Welcome to the Neurology Clerkship!

The core philosophy of this clerkship is that people learn best when they actively participate in their own learning, not when things are spoon-fed to them.  We consider it your job to learn while you are with us, and take a responsible and professional approach to the experience.

We will teach you, spend time with you, encourage you, give you resources and experiences, and frame a structure and context within which your learning can grow.  Ultimately, though, you are the single most important engine driving the type and amount of learning you get from this clerkship.  We expect you to take that responsibility seriously and "go after" learning experiences.

We try to balance patient care assignments.  Since we must use multiple services and sites, and the patient mix within a service can change unpredictably, clinical experiences may vary.  Our expectation is that you will  use whatever clinical experiences you happen to have as a starting point for learning.  We supplement clinical experiences with conferences, exercises, and other activities that are relatively standardized across all students throughout the year.  In this way, we help each of you build the same explicit "skeleton" of core knowledge and skills in neurology.  Beyond these issues, the purpose of your clinical activity is to put those tools into action, and in an individualized way put "meat" on that skeleton.

 

LEARNING  OBJECTIVES

By the time you are finished with the rotation, you should be able to:

  1. Obtain an adequately detailed history from a patient with neurologic (or potentially neurologic) complaints, performing