Pediatric Epilepsy Fellowship

Our Fellowship Program

(2 POSITIONS)

This is an ACGME-approved epilepsy fellowship program at an internationally renowned epilepsy center.

As a fellow in this program, you’ll spend a minimum of 2 months at the comprehensive epilepsy center at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital (TJUH), and 8 months at Nemours Children's, with duties split between an inpatient EEG/EMU service week, outpatient EEG/epilepsy clinic week and research/other elective time (1–2 months).

During the fellowship, you’ll master six core competencies in caring for children and young adults, from birth through age 21, in accordance with ACGME requirements:

• Patient care
• Medical knowledge
• Practice-based learning and improvement
• Systems-based practice
• Professionalism
• Interpersonal skills and communication

Our mission is to improve the future of epilepsy care for children and young adults, by training pediatric epileptologists who possess outstanding EEG interpretation skills, clinical judgement, scientific reasoning and humanism, and who render individualized patient care guided by the application of these skill sets.

This program participates in The Match.

Rotations and Electives

• TJU EEG — 2 weeks
• TJU EMU — 2 weeks
• Nemours inpatient EEG/EMU service — approximately 13 weeks
• Nemours outpatient EEG/epilepsy clinics — approximately 13 weeks
• Vacation — 4 weeks
• Elective — 4–8 weeks

During your training you will spend 6 months of time in direct EEG interpretation, with 1:1 supervision and mentorship from attending epileptologists in the program. You will have your own continuity clinic for 40 sessions/year minimum, engage in outpatient epilepsy clinics with selected epilepsy faculty members 1–3 times per month, and provide direct oversight of inpatient care for patients admitted for prolonged EEG monitoring for significant epilepsy management questions and epilepsy surgical evaluations, including intraoperative electrocorticography. Each of these activities is mentored in 1:1 fashion by a member of the epilepsy faculty. You will also present current research articles in journal club, participate in a fellow-specific statistics course through Nemours, attend selected national conferences, and are encouraged to present critical data in conference, poster, abstract and article publication formats. The standard expectation is at least 6–8 conference presentations and 2–3 poster or abstract publications per year. You will execute a quality improvement project with significance for patient care in epilepsy each year. Program faculty, as Sidney Kimmel Medical College faculty, are required to maintain faculty development standards, as monitored by annual reviews in the division of pediatric neurology, and to mentor fellows in 1:1 fashion when on applicable clinical rotations, as monitored by fellow feedback evaluation forms. Fellows are encouraged to participate in advocacy and community engagement activities. Examples include family conferences and patient-directed activities sponsored by diverse advocacy groups in the region (e.g., Epilepsy Foundation of Delaware and Southeastern Pennsylvania Chapters), and face-to-face meetings with legislators in the state of Delaware annually.

Educational Conferences

• Neurology Grand Rounds, monthly
• Neuroradiology Conference, twice monthly
• Epilepsy didactic in conjunction with the SKMC comprehensive epilepsy center adult epilepsy fellows, weekly
• Mid-Atlantic Regional Epilepsy Conference, monthly
• Neurology Journal Club, monthly
• Neurology Core Lecture Series, epilepsy-focused topics, 1–2 times a month
• Epilepsy Care Conference, weekly
• Zambia International Case Conference, monthly
• Neo-Neuro Clinical Case Conference, with EEG discussion