Epilepsy Fellowship/Clinical Neurophysiology Fellowship

Since the graduation of our first Epilepsy and CNP fellows, our programs have excelled in training the next generation of epilepsy and CNP specialists and clinician-scientists.
Our program mission is to provide an organized and comprehensive educational experience addressing all aspects of epilepsy medicine in inpatient, outpatient, and acute care settings. Under the direct supervision of highly qualified faculty, fellow physicians will be provided ample time for clinical practice, instruction, and training. During this time, the fellow is able to develop the necessary skills and positive professional attitudes essential for the highest quality patient care and for independent practice. We support the development of knowledgeable, skillful physicians who provide compassionate care. We are determined to engage in practices that focus on mission-driven, ongoing, systematic recruitment and retention of a diverse and inclusive workforce of fellows, faculty members, and administrative staff members in alignment with the mission of our Academic Institution.

All fellows that have graduated our program have gone on to have successes in their own right and have fulfilled much needed roles at their respective institutions and/or communities, whether as clinicians, clinician-educators, clinical trialists or leading researchers. Our program prides itself in having the capacity to produce the future of Epilepsy researchers, clinical trialists, educators and clinicians alike.

The Epilepsy and CNP fellowship programs at UM are 12-month ACGME accredited programs devoted to assisting trainees in developing expertise in the diagnosis and management of seizure disorders in adults and children including the interpretation and implementation of many neurodiagnostic evaluations currently used in the treatment of epilepsy.
We offer a second year in Advanced Epilepsy training (non-ACGME accredited) for additional experience with surgical techniques and neuromodulation (RNS, DBS), or mentored research in our basic science or clinical areas. The second-year trainees are provided with opportunities of attending a formal course on medical education. The structure of the second-year fellow’s curriculum is uniquely flexible and tailored to their needs and professional goals.

Our fellows have a wealth of clinical experiences to choose from across the two years of training.

The strength of our programs lie in the diversity of offerings exposing fellows to clinical care in Epilepsy, EEG of adults, children and neonates, Evoked Potential studies in children and adults, all aspects of epilepsy surgery including SPECT, PET, pediatric and adult inpatient long-term EEG recordings, intracranial EEG monitoring, intra-operative and extra-operative cortical mapping, functional MRI, quantitative EEG, Wada procedures, and devices: VNS, RNS, DBS. We do intraoperative evoked potential monitoring (IOM) for many types of surgical cases and do critical care EEG monitoring. Fellows learn about ethical issues, professionalism, and resources available to our patients as well. In addition, fellows learn about clinical and basic epilepsy research, work on a research project with a mentor and present a poster at the departmental Neuroscience conference at the end of the year.

The University of Michigan epilepsy clinic is a tertiary referral center, commonly drawing patients from the metropolitan Detroit area, the state of Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and a few other out-of-state areas. Our inpatient, long-term video monitoring services care for about 1,500 adult and 1,500 pediatric patients yearly, with diagnoses including pre-surgical evaluation, intensive care monitoring, treatment of status epilepticus, and diagnosis of non-epileptic paroxysmal disorders. The primary responsibility for fellows on the adult and pediatric services is reading the EEG studies and multidisciplinary communication of these results. There is an adult and pediatric epilepsy consultation service where our fellows can assist more directly with management of complex cases. Rotations can be tailored to the needs and interests of each fellow. We are putting a great effort into managing the workload with careful attention to fellow feedback and satisfaction. Fellows are directly involved in decisions about how best to accomplish their work and have a monthly fellow education conference to discuss the customization of their education, call schedule, and any challenges that may arise. Creating a good work-life balance for our trainees is a continuous process and one of the programs’ priorities.

Current Trainees

Our fellows rotate through both pediatric and adult epilepsy clinic, inpatient epilepsy monitoring service and neuromodulation clinic. Fellows are given the opportunity to rotate through training in intraoperative monitoring (IOM) as we are proud of having an accredited IOM program. Electives in neuropsychology, speech and language evaluation, and functional mapping, neuroimaging in epilepsy, source modeling, and quantitative EEG analysis are available. There is also the opportunity to participate in funded basic science research.

