Sleep Medicine Fellowship

The overarching mission of the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) Sleep Fellowship Program is to educate fellows to become our future sleep medicine specialist leaders and to provide the highest quality of care to patients. Our goal is to produce the highest quality sleep medicine specialists in the academic or community setting aligning with the mission of MUSC.

Upon completion of the program, the fellow will:

• Demonstrate excellent clinical skills and provide the highest quality of care to patients.
• Demonstrate all aspects of professionalism.
• Communicate with patients and their families empathically and educate them effectively.
• Teach and share knowledge with residents and other learners and collaborate with colleagues and other health care professionals.
• Demonstrate commitment to scholarly pursuits.
• Value a philosophy of life-long learning and quality improvement as a necessary prerequisite to maintaining state of the art medical knowledge and skills.  

Sleep Centers

The MUSC Sleep Medicine program utilizes a variety of sleep centers to provide care to the adult, pediatric, and veteran population of coastal South Carolina:

1. Leeds Sleep Disorders Center: The Leeds facility is an 8-patient AASM accredited sleep disorders center used to study children and adults.
2. University Hospital Sleep Disorders Center: The University Hospital facility is a 3-bed AASM accredited sleep disorders center often used to study our youngest patients as well as more medically complicated adult patients.
3. VAMC Charleston Sleep Laboratory: The VAMC sleep laboratory is a 4-bed facility used to study veteran patients who seek their sleep medicine care at VAMC Charleston.

Sites

The training program exposes the fellows to patients at a number of different sites. At each site, the sleep medicine fellow is directly supervised by a board certified sleep medicine faculty member.

1. MUSC Health East Cooper (Mount Pleasant, SC) serves as an outpatient facility for adult sleep medicine patients with various sleep medicine diagnoses.
2. MUSC Dantzler (North Charleston, SC) is a key ambulatory facility for adult sleep medicine and an area of growth for the practice. 
3. MUSC Children's After-Hours Care (Mount Pleasant, SC) is the primary site for pediatric sleep medicine patient care
4. Ralph H. Johnson VAMC Sleep Clinic serves as the site for veteran patients who obtain their sleep medicine care at VAMC Charleston.
5. MUSC University Hospital allows for opportunities to perform in-patient sleep medicine consultations in medically complex adult patient population.
6. MUSC Shawn Jenkins Children's Hospital allows for opportunities to perform in-patient sleep medicine consultations in pediatric population.
7. MUSC Children's R. Keith Summey Medical Pavilion is the alternative site for pediatric sleep medicine patient care.

Patient Care: MUSC Sleep Fellowship uses a longitudinal educational and training experience. The fellow thus sees both adult and pediatric patients each week of the year rather than in one-month discrete blocks. We believe that this structure for a one-year fellowship fosters optimal continuity of care and fellow education and allows for more effective trainee faculty evaluations and interactions.

Curriculum:  Various educational methodologies are used to develop the sleep medicine fellow so that by year’s end he/she is capable of the independent practice of sleep medicine.

Interpersonal Skills: All trainees are taught and counseled regarding personal interaction with other members of the health care team, patients, and their families. The attending physicians in the division serve as role models for the trainee. This experience is fostered in the ambulatory care setting.

Professional Attitudes: This includes performing medical duties at the highest level, treating patients and their families with respect and dignity and collegial interactions with physicians and medical personnel.

The fellow will achieve by year’s end the ACGME mandated number of adult new and follow visits, pediatric new and follow up visits and reading and scoring of sleep tests.

Educational Conferences

The fellowship uses a number of different conferences and journal clubs to educate the sleep fellow and to foster optimal patient care, interpersonal communication skills, collegiality and the ability to critically evaluate the medical literature.

Weekly Sleep Didactic Conference

Each week, the sleep medicine fellow will have 1 or more hours of education in the full range of sleep medicine topics necessary to fulfill ACGME training requirements and prepare him/her for the independent practice of sleep medicine. Speakers include faculty from sleep medicine, cardiology, neurology, pulmonary, sleep dentistry, otolaryngology, psychiatry, psychology and sleep technology.

Monthly Multidisciplinary Staffing and Journal Club

Once a month, the fellow will actively participate in a conference that reviews a peer reviewed paper from the recent sleep medicine literature and discusses 1-2 patients with diagnostic or treatment dilemmas and/or with key teaching point (s). 

Weekly Anxiety/Sleep Conference

Each week the sleep fellow will participate in the joint Psychiatry/Psychology and Sleep Medicine case conference. This conference often focuses on patients with chronic insomnia who may benefit from cognitive behavioral treatment.

Psychiatry Sleep Seminar

The Institute of Psychiatry Sleep and Anxiety Seminar is a forum for professionals in sleep medicine and mental health care to discuss leading edge research and present their own work. The Seminar meets weekly – on the first and third weeks of each month, an assigned Seminar attendee presents a leading edge research article in his or her field to the group; on the second and third weeks, attendees can discuss their own research in a more informal manner, with any attendee free to present results, research ideas, or new projects that they would like to share with the group. The group is designed to be an informative learning experience for all, and to foster collaborative open dialogue about cutting edge science amongst an interdisciplinary team of professionals. 

Pulmonary Fellows Research Conference

Although the sleep fellow is not required to perform a research study during his/her fellowship, he/she is strongly encouraged to attend the Pulmonary Fellows Research conference twice a month to facilitate a more nuanced understanding of the research method and critical paper analysis. 

Grand Rounds

The sleep fellow is strongly encouraged to attend at least one Grand Rounds per week from Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, Psychiatry or Neurology.

State or Regional Sleep Conference

The fellow will be supported to attend the annual Carolina Sleep Society meeting.

National Meeting

The fellow will be supported to attend either the American Academy of Sleep Medicine Board Review Course or the annual SLEEP conference.