Education

Residency Program Strengths

Our faculty includes many internationally recognized clinicians and researchers who excel at teaching our residents and medical students and conducting both clinical and bench-type research.

The University of Chicago Medical Center is internationally recognized and caters to patients with diverse ethnic and financial backgrounds. Tertiary referrals of complicated patients from varied locations are frequently made to the hospitals for expert diagnosis and breakthrough therapies. One of the relatively unique features of The University of Chicago Medical Center is that all of the faculty who see patients in the clinics and hospital are full-time academic faculty.

Most of our neurologists specialize in a particular disease or category of diseases and lead subspecialty clinics in which our residents participate on a regular basis. This focused subspecialization enables these neurologists, and the residents they mentor and teach, to become true experts in managing neurological disorders. Our neurologists are particularly adept at diagnosing and treating complex disorders that are often viewed as untreatable elsewhere. As active participants in these subspecialty clinics, our residents learn to evaluate urgent and semi-urgent patients with rare neurological disorders. We also have a busy general neurology clinic.

Our multidisciplinary centers and clinics (and our hospital), are devoted to specific neurological problems and enable our residents to treat their patients with specialized care at one site and in one location. The subspecialty centers/clinics include:

  • Adult Epilepsy Center (with sophisticated 3-D imaging techniques, state-of the-art in-patient video EEG recording and magnetoencephalography)
  • Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) Clinic - one of the longest running interdisciplinary clinics!
  • Ataxia Clinic
  • The Center for Peripheral Neuropathy
  • The Comprehensive Sleep Disorders Center
  • General Neurology Clinic
  • Headache Clinic
  • The Memory Center - an interdisciplinary clinic in which complex patients are frequently referred
  • Movement Disorders Clinic
  • Multiple Sclerosis Clinic
  • NeuroCritical Care
  • NeuroOncology Clinic
  • Stroke Clinic
  • Vascular Clinic

In addition to the clinical experience at The University of  Chicago Medical Center our residents rotate at North Shore University Health System both in the outpatient clinic and on an in-patient consultation service. The North Shore rotations have greatly enhanced our residents’ experience.

Senior and Junior residents make decisions; our Attendings supervise. A large number of our didactic conferences are led by residents rather than attendings. Residents also play an important role in teaching medical students.

There is a friendly and collegial environment for residents. One of the faculty’s main goals is to make the residency experience one that is rewarding from both a social and educational point of view.

Our residents have provided key input to many parts of the program. For example, the residents helped develop an anonymous survey addressing every aspect of our residency program. The survey is completed annually by all residents; each is given an opportunity to speak openly (and anonymously) about the structure and direction of our program and our faculty. These surveys have resulted in important changes within our program that have advanced the learning experience for our residents. In addition, residents provide an anonymous evaluation of the teaching Attendings, which is important feedback for the Department’s leadership.

A comprehensive didactic lecture schedule includes lectures and discussions focusing on a diverse list of neurological disorders. Our residents attend lectures given by speakers from other institutions, as well as speakers from other departments within the hospital.

We offer our residents a front-loaded call schedule, which is currenlty in the form of a night float system and thus, our residents enjoy their last two years of residency without scheduled in-house call (with few exceptions). This arrangement allows for flexibility in the final two years of residency. During the first three months of residency our senior residents take night-call with the new PGY-II residents. This “in-house senior” rotation allows our senior residents to provide assistance, guidance, support, and supervision to our new residents. As a result, our PGY-II residents become familiar with the assessment of patients with urgent neurological problems and gain confidence in managing these patients.

Almost any elective is available at The University of Chicago Medical Center (including electives in other departments). Off-campus electives are easy to schedule due to the convenient call schedule. Our residents have rotated at other hospitals in Chicago, other states, and in other countries.

  • PGY2 = 2 weeks
  • PGY3 = 6 weeks
  • PGY4 = 10 weeks

The purpose of the resident mentoring program is to mentor residents in research, academic neurology, education, international health, public policy or private practice. The program begins during the PGY2 year when residents choose their mentor. Mentors will meet with the resident at least four times per year for the duration of residency. Goals of the program will depend on the specific interests of the resident, but can include:

  • the development of a structured mentoring plan
  • career development
  • work on a research project
  • assisting in making post-residency plans
  • career development

Our residents also enjoy an allocation of $1,000.00 at the beginning of each academic year (balances carried forward each year) to be used on educational items and activities including textbooks, professional society memberships, board examination fees, other training or certification courses, and travel to professional meetings. We provide our residents with a membership (or renewal membership) in the American Academy of Neurology. Our program will also pay for PALS, BLS and ACLS training (although this training is not required).

We also offer an additional funding of $1,000.00 per year for residents who present at a national meeting. Residents may take advantage of this extra funding once per academic year during their training.

Because many of our neurologists are committed to conducting cutting-edge research, our residents have access to patients who are currently undergoing new treatment modalities – years before they are widely available elsewhere.

