Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Brigham and Women’s Hospital applied their 2014 Sidney R. Baer, Jr. Foundation grant funds to establishing and supporting the Behavioral Neurology/Neuropsychiatry Fellowship Program at BWH. The Sidney R. Baer, Jr. Foundation’s contribution had a direct impact on the education and training of the hospitals fellows and, thus, the field of behavioral neurology and neuropsychiatry.
Fellows learn how to comprehensively evaluate and treat patients with complex neurobehavioral problems associated with a range of disorders. A major emphasis is on neuropsychological and biological aspects of dementia, especially Alzheimer’s disease. Fellows are trained in neurobiological bases and treatment of cognitive, behavioral, and neuropsychiatric manifestations of neurodegenerative diseases, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, stroke, brain tumors, inflammatory and infectious diseases of central nervous system, developmental disorders, and traumatic brain injury.
Fellows are closely supervised by senior behavioral neurologists and neuropsychiatrists. They participate in clinical teaching rounds, journal club, behavioral neuroscience seminars, numerous didactic sessions, one-on-one tutorials, and laboratory meetings. They are expected to become engaged in research with members of the Center. Major areas of on-going investigations include aging and dementia, executive functions, attention, and memory using the tools of basic neurobiology, electrophysiology, fMRI, PET/SPECT, neuropsychiatry, neuropsychology, and cognitive neuroscience.
In addition to the fellowship program in behavioral neurology/neuropsychiatry, fellows train in neuropsychology, and interns train in social work. Partners neurology and psychiatry residents, Partners geriatric psychiatry fellows, and BWH consultation-liaison psychiatry fellows rotate through the Center. BWH also offers a clinical rotation in behavioral neurology/neuropsychiatry for medical students and residents.
An overview of the impact of the fellowship is explained individually by the fellows themselves below:
Dr. Harder describes how her expanding knowledge about the subspecialties of BWH’s faculty enabled her to pursue her developing expertise in the impact of inflammatory and immune process on neuropsychiatric disease.
Dr. Trettel describes the transformation he experienced during the Fellowship by deepening his understanding of the connection between WHO the patient is, not now and before the illness, to HOW he or she is doing, and the integration of that understanding in patient care.
Dr. Qureshi provides insights on the patient as a whole person, whose mental health can be disrupted just by trying to manage seemingly straightforward tasks.
Dr. Geddes emphasizes the importance within the Fellowship of leaning from the program’s outstanding mentors how to break down boundaries between neuropsychiatry, behavior neurology, and neuropsychology to foster broader knowledge and understanding.
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