Movement Disorders Fellowship
The Clinical Center for Movement Disorders at UT Southwestern Medical Center offers a one-year, comprehensive fellowship during which the fellow will have an opportunity to train with three fellowship-trained movement disorders specialists, a fellowship-trained pediatric movement disorders specialist, and adjunct faculty including a functional neurosurgeon, behavioral neurologists, and autonomic disorders specialists.
The fellow is involved with the diagnosis and management of a wide spectrum of movement disorders including Parkinson's disease, essential tremor, atypical Parkinsonian syndromes, dystonia, ataxias, Huntington's disease, and secondary movement disorders.
The fellow has an active role in all aspects of the neuromodulation program:
- Performing evaluations for patients considering surgery for movement disorders
- Presenting cases at the interdisciplinary meetings
- Programming DBS devices and assessing outcomes
The fellow will see patients in the following settings:
- Movement disorders clinic in the faculty practice at James W. Aston Ambulatory Care Center
- Movement disorders patients in the general neurology clinic at Parkland Hospital
- Occasional movement disorders consults at Parkland, William P. Clements Jr. University Hospital, and Zale Lipshy Pavilion—William P. Clements Jr. University Hospital
Neurotherapeutic interventions for movement disorders also include chemodenervation clinics at the Ron J. Anderson MD Clinic. The fellow gets hands-on training in EMG-guided botulinum toxin treatment of hyperkinetic movement disorders and spasticity with expert faculty.
Fellowship didactic curriculum includes regularly scheduled video rounds that afford recognition of complex phenomenology of movements and their management, journal clubs, and case presentations. Additionally, the fellow can participate in a variety of ongoing clinical research projects. The fellow will have an opportunity to attend the Aspen Course on movement disorders in July with course directors Drs. Cynthia Comella of Rush University Medical Center and Michael Okun of the University of Florida College of Medicine. Our fellows traditionally present abstracts at national and international meetings including AAN, ANA, and MDS, while also having the opportunity to attend some of these meetings, as well.
The application and selection process for the Movement Disorders Fellowship Program goes through the San Francisco Match, which opens for applications in April of the PGY-3 (1 year prior to starting the fellowship) with a match in mid-September.
Additional questions about the program may be directed to Dr. Chitnis or neurofellowship@UTSouthwestern.edu.