Our neurologists welcome resident participation in their research studies. The research involves a number of national and international clinical trials and other aspects of clinical research as well as bench-type research. Many of our neurologists are supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health and other groups for their basic and clinical research work on various neurological diseases, including Parkinson’s disease, stroke, multiple sclerosis, ALS, and peripheral neuropathy.

Our residents participate in an annual “Barry G.W. Arnason Resident Research Symposium”. Each class presents a poster or presentation which involves basic research, clinical research, or a description of an interesting patient with a review of the literature. A visiting professor delivers a special seminar before the symposium and also serves as the judge of the presentations. An award (one per class) is presented to each of the best PGY-II, PGY-III and PGY-IV posters or presentations.

Click here to learn more about our many ongoing research opportunities for residents: Resident Work Life

The University of Chicago medical school, hospital and clinics are on the beautiful university campus. None of the clinics, patient or research labs are more than a few minutes away. The closeness also fosters the kind of interdisciplinary interactions that The University of Chicago Medical Center excels in, such as translational science. This closeness also brings an academic intellectual excitement to all members of the university community.

Located in Hyde Park, eight miles south of downtown, our campus is comprised of 136 buildings on 211 acres of land. The campus was designated an official botanic garden in 1997 and houses original buildings in English Gothic style, grouped around quadrangles. New campus construction includes the Comer Children’s Hospital, the Graduate School of Business Hyde Park Center and the Center for Integrative Science.

Art and culture play a vital role in the University community. Both students and professionals endeavor to present a wide range of artistic offerings such as theater, dance, and visual arts. Hyde Park boasts a number of fine museums, including the famous Museum of Science and Industry. Located on our campus is the Oriental Institute Museum, one of the world’s major collections of Near Eastern antiquities, the Regenstein Library Special Collections Research Center, featuring exhibits based on its holdings, The Renaissance Society, a leading gallery of contemporary art, and the Smart Museum of Art, a museum and educational institution.

The Gerald Ratner Athletics Center spans a whole block between 55th and 56th Streets and includes a competition gymnasium, an olympic-sized pool, a fitness center, locker rooms, and Athletics Department offices. The new Athletics Center joins indoor athletic and recreational spaces with outdoor athletic and recreational fields to the west. Hyde Park, located next to Lake Michigan, has many parks, zoos, and gardens for outdoor activities.

An extraordinary number of Nobel Prizes and the Prize in Economic Sciences have been awarded to University of Chicago faculty members, students, or researchers at some point in their careers. Some of the Nobel winners whose work is closely associated with the University are Milton Friedman (Economic Sciences, 1976), Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (Physics, 1983), Saul Bellow (Literature, 1976), Charles Huggins (Physiology or Medicine, 1966), and Willard Libby (Chemistry, 1960). In addition, Alexei Abrikosov of Argonne National Laboratory (which has been operated by the University of Chicago for the U.S. Department of Energy since the laboratory was established in 1946) shared the 2003 Nobel Prize in Physics “for pioneering contributions to the theory of superconductors and superfluids.” The University of Chicago’s first Nobel Laureate was Albert A. Michelson. The first American to win the Nobel Prize in any of the sciences, Michelson was recognized in 1907 for his measurements of the speed of light. Robert A. Millikan (Physics, 1923) did both of his prize-winning experiments on campus in the Ryerson Laboratory. Click here to read more about our Nobel Laureates, as well as other honors and awards: http://www.uchicago.edu/about/accolades/

The University of Chicago Medicine is designated as a Level 1 Adult Trauma Center, meaning the hospital is prepared to handle the most seriously injured trauma patients 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Together with its Level 1 Pediatric Trauma Center at Comer Children's Hospital and its Burn and Complex Wound Center, UChicago Medicine is able to provide the community a comprehensive system of care to treat the full range of trauma injuries in patients of all ages.

UChicago Medicine began providing Level 1 adult trauma care on May 1, 2018, nearly 30 years after discontinuing the program. The academic medical center has offered Level 1 pediatric trauma care since 1990.

The institution is home to the South Side of Chicago's only Level 1 Pediatric Trauma Center and the University of Chicago Medicine Aeromedical Network (UCAN), which provides helicopter transportation from the scene of an emergency to our Hyde Park campus or between hospitals within a 200-mile radius.

Through our Urban Health Initiative, we are partnering with and supporting community organizations to provide trauma patients and their families with wraparound services, violence-recovery efforts and other services that ensure they can recover from traumatic injuries.

Our Services

We provide trauma surgery, acute care surgery and critical care surgery to treat injuries involving:

  • Burns
  • Blunt trauma, which can occur from falls or pedestrian-motor vehicle crashes
  • Penetrating trauma, typically seen in gunshot or stab wounds

Click here to learn more: https://www.uchicagomedicine.org/conditions-services/trauma-emergency-services