Brain Injury Medicine Fellowship

Overview

The Brain Injury Medicine (BIM) fellowship program is an approved ACGME-accredited fellowship in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation within Harvard Medical School designed to develop advanced training and education to treat a variety of traumatic and non-traumatic brain injuries and neurologic disorders. As a fellow you will be offered opportunities to develop in-depth knowledge in the field of neurorehabilitation, hone procedural skills for treatment of spasticity and pain management and explore research opportunities. The fellow will be exposed to the full continuum of care for patients within the spectrum of brain injury from acute to chronic injury and within all spectrum of severity of traumatic and acquired brain injury.  By the end of the one-year fellowship; the fellow will be well prepared to manage the neuro-cognitive, physical, emotional and behavioral sequelae of brain injury, developed enhanced teaching and academic skills, and become a leader within the field.

The fellowship is encompassing clinical rotations at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital (SRH), Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH).

Objectives

The Brain Injury Fellowship program seeks to help physiatrists like you further develop clinical and research skills to enable you to become a leader in clinical neurorehabilitation programs in academic settings.

Our 12-month program provides clinical and research training in the rehabilitation of patients with stroke, brain injury, multiple sclerosis and other neurologic disorders. The fellowship is organized as 10-months of clinical rotations at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital (SRH), Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), and 1.5 months of selective time and protected research time throughout the year with an additional 2 weeks of dedicated time at the end of the year.

Curriculum

Rotation Schedule for the Fellowship

• 3 months inpatient brain injury
• 1 month inpatient stroke
• 1 month long-term acute care
• 1.5 months outpatient neuro clinics
• 1.5 months consults at MGH
• 1 month consults/ mild TBI clinics at BWH
• 1.5 months selective
• 2 weeks neuro radiology
• 2 weeks neuro ICU
• 2 weeks research

Approach to Learning

Medical Knowledge and Patient Care

As a fellow, you will:

• Devote 10 of the 12 months of this fellowship developing expertise in the clinical management of patients undergoing in- and outpatient rehabilitation after stroke, brain injury and other neurologic diseases.
• Develop a sophisticated understanding of salient issues in the acute management of patients with these conditions.
• Gain expertise in traditional and newer rehabilitation modalities and in the management of medical comorbidities and complications of patients undergoing rehabilitation in the context of neurologic impairment.
• Become knowledgeable regarding standard rehabilitation and neurologic outcomes assessment tools and their clinical and research uses.

Interpersonal and Communication Skills

As a fellow, you will:

• Develop clinical team leadership skills and the ability to interact with patients and families in a compassionate and effective manner.
• Learn to discuss medical issues with patients and families in ways respectful of their level of medical knowledge.
• Become a skilled leader of program team meetings and family conferences.
• Learn what each member of the rehabilitation team contributes to patient care.
• Become skilled in engaging all in the common enterprise of delivering optimal patient care.

Professionalism

As a fellow, you will:

• Demonstrate consistent timely completion of required clinical documentation.
• Address, clinical and other requests and issues from clinical staff, patients and families to in a thorough and timely manner.
• Obtain and document consent for all procedures.
• Exhibit sensitivity to varied backgrounds.

Practice Based learning and Improvement

As a fellow, you will:

• Identify and present teaching cases at rotation-based conferences and rounds.
• Use online and library resources to research clinical and patient questions and position these investigations as teaching exercises for other members of the clinical team.
• Inform research projects with issues encountered in clinical practice.

Systems Based Practice

As a fellow, you will:

• Learn the differences among the several levels of post-acute care in the Partners system, and how to triage patients to the most appropriate level.
• Communicate frequently with referring physicians and hospitals to maximize patient care and to create complete and clear handoff documents for the next level of care.
• Attend program management meetings for the Stroke and Brain Injury programs at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital to gain an understanding of program development issues and constraints.

How to Apply

Application Process

The Brain Injury Fellowship at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital participates in the Rehabilitation Medicine Match. For information on how to apply,  click here.

Salary and Benefits

Mass General Brigham offers a wide range of benefits and a competitive salary for clinical fellows.

Find salary and benefits information