Additional Training for Residents

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Fellowships offer in-depth, daily, one-on-one training with a consultant and the opportunity to increase your clinical, supervisory and administrative skills. After you successfully complete Mayo Clinic's Adult Neurology Residency, you will be highly competitive for gaining acceptance to fellowship training programs.

Mayo Clinic offers the following fellowships that complement its residency program:

Accreditation

All of the fellowships listed above are accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), except for the Headache Fellowship, Movement Disorders Fellowship and the Multiple Sclerosis Fellowship. The Headache Fellowship and Neuro-Oncology Fellowship are accredited by the United Council for Neurologic Subspecialties.

Clinician-Investigator Program

Mayo Clinic's Clinician-Investigator Program is two years in length. When you complete this program, you will be academically prepared, competent in clinical neurology, technically skilled in research and capable of competing in today's research environment.

If you are interested in the Clinician-Investigator Program, you should indicate your interest early in your residency training. You will then be assigned to a faculty member who will help you develop a competitive written research proposal.

Evidence-based medicine

Evidence-based medicine is taught by national experts Dean Wingerchuk, M.D., and Cumara O'Carroll, M.D., M.P.H., at Mayo Clinic's campus in Arizona through the Mayo Clinic Arizona's Evidence-Based Clinical Practice, Research, Informatics and Training Center (MERIT) program. Its goal is to foster the lifelong critical thinking skills needed to evaluate research findings that impact patient care.

MERIT conferences are integrated into Neurosciences Grand Rounds every several months. A trainee, a faculty member from one of the three sites with expertise in the topic area, and a MERIT faculty member lead a patient-based satellite presentation that takes participants through all aspects of the evidence-based medicine process. The peer-reviewed summary is available on Mayo's intranet and is often published in The Neurologist, giving residents an opportunity to publish in a scholarly journal before they complete their program.

Neuro-oncology Conference: Residents present in monthly multi-disciplinary Neuro-Oncology Conferences throughout their residency.

Morbidity and Mortality Conference: PGY-2 residents present a clinical case at the morbidity and mortality conference.

Visiting clerkships

Learn more about options for the visiting clerkship.

Neurology electives at our Mayo Clinic campus in Arizona

Neurology Inpatient Service

On the hospital service, students attend rounds with their supervising consultant and inpatient neurology team. You will perform histories and physical examinations on new admissions and consultations, and follow these patients through their hospital course. Opportunities are available to perform neurological procedures such as lumbar punctures.

Goals for this rotation include learning to:

Refine skills in conducting neurological examinations
Arrive at an anatomic localization of different neurological problems and synthesize differential diagnoses
Select the appropriate sequence of laboratory tests and diagnostic procedures
Understand the utility and limitations of EEG, EMG, MRI and other neurological diagnostic tests
Manage common neurological problems in the inpatient setting

Epilepsy Monitoring Unit

The Mayo Clinic Hospital Epilepsy Monitoring Unit has six inpatient hospital beds that are fully equipped with state-of-the-art 24-hour video-EEG monitoring equipment. During your rotation, you work closely with multidisciplinary epilepsy team including staff epileptologists, epilepsy fellows, neurology residents, neurosurgeons, and neuropsychologists.

You perform history and physical examinations on new admissions and follow patients' progress during their stay in the unit. You also attend daily epilepsy rounds in the morning and attend weekly multidisciplinary epilepsy surgery conference. Additionally, you have opportunities to further your knowledge in EEG interpretation, be exposed to neuropsychological testing and its uses, participate in clinical research, and observe epilepsy surgery cases.

Prerequisites include completion of three years of medical school and the basic neurology clerkship.

Goals for this rotation are to:

Develop an understanding of patients with epilepsy in a comprehensive epilepsy center
Acquire a thorough understanding of ILAE classifications of epilepsy and apply it in a clinical setting
Learn and apply the pharmacological and surgical therapies for epilepsy
Develop an understanding for the complete care of the patient with epilepsy including neuropsychological evaluation, therapeutic intervention and medical therapy

You may also request the opportunity to observe the activities of the EEG, EMG, neurovascular, autonomic and movement disorder laboratories. While the emphasis of the clerkship is either inpatient neurology or experience in the epilepsy monitoring unit, students have the opportunity to gain added experience in the fields of movement disorders, demyelinating disease, neuromuscular diseases, epilepsy, cerebrovascular disease, cognitive disorders and headache.

Method of evaluation

Student performance and learning will be assessed by observation. Consultants who work with students provide written performance evaluations.

See our Visiting Medical Student Clerkship Program for more information regarding eligibility requirements, application, and scheduling and other details.