The Sleep Fellowship at Temple University School of Medicine

Curriculum

The Sleep Fellowship at Temple University School of Medicine is a one-year program which includes 4 fellows. This year of Sleep fellowship is designed to provide a strong clinical experience with opportunities to participate in clinical research and other scholarly activities. During this year fellow rotate at one-month intervals between general Sleep Medicine, Sleep inpatient consultation, neurology, psychiatry, and St. Christopher Children Hospital for pediatric sleep services.  Fellows take an active role in the initial workup, evaluation and management of all sleep patients during these rotations in their own outpatient continuity clinics and in private sleep clinics supervised by our Sleep faculty.  Fellows are responsible for the evaluation and therapeutic recommendations on all patients referred for consultation. In addition, they are involved in interpreting many of their patients’ polysomnograms including multiple sleep latency tests and mean wakefulness tests.  At the end of the sleep fellowship training it is anticipated that the physician who participate in our program will:

  1. Possess a broad fund of knowledge in the fields of sleep medicine. They will understand epidemiology, predisposing risk factors, clinical manifestations, management, complications, and principles of prevention for sleep disorders that effect patients ranging in age from infancy to the elderly. 
  2. Understand the complexities of the sleep neurobiological and circadian processes and their implications on normal body function during sleep and wakefulness.
  3. Appreciate the importance of sleep physiology in both health and disease and to be able to integrate these functional parameters in their understanding of disease. 
  4. Recognize the essential elements of conducting sleep evaluations including the technical aspects of polysomnography and actigraphy with their pitfalls and limitations.
  5. Develop skills and professional attitude for the approach to patients with a variety of sleep disorders.
  6. Be able to assume responsibility for the care and education of patients with sleep disorders.here is an entry in an ordered list
  7. Be effective in communicating about their patients with other health care professionals.
  8. Be skilled in the management of patients with sleep disorders and capable of integrating their care through a sequence of disciplines that involve psychiatry and psychology, neurology, otolaryngology, and pulmonary medicine. 
  9. Be compassionate, empathetic, and respectful towards patients and their families.
  10. Recognize psychological, medical, and social factors that will have an impact on an individual’s sleep.
  11. Be aware of the need for interdisciplinary support services for patients who require complex interventions.
  12. Work effectively as a member of a multidisciplinary team. 
  13. Conduct themselves with a high degree of professionalism with particular emphasis on maintaining a superior standard of morality and ethics.
  14. Capture the opportunities that arise which will enhance certain skills required to organize, administer, and direct a sleep laboratory or a center.
  15. Develop a keen appreciation of the basic and clinical research necessary to enhance scientific and medical knowledge in the field of sleep medicine by actively participating in such research and carefully reviewing and discussing new advances as they are published in the literature. 

In addition, the Sleep fellowship year in our program provides the fellows with experience in research and scholarly activities such as writing book chapters and review articles. Fellows are encouraged to become familiar with a variety of research techniques as well as to develop expertise in a single area of interest or to participate in ongoing research projects.

2009-2010 Sleep Fellows:
Satish Dinakar, MD
Andrew The, MD
Nagamalar Raju, MD
Archana Narasimha Rao, M.D.

Application Information:
Please note:  Sleep fellowship do not participate in the "MATCH".  Click here to download application. For more information, please call Mimi at 215-707-9426 or email a request for an application to milagros.ortiz@tuhs.temple.edu.

Timeline: 
We accept applications for an upcoming academic year between May 1 through September 15 of the prior year, i.e. for fellows submitting for July 1, 2011 academic year, the deadline for accepting their applications is September 15, 2010.