Examples of work volumes:

  • Over 3,500 total epilepsy visits yearly, including faculty and fellow visits
  • 45-50 adult epilepsy surgeries and 25-35 pediatric epilepsy surgeries yearly
  • 1-2 intracranial EEG cases (sEEG) every month
  • Over 2,500 routine EEG studies yearly in adult and pediatrics
  • Over 3,000 long-term EEG monitoring studies with adult and pediatrics combined
  • Multiple cases requiring SPECT, PET, quantitative EEG, source modeling, fMRI, WADA that aid with pre-surgical localization

Throughout the year, there is a comprehensive didactic schedule offering two conferences per week with emergent topics being reviewed in the first few months. All didactic conferences are video and audio archived, and accessible at any time. There is a weekly pre-surgical epilepsy conference that has become an intellectually stimulating experience resulting from a multidisciplinary review of refractory epilepsy cases. To supplement our fellow’s learning and stimulate group conversation, our division also hosts a monthly ICU-EEG conference that is presented by fellows and faculty alike, showcasing topics such as case review, article appraisal, scientific updates, or phenomenology. In addition, our fellows are offered problem-based learning quality improvement training and are encouraged to participate in quality projects. Fellows may choose to present didactic lectures to other trainees and receive mentoring for teaching. All fellows are mentored through a research project and put up a research poster at the departmental Neuroscience Research Conference. Our fellows are encouraged to attend at least one national meeting during their training year.

Fellows lead weekly journal club discussions that take place in the last few months of their training. Additional lectures on evoked potential and IOM are available. We have workshops in VNS, RNS, and DBS. New didactics can be added per fellow request. Fellows receive outstanding teaching from diverse epilepsy faculty with a variety of clinical and research interests. Prior fellows have taken advantage of some of the many resources sponsored by our institution, including a former course on medical education for trainees serving as a springboard to career as clinician-educators. We currently have 11 adult and 11 pediatric epilepsy faculty with clinical appointments at the University. Many of our faculty are graduates from our fellowship programs and continue to champion for the success of every fellow that has come after them. All serve a pivotal role as mentors for our trainees. To assess fellow progression through our program, as well as to serve as a liaison for clinical and research opportunities, the fellowship leadership meets with each fellow on a monthly basis. The luxury of having such skilled and dedicated faculty allows us to utilize the strengths of each – be it research methodology, clinical trials coordination, clinical skill, or education – to cumulatively benefit and support our fellows’ professional development. This shared responsibility has effectively led to fellows going on to collaborate on numerous papers, projects, and apply for grant funding to support their own research path after training.

We participate in the National Residency Matching Program and only accept the following required application materials via the Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS).
• ERAS application
• CV
• ECFMG Certificate if you graduated from a foreign medical school
• USMLE or COMLEX Scores
• Personal statement that describes your interest in epilepsy or CNP fellowship
• Three letters of recommendation (including one from a current/former program director or chair)

The Department of Neurology is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate with regard to sex, race, age, religion, color, national origin, disability, or any other applicable legally protected status.

You must be a United States citizen, permanent resident (green card holder), or have a J-1 visa sponsored through ECFMG. We do not sponsor any other visas.

For more information, please contact Samantha Payer at [email protected] or Dr.Temenuzhka (Nusha) Mihaylova at [email protected]

The University of Michigan offers highly competitive salaries and tremendous benefits to our residents/fellows. An overview of salary, benefits and employment eligibility is available on the GME Office website linked below.

Ann Arbor, MI is a family friendly city renowned for its cultural offerings. Ann Arbor is home to Michigan Medicine, a leading clinical and research medical facility. It has been ranked highly as a preferred city because of its sporting, music and active cultural life and welcoming natural setting. The department of neurology is a highly ranked, academic department with a bid residency training program and internationally renowned faculty.

Fellows are given ample private storage and work spaces in several areas, strong administrative and faculty support. Call is only from home reading EEG tracings but there is a call room in the hospital available to the fellows if needed. Call schedule is ready for the whole year and is overseen by the fellows who take administrative ownership. The schedule carefully integrates fellow and faculty feedback to provide optimal work-life balance for all.

The University of Michigan is dedicated to ensuring that the principles of diversity, equity and inclusion are employed across all its campuses, formally incorporating DEI initiatives into the university’s mission and operations. Resources and training on DEI-specific topics (ex. Identifying and understanding implicit bias) are provided continually to our trainees through free faculty development coursework offered by our Office of Health Equity and Inclusion. Independent from our institutional promise, our department has taken it upon itself to incorporate DEI topics into our grand rounds series and has also proactively formed its own DEI committee to provide a structured framework for advancing DEI-related discussions. By the nature of being a large, non-profit, university hospital a short distance from Detroit, while also serving as the premier quaternary medical center for all of Michigan, our fellows care for a rather diverse population that includes those from rural, suburban and urban America. Additional experiences made available to our fellows include The Hope Clinic, where we partner to provide healthcare, including subspeciality care, for financially underserved or marginalized persons in eastern Michigan.