Epilepsy & Clinical Neurophysiology Fellowship

Fellows will receive extensive clinical, research, and diagnostic training.

Diagnostic testing and treatment training:

• Routine EEG: All ages, including neonatal EEGs
• Long-term Inpatient video-EEG: Epilepsy unit monitoring as well as extensive intensive care monitoring experience
• Intracranial EEG: Stereo-EEG, strips, grids; seizure stimulation
• Mapping of cortical function through electrical stimulation and electrocorticography: bedside and intraoperative
• Evoked potential testing
• Neurostimulation: responsive neurostimulation, deep brain stimulation, vagal nerve stimulation

Clinical, educational, and research activities:

• Fellows rotate in 1-2 week clinical block rotations in the EMU (epilepsy monitoring unit), LTM (long-term monitoring service), in research, or performing clinical or self-study electives.
• Fellows will have dedicated time for clinical research, supported by a team of clinical neurology, neuropsychology, neuroimaging, and neuroscience faculty, as well as a dedicated neurology research coordinator team.
• Training in clinical trials research is also available. Jefferson is active in multiple therapeutic medications, non-medication therapies, devices, diagnostic equipment, and other trials.
• Fellows have time for elective rotations, including one month at Nemours Children's Hospital and/or another pediatric epilepsy site. Additional elective options include rotations in intraoperative monitoring, intracranial EEG monitoring, and sleep disorders.
• There is a strong outpatient experience as well, with a twice-weekly continuity clinic for both adult and pediatric fellows, and regular EEG reading sessions.
• For fellows in the Clinical Neurophysiology fellowship, there are also rotations in EMG, Sleep, and Intraoperative monitoring. Additionally, there are annual review lecture courses in both Sleep and EMG, which all fellows are required to attend.
• Fellows will receive funding support to attend additional external fellow-specific training sessions/meetings and/or national neurology/Epilepsy meetings.

Joint Didactic Sessions

• Epilepsy Surgery Conference (multidisciplinary conference including adult and pediatric neurology, neurosurgery, neuropsychology, and neuroradiology); fellows present surgical cases for discussion: Mondays at 8:30 a.m. (weekly)
• Epilepsy/Clinical Neurophysiology Conference Series: weekly
• EEG case conference (joint fellow and faculty review/discussion of EEG cases), 1-2/month
• Journal Club (monthly)
• Nemours Children's Hospital morning didactics series: Thursday mornings
• Neurology Grand Rounds: Friday mornings
• Mid-Atlantic Epilepsy Lecture Series (multi-institutional lecture series coordinated through Jefferson, including a consortium of seven academic epilepsy centers in the Mid-Atlantic region) (monthly)
• Additional fellow-led lectures and special lecturer didactics are scheduled throughout the year.
• Neurology M & M (quarterly)
• There are additional lectures and didactics sessions for clinical neurophysiology fellows, including EMG and sleep lectures.

Call Responsibility 

• Call coverage is performed remotely with 24-hour EEG tech support.
• Fellows rotate to cover limited epilepsy calls on weekday evenings and weekends.
• EEG technicians perform preliminary review of all long-term EEGs and EMU EEGs at Jefferson. The on-call fellow provides support to the EEG technicians. There is also an on-call attending back-up for each service at all times.