Epilepsy Fellowship

Thank you for considering our epilepsy fellowship program at University of New Mexico. Currently, we have a total of three adult/pediatric epilepsy fellow positions each year. Our one year-long program is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME). By the end of the program, fellows will be proficient in the diagnosis and treatment of epilepsy patients, including epilepsy surgery/neuromodulation devices.

We also have the opportunity of doing additional years of ACGME- accredited fellowship, when applicants choose to do epilepsy fellowship in conjunction to our ACGME-accredited neurophysiology and/or sleep fellowship program.

Program Director

Dr. Iffat Ara Suchita
Contact: ifsuchita@salud.unm.edu
"As a program director, my goal is to ensure your fellowship experience to be an excellent educational opportunity in our positive collegial environment.”
Read more: What to Expect in a One-Year Epilepsy Fellowship 

Program Coordinator

Alexis Gonzalez
Contact: alegonzalez@salud.unm.edu

Our Comprehensive Epilepsy Team

Please meet our comprehensive epilepsy team who are taking our epilepsy patients every day and working hard to create your epilepsy fellowship journey an amazing education experience. 

Training Opportunities at UNM

The UNM Comprehensive Epilepsy Program offers Level IV diagnostic and treatment for our epilepsy patients, and we perform the following procedures:

• Video-EEG: Routine, Extended and Long-term/Continuous v-EEG
• Intracranial EEG (sEEG, SDG/S)
• Intraoperative EEG Monitoring
• VNS, RNS, DBS programming
• Intraoperative Electrophysiological (EP) monitoring for spine and brain surgeries
• Sensory and motor Evoked Potential
• Magneto encephalography (MEG)
• Positron emission tomography (PET) scan
• Intracarotid sodium amytal (Wada) studies
• Functional MRI (fMRI)

Fellows get opportunity to learn directly from our epilepsy team including current six adult epilepsy faculties, three pediatric epilepsy faculties and additional three ICU EEG faculties. Fellows core rotation includes: 

• 4-5 months in adult/pediatric EMU rotation,
• 3-4 months of ICU EEG rotation,
• 1 month of pediatric EEG rotation,
• 1 month of clinic/QI projects, and
• 1 month of electives in MEG, IOM, Sleep clinic, Ketogenic diet for Epilepsy, Epilepsy and Neuropsychiatric evaluation, Epilepsy neuroradiology, Research etc.
• Beside the core rotation fellow gets 3 week of Academic leave, 4 half days of wellness time.
• Fellows cover 12-14 weekends on average (daytime only) and no night EEG calls.

Beside core EEG rotations, fellows also do their own epilepsy continuity clinic (one half day a week), and get opportunity to attend our sub-specialty epilepsy clinic including –

• Pregnancy and Epilepsy clinic
• Autoimmune Epilepsy clinic
• RNS/DBS Clinic
• Ketogenic diet clinic
• PNES/non-epileptic spell clinic

Learning Opportunities:

• During the beginning of the training period, fellows attend our beginner-EEG workshop at UNM, and get access to our basic EEG e-modules and Epilepsy Fellowship Dashboard.
• They also attend our weekly epilepsy noon lectures and book chapter review, workshop/hands on training on Phase II monitoring/sEEG/VNS/RNS.
• There are more educational opportunities during epilepsy journal club discussion, neurology grand round and weekly epilepsy surgery conferences.
• We encourage our fellow to attend various national/international epilepsy/EEG conferences including AES, ACNS, ILAE, Kiffin Penry epilepsy mini fellowship program, AAN and others.
• Fellows have the opportunity to participate in various epilepsy research or QI projects and get dedicated time to work on those.
• Also, fellows will present into our epilepsy surgical conference, grand round, resident epilepsy/EEG lecture, epilepsy journal club.

Epilepsy Fellowship Qualifications

To apply to our program, we require you to:

• Be a U.S. citizen, possess a green card or possess a J-1 Visa prior to initiation of training.
• Have successfully completed an ACGME accredited Neurology Training Program (adult or pediatric neurology residency)
• Have an excellent documented command of the English language.

Application Requirements

We accept applications through ERAS.
You can also directly email Epilepsy Fellowship Director Dr. Iffat Ara Suchita at ifsuchita@salud.unm.edu and fellowship coordinator Alexis Gonzalez at alegonzalez@salud.unm.edu, for more information.

Current UNM Epilepsy Fellow

Patrick O'Connor, MD

UNM Alumni Epilepsy Fellows

"The Epilepsy fellowship at UNMH provided me with the opportunity to work with a variety of highly knowledgeable Epilepsy subspecialists. These individuals bring their training and years of experience from many different institutions to help provide compassionate care for the medically underserved and refractory epilepsy patients in the state of New Mexico."  

"I would highly recommend that anyone with an interest in both treating medically underserved populations as well as high level epilepsy care of diverse pathologies strongly consider the UNMH epilepsy fellowship to further their training." 

-Daniel Barnett, MD

"Being a fellow at UNMH, I have had the immense privilege of being able to work with complex, medically refractory epilepsy patients who have taught me how to appropriately care for this fragile population. Additionally, the diverse staff and faculty have been wonderful, as they have provided me with the necessary support to become the best epileptologist I can be."

Lauren Hatcher, MD