The Neuroradiology Fellowship provides an opportunity for state-of-the-art radiology clinical and research training at the fellowship level. The clinical rotations are high in volume and include purely procedural, purely diagnostic, and mixed procedural and diagnostic rotations.

Rotation schedule

Approximate clinical rotation lengths are:

Didactic training

A strength of the Neuroradiology Fellowship is the one-on-one learning, with case-by-case real-time feedback from supervising staff neuroradiologists. In addition, you receive education in multiple other venues:

• Fellow lecture series. Neuroradiology staff give fellows one-hour lectures on a wide spectrum of neuroradiology topics one to two times per week.
• Multidisciplinary conferences. Fellows rotate through presenting cases at the weekly interdisciplinary conferences with each fellow covering five months of conferences. These include head and neck oncology (Tuesday mornings), epilepsy (Thursday mornings), and adult neuro-oncology (Friday mornings). They are also required to attend weekly pediatric neuro-oncology conferences (Monday afternoons) and bi-weekly pediatric neurology/neurosurgery conferences (Tuesdays over the noon hour).
• Resident lecture series. Fellows rotate through presenting cases at the weekly interdisciplinary conferences. These include head and neck oncology, epilepsy, and adult neuro-oncology. Fellows also attend weekly pediatric neuro-oncology conferences and bi-weekly pediatric neurology/neurosurgery conferences.
• Journal club. Held four times in the academic year, journal club allows each fellow the opportunity to present their analysis of a staff-chosen journal article.
• Guest lectures/visiting professorships. Subspecialty talks pertaining to neuroradiology.

Teaching opportunities

As a fellow, you will deepen your own learning by educating Mayo radiology residents, Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine students, and visiting students at the workstation through daily clinical work. Additional responsibilities include:

• Resident teaching sessions. Occurring every Friday morning, fellows take turns giving hour-long case-based teaching sessions in our trainee library to the radiology residents and visiting students rotating through neuroradiology.
• Fellow lectures. Each fellow will give a formal one-hour long didactic lecture during the academic year on a neuroradiology topic of their choice for the resident noon lecture series.

Research training

Research opportunities at Mayo Clinic are outstanding. Each fellow is required to participate in at least one research project with the consulting staff. A program objective is that the primary research project yields a submitted manuscript in peer-reviewed literature by the end of the fellowship. To this end, fellows receive dedicated research days throughout the year, typically taken on Mondays following a call week. You will present your work at a dedicated noon conference near the end of the year, highlighting fellow research efforts. Presentation of this project at a national meeting is also a desired goal. To support this, fellows also receive financial support for travel, lodging, meals, and registration fees for meetings at which they present and for one non-presentation (attendance) trip.

Call

Call is covered by the call fellow, who rotates for seven days (Monday - Sunday). With seven fellows, call frequency is one in seven weeks. On weekdays during a call week, on-site coverage is in the evenings from 4 p.m. to approximately 10 p.m. reading both inpatient and outpatient evening MRI exams with on-site neuroradiology staff. On weekends, on-site coverage is during the day from 7 a.m. to approximately 3 p.m. depending on urgent needs, reading inpatient and neuroradiology studies with on-site neuroradiology staff.

Overnight coverage throughout the week consists of pager coverage from home with the call fellow coming to campus for emergent/urgent requests which are predominately MRI scans from the emergency department. Occasionally, fellows perform urgent image-guided lumbar punctures on call. Mayo Clinic follows the recommendations of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education.

Internal moonlighting

Internal moonlighting is available for fellows Monday-Friday in the evenings and on Sundays. Fellows act as point person for allied health staff for evening outpatient scans at our Charlton North location. They are responsible for previewing cases for emergent findings and image quality (without interpretation/dictation), answering safety questions, and providing any needed protocols for being the certified physician on site for any contrast issue.

Career development

You meet periodically with various faculty members, administrators, and the program director to discuss your career goals. Mayo Clinic recruits many of its staff physicians from its own training programs, so when you successfully complete the Neuroradiology Fellowship, job opportunities may be available at one of Mayo Clinic's group practices.

Evaluation

To ensure that you acquire adequate knowledge and develop your technical skills, your performance is monitored carefully during the course of the Neuroradiology Fellowship. You are evaluated formally by your supervising faculty member after each clinical rotation. In addition, you regularly evaluate the faculty to ensure that your educational needs are being met.