Pediatric Epilepsy Fellowship Program

At Children’s, we currently offer two positions of ACGME accredited Pediatric Epilepsy Fellowship in conjunction with the Emory Adult Epilepsy Program at Emory School of Medicine.

Our 1 year, ACGME accredited Epilepsy fellowship provides advanced neurophysiological and clinical epilepsy training in scalp and intracranial electroencephalography (EEG) with inpatient long term Video Monitoring (LTVM) as well outpatient routine and ambulatory EEG studies.

Our Pediatric Epilepsy Center is one of the largest center in the country with 8 board certified neurophysiologists/epileptologists, 2 APPs, 30 EEG technologists including 4 EEG tech readers, 1 surgical EEG technologist and still expanding. The center sees more than 6000 epilepsy patients. The center is a Level IV National Association of Epilepsy Centers (NAEC), which provides state of the art neuro-diagnostic and therapeutic strategies for management of epilepsy including evaluation with video EEG with a 8 bed epilepsy monitoring unit (EMU), medical therapies, dietary therapies, neuromodulation with VNS, RNS, DBS, epilepsy surgeries from single stage surgeries like lesionectomy, carpus callosotomy, hemispherectomy to two stage surgeries with SEEG and non-resective epilepsy surgery with access to minimally invasive epilepsy surgical modalities including laser ablation and radiofrequency thermocoagulation. On average the center completes 80-100 pre surgical evaluations and more than 30 epilepsy surgeries and around 50 VNS surgeries a year.

• Fellows rotate through the Pediatric Epilepsy Monitoring Unit, Long term EEG monitoring/ICU monitoring service and one month adult neurophysiology. They will have their own half day supervised continuity epilepsy clinic once a week. Fellows will have opportunity to pursue a variety of electives from sleep medicine to Intra Operative Neuro Monitoring.

• Pediatric EMU (epilepsy monitoring unit) rotation: the fellow is involved in the clinical care of epilepsy patients admitted for various reasons, including long-term video EEG monitoring for characterization of clinical seizures/events, both noninvasive (phase 1) and invasive pre-surgical (phase 2) evaluations, and admissions for seizure exacerbations. The fellow interprets all inpatient long-term monitoring studies from EMU with an attending epileptologist. The fellow also accompanies the surgical epileptologist to the operating room for intraoperative electrocorticography (ECOG), placement of intracranial electrodes (SEEG), or for resective epilepsy surgeries with post resection ECOG. They will have exposure to the WADA testing and assist in extra-operative functional brain mapping. The fellows will have the opportunity to learn advanced techniques in image post-processing which includes various MRI modalities (T1, DIR/FLAIR/T2, DTI fiber tracking, etc), functional imaging (PET and SPECT), electrode co-registration and extraction, multimodal viewing, and visual and statistical interpretation. They will be actively involved in presentation of these epilepsy surgery patients in the epilepsy surgery conferences which occur on weekly basis.

• LTVM rotation: The fellow provides EEG interpretation for all inpatient non EMU EEGs to learn about acute neuromonitoring, recognize sub clinical seizures and management of status epilepticus in critically ill patients. Here the fellow will have a great opportunity to learn about the EEGs of neonates and patients who have complex neurological issues from TBI to metabolic encephalopathy.

• The adult neurophysiology rotation: Emory adult epilepsy center is one of the top centers in the country with world famous epilepsy surgeons and one of the largest epilepsy team. The fellow will have exposure to adult EMU and adult intracranial monitoring (ICM) patients, mainly stereo-EEG at Emory University Hospital.

• The elective rotation: the fellow has dedicated time in Polysomnography/Sleep Medicine, Intra-operative Monitoring, EMG/NCV and include Ketogenic Diet clinic.

Fellows will have protected time to attend the following:

• Weekly multidisciplinary Pediatric Epilepsy Surgery Conferences which includes participation by pediatric epileptologist, neuroradiologist, neuropsychologist and neurosurgeons
• Weekly Adult epilepsy surgery conferences while on Adult EMU rotation or elective rotation
• Weekly Pediatric Epilepsy Lecture Series
• Weekly Adult Epilepsy/Neurophysiology Lecture Series
• Monthly journal club, chapter reviews
• Monthly Pediatric neurology grand rounds
• Opportunities for conference attendance and poster presentations include American Epilepsy Society, American Clinical Neurophysiology Society, Southern Epilepsy Society Conference, Annual Children's Healthcare of Atlanta Stereoelectroencephalography (SEEG) Interactive Workshop, American Academy of Neurology, Kiffin Penry Mini-Fellowship, and others.

• There are several opportunities to pursue multi-disciplinary research as we partner with Emory University School of Medicine, Georgia Institute of Technology, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, and many others.
• Fellows are encouraged to present abstracts at national conferences.

Application Information

Interested individuals should contact:

Marianna Watson, Program Coordinator of Pediatric Epilepsy Fellowship Program, marianna.watson@emory.edu

Send the following documents:

• Completed Emory fellowship application (hyperlink to form:
• Current curriculum vitae (CV)
• Three letters of recommendation
• Personal statement describing your background, clinical and research interests and career plans
• United States Medical Licensing Examination scores (all steps)

Our application is now through NRMP match process and our ERAS program ID number is 1841218001. The application for Pediatric Epilepsy program would be through Adult Emory Epilepsy Program. We have 2 positions reserved for Pediatric fellows within the Adult Emory Epilepsy Program compliment, each year.

Interviews are held winter to early spring.