships are created because the "work force"="fellow" is needed in that particular division to do the scud work that the attending does not want to do. They are not established to "enlighten and teach" . In many programs, you need to take charge of that yourself.

Sleep Medicine is, for the most part, a very individually standing fellowship. Also note, that current accreditation standards for future board certification in the subspecialty are really against the very mixed subspecialty soup you are looking for. Very likely you would not get credit for anything like that.

 

[nycdoc22]

Fyi -
if you are going the fellowship route, in order to be boarded in sleep medicine you need to document 11 months of sleep medicine (ie, you cannot do other electives)

Sleep fellowships are on the 'light' side (comparatively), so you may be able to 'hang out' with other attending in neuro based sleep programs to gain exposure in EEG / EMG. DOnt' expect to be an expert in those other fields though..

There is nothing wrong with trying to learn as much as possible in the 1 year. Most neurologist who do sleep also practice general neuro to some extent . (there are some 100% sleep positions though).

BTW 'scud' work is hilarious...

 

[BrainBuff]

^ Yeah, I guess an 'attending' would find it funny...

 

[michaelrack]

Does anybody know of fellowship programs a neurology resident could apply to, that are primarily geared towards training in Sleep Medicine, but give you a lot of training in EEG as well? I guess what I'm looking for is a clinical neurophysiology fellowship primarily in Sleep with exposure to EEG as a secondary area of concentration.

When I was interviewing for sleep fellowships in 2001, Cleveland Clinic had a sleep fellowship like you describe. You might also want to check out Ann Arbor Michigan- I don't know too much about their fellowship program, but it is neurology based.

 

[Phantom Spike]

I guess the main reason these "combined" fellowships are no longer available is the fact that a program has to be an ACGME certified sleep fellowship for its graduates to be eligible for certification in sleep medicine. Even those that did offer this kind of EEG/sleep fellowship have apparently stopped doing so.

So let me restate my question: would the kind of training a neurologist would receive differ significantly in a pulmonary vs. neurology run sleep fellowship program? Are there any advantages to a neurology resident looking specifically at neurology-run sleep fellowships?

 

[neurologist]

So let me restate my question: would the kind of training a neurologist would receive differ significantly in a pulmonary vs. neurology run sleep fellowship program? Are there any advantages to a neurology resident looking specifically at neurology-run sleep fellowships?

Accredited programs all have to meet similar guidelines for scope of education, so from a formal perspective, the answer would be "no."

However, obviously, some programs are administratively "owned" by different specialties. I think a good, large, multidisciplinary program with multiple practitioners in multiple specialties would be good for a fellow of any basic specialty (neuro, pulm, psych, etc) as far as teaching/learning goes. Smaller programs (or large ones for that matter) where there seems to be a significant disproportion of one specialty should be looked at very carefully.

Bottom line, I'd suggest a program that has lots of attending variety rather than one that heavily dominated by one specialty.