Developmental Neurology and Clinical Neurophysiology

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant) The purpose of this proposal is to train pediatric and adult neurologists with an interest in developmental epilepsy to become clinician-scientists. This is a 2-year training program with one first-year and one-second year neurologist trained each year. This proposal is a competing continuation application of a currently funded T32 program. Training will be in epilepsy research - either basic or clinical research - with an emphasis upon epilepsy in the developing brain. In addition, there will be advanced training in clinical neurophysiology and clinical epilepsy in order to further develop the trainees' skills to the level expected by tertiary care, university-based epilepsy centers and to insure clinically relevant research. Each trainee will work closely with a mentor/preceptor in that faculty member's laboratory for an 18-month period; advanced clinical training will be conducted in fixed time periods in Year 2 for a period of 6 months (two 3-month blocks). The emphasis during the clinical training will be on education of the trainee, not service. In addition, there will be didactic course work, a lecture series, seminars and journal clubs. There are 5 basic science research faculty and 5 clinical research faculty. Each has experience in post-graduate training, NIH funding and scientific collaboration with other program faculty. The clinical faculty is experienced with focused expertise in advanced clinical neurophysiology and epilepsy. The current program is still young, but has produced graduates that have published their research findings and presented them at national meetings. The first graduate has joined the Baylor College of Medicine faculty and the third will join the faculty in July (NIH KO8 application in review). There have been focused and successful efforts in the recruitment of trainees from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups: of the first 5 trainees, 3 are from underrepresented groups.