Research is part of the training of our residents.  We have a curriculum dedicated to a broad overview, which starts with all the basics because even if you never do research yourself, your career depends upon being able to interpret the data from studies. The primary topics discussed are:

  1. Familiarize with requirements to publish in the two main journals of our specialty: Pediatric Neurology and Child Neurology
  2. Social determinants of health
  3. Pharmaceutical R&D: From discovery to market
  4. Research methodology and development of protocols and proposals
  5. Conducting clinical research studies
  6. FDA and regulatory affairs
  7. Statistics in clinical research
  8. Laws and regulations governing human research
  9. Health epidemiology

Our goal is for all of our residents to be involved in research. We expect all of our residents to have at least one paper published in an indexed journal by the end of their residency. We help residents choose an area of interest, pair them with an attending that works in that area, and work towards developing a research hypothesis. Some of our residents will also do case reports as a great way to start. Read more about our faculty's research interests in their bios. 

We also offer our residents the opportunity to learn to be a reviewer of journal articles in a mentored fashion. Like anything, success comes with consistency, and because we know residents are busy, we build in time throughout the year to cover these topics.

QI Program

Our residency program has a robust QI curriculum that invites all residents to design, refine and carry out their own projects over the course of their training. In addition to the completion of their projects, residents learn the fundamental concepts of QI during regular meetings with our faculty. Our goal is to provide trainees with the tools to identify and address systems issues at multiple levels, and to hopefully inspire a career-long interest in QI.

Current/recent projects include: 

  1. Improving acute stroke evaluation and detection in the pediatric population at BMC. 
  2. Improving triage and pre-presentation management of acute headaches in the pediatric population. 
  3. Increasing success in transitioning care for patients from pediatric to adult epilepsy providers. 
  4. Enhancing education around and documentation of primary pediatric neurology admissions. 
  5. Increasing yield of continuous video EEG recordings on the inpatient floor. 
  6. Improving documentation of epilepsy patient encounters per AES guidelines at BMC.