Clinical training

During the clinical training in the Sleep Medicine Fellowship, you are under the direct supervision of Mayo Clinic physician consultants with primary specialties of adult and pediatric neurology and psychiatry, pulmonary medicine and psychiatry. You work up, investigate and treat patients with a wide spectrum of sleep disorders, both in the clinic and hospital. Technical training in conducting polysomnography and other sleep tests is provided. Global and international scholarly activity is a strong aspect of the Mayo Clinic Florida Program. Fellows are encouraged to participate.

Rotation schedule

The fellowship schedule includes:

Call frequency

Your call schedule is different for each rotation. Mayo Clinic follows the recommendations of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME). Sleep fellows do not generally take overnight or weekend call.

Didactic training

Record review sessions, clinical and research conferences, a didactic lecture series, and journal clubs are all integral parts of the Sleep Medicine Fellowship.

Research training

Although this fellowship is primarily a clinical fellowship, you are expected to complete one clinical project during your fellowship year. A research mentor is assigned at the outset of the year.

Teaching opportunities

Opportunities are available for you to teach rotating residents and medical students.

Evaluation

To ensure that you acquire adequate knowledge and develop the appropriate technical skills to meet program expectations, your performance is monitored carefully during the Sleep Medicine Fellowship. You are formally evaluated by supervising faculty members after clinical rotation and meet with the program director to review these evaluations. In addition, you regularly evaluate the faculty to confirm that your educational needs are being met.

AASM Sleep Medicine In-Training Exam

The AASM Sleep Medicine In-Training Exam (SMITE) is designed specifically for sleep fellows. The exam is intended to assist the fellow in preparing for sleep medicine board certification exam by providing an example of the scope and difficulty level of the exam and by helping identify candidates' knowledge gaps so the fellow can better focus board preparation.

The SMITE is done every year in the spring. It provides performance data which can be used to compare the test scores among program fellows, and to evaluate the performance of the program in relation to other accredited sleep medicine fellowship training programs. The SMITE is also used as a longitudinal examination of the performance of program fellows, which can assist with the educational design of training programs. The exam is not intended to be the primary evaluation or grading tool for Milestone or other program purposes.