Residency in Child Neurology

We remain true to the principles developed by David B. Clark, MD, when he brought his team from Johns Hopkins to establish our Department and our training programs in 1967:

1. Child and adult neurology are co-equal halves of a single discipline and should be taught through an integrated training program.
2. Our physicians feel a special responsibility to the underserved children in Kentucky’s Appalachian counties.

GENERAL INFORMATION

The University Of Kentucky Department Of Neurology is proud of a long tradition of excellence in training child neurologists that began in the 1960's by the department's founder, Dr. David B. Clark – a world-famous child neurologist. The department has continued Dr. Clark's commitment to integrating child and adult neurology to produce the best clinical, research, and academic neurologists. Our residency training program seeks to bring out the best in our trainees and to help them integrate the advances in the basic and clinical neurosciences into clinical skills.

Our child neurology program is unconventional in its integration of the adult and child experiences. Our incoming PGY-3 residents begin their training on the child neurology service. After becoming oriented on the child service, our residents go on to do their 12 months of adult neurology and 12 months of selective time interwoven with child neurology experiences throughout the three years of the program. This keeps our residents in touch with their pediatric expertise and helps them to better understand how their adult neurology experiences contribute to a better understanding of the neurological disorders of infants and children. It also gives them an ongoing and strong relationship with the adult neurology residents and easy access to the subspecialty skills of the adult neurology faculty.

Child Neurology has its own in-patient service in the Kentucky Children’s Hospital as well as seeing pediatric patients in consultation in the Children’s Hospital and in the Pediatric and Neonatal Intensive Care Units.

APPALACHIAN CLINICS

All of our child neurology residents and attending physicians regularly participate in our rural, Appalachian clinics. These clinics are run by local nurses and staff. Moreover, with the assistance of the Commonwealth of Kentucky we are able to fund services, tests, and medications for any Kentucky child with neurological complaints or disease, regardless of the family’s ability to pay. In part because of our large Appalachian referral area, we see a substantial number of children with unusual neurological disorders.

CONFERENCES

Regularly scheduled teaching conferences allow the residents to participate in the process of assessing and diagnosing neurological illnesses. Conferences occurring weekly include neuroradiology, chairman's teaching rounds, and Grand Rounds (where neuroscientists and neurologists of national and international stature present the latest information on research and treatment of neurological disorders). Monthly conferences discuss topics in epilepsy, cerebrovascular disease, and neuromuscular disease. In addition, faculty-run classes provide the background information needed for successful neurology practice as well as succeeding on the yearly in-service examinations and the ABPN board examination in neurology.