Message from the Program Director

During your training, you’ll work with epilepsy experts who are dedicated to sharing their expertise of this complex field. They will support you throughout your time in our program but will also help you focus on working toward becoming an independent practitioner.

When I say our faculty are ready to guide you, I mean it. For instance, faculty on our Epilepsy Monitoring Unit (EMU) service are available 24 hours per day to discuss patient care with you, and they are physically available within 30 minutes, if needed.

Our low fellow-to-faculty ratio creates a nurturing, gratifying learning environment. As you progress through our program, we’ll ask you to assume increasing responsibility based on your skill level.

As the program director, I have an open-door policy; I encourage you to meet with me as often as you need to discuss any challenges or concerns.

When you graduate, you’ll be well prepared to succeed in any clinical environment. 

Our affiliation with several clinical sites means that we can select ideal learning environments for our fellows — from a regional center for comprehensive pediatric care to a large neurology outpatient clinic. 

In our program, you’ll have the advantage of training at the only EMU in the area. 

We ensure that you spend the majority of your inpatient rotations in the EMU, giving you valuable experience caring for patients admitted to the hospital for long-term video electroencephalography (EEG) monitoring. 

Since the EMU is classified as a Level 4 center by the National Association of Epilepsy Centers, you will greatly expand your knowledge of pre-surgical and surgical studies. You will also learn how to interpret invasive electroencephalograms and become familiar with pre-surgical workups. 

Our rotations will help you master the diagnostic evaluation, medical management and surgical evaluation of patients with epilepsy and seizures — and they will help you become comfortable interviewing and examining these patients. Our rotations will develop your ability to determine the differential diagnosis of various clinical presentations of epilepsy and seizures. They will also give you the confidence to determine appropriate investigations, including laboratory, pathologic, radiologic, and neurophysiologic testing. 

Moreover, you’ll feel well prepared to mange patients in both inpatient and outpatient settings, and you’ll feel at ease working on multidisciplinary teams to coordinate patient care.

Our didactic curriculum, which is comprised of a variety of conferences and lectures, will enhance your training with specialized coverage of key areas — including epilepsy surgery and EEG — while helping you keep abreast of new research. These meetings are valuable learning opportunities because they will impel you to reflect on the multitude of ways the topics at hand integrate into clinical experiences. They will also give you the chance to polish your presentation skills when you deliver talks and lead discussions.

And if you’re enthusiastic about research, it’s important for you to know: We encourage and support scholarship in our program. Many of our faculty members have made significant contributions to neurology and epilepsy research. Working alongside them, you’ll complete a quality improvement project, and you will have opportunities to participate in clinical trials.

Throughout our fellowship, we’ll hold you responsible for teaching neurology residents, medical students, nursing staff and residents rotating in neurology from other departments.

In addition to serving as a leader for medical students and residents, we’ll expect you to assume a leadership role when it comes to educating patients and their caregivers about epilepsy management. You’ll gain experience engaging patients in shared decision making, and we will train you to communicate effectively and sustain a therapeutically sound relationship with all patients and their family members.

I completed my neurology residency and clinical neurophysiology fellowship here at the University at Buffalo, so I can say with confidence and pride that the Department of Neurology offers only the finest quality training.

As program director, I’m committed to ensuring that our fellowship meets the high standards set forth by our department. I have dedicated myself to maximizing our program’s value and providing you with the best possible preparation for a career in epilepsy. 

Our trainees report that our program makes for a beneficial training experience. I invite you to explore the benefits our fellowship has to offer.

Sincerely,
Ping Li, MD