Rotations and Clinical Teachings
The neurology graduate teaching program at the Albany Medical Center currently consists of 20 months in adult neurology (inpatient, consultation and stroke services) , 4 months of pediatric neurology and 12 months of elected subspecialty rotations. The first year is mainly devoted to clinical neurology and includes 2-month rotations at the Albany Medical Center Hospital (adult service, consultation/stroke service, pediatric neurology) and Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center (DVAMC). The second year and third (senior) year rotations include pediatric neurology, subspecialties such as EEG-evoked potentials, EMG, neuropathology, neuroradiology and stroke. Every effort is made to accommodate individual clinical or research interests.
In addition, senior residents take rotations at the Albany Medical Center and DVAMC as chief resident. As chief, the individual has major responsibility for supervision of inpatient care and teaching of interns, medical residents and senior students while on the neurology rotation.
In-house night call in the first year is approximately once every four or five nights. Daytime consultations in the emergency room are handled by the resident on the consultation service. The pediatric house staff take an active part in the care of child neurology patients along with the neurology resident.
The Medical Center's EEG laboratory performs approximately 1500 routine or sleep studies annually in addition to 200 intensive 24 hour ambulatory recordings. Video EEG monitoring is available for more complicated seizure patients. More than 400 visual, auditory or somatosensory evoked potentials are performed annually. At DVAMC, about 400 EEG's and 50 evoked potential studies are done annually . Thus, the EEG-EP rotation provides extensive experience in interpreting these types of studies.
The peripheral electrodiagnostic laboratories are also very active. More than 700 studies are performed annually at the Medical Center and 300 at the DVAMC thus allowing residents ample opportunity to perform and interpret studies while on the EMG rotation.
In neuropathology, there are biweekly conferences at the Albany Medical Center and weekly conferences at VAMC. There are more than 500 cases in the neuropathology teaching slide collection. Cases are reviewed weekly with Dr. Arnulf Koeppen, professor of neurology and chief of the neurology service at DVAMC and Dr. Jiang Qian, assistant professor of pathology at AMC.
In the neuroradiology subspecialty rotation, the resident spends time reviewing CT scans, angiograms and MRI scans with the neuroradiologists with the goal of being able to accurately identify important anatomic structures on imaging studies.
Additional subspecialty rotations available include those in psychiatry, neurosurgery, outpatient neurology (fulltime faculty).
Subspecialty rotations in movement disorders/neuro-oncology and seizures/dementia are also offered.
To further the education of neurology housestaff, the department will provide the following textbooks: Principles of Neurology (Adams and Victor) or Merritt Textbook of Neurology. Additional texts (Neurology in Clinical Practice, by W. Bradley, Clinical pediatric Neurology by G. Fenichel) are provided through the generosity of educational grants. The Graduate Education Department will provide a stipend of $300 to be used for educational purposes (books, conferences, etc.) A cash prize of $500 is offered annually for the best paper submitted by a resident on a research project (which may be clinical and based on chart review). The winner is chosen by a faculty committee. If the paper is accepted for presentation at an annual scientific meeting, the cost of the resident's travel to that meeting will be defrayed by the department up to $600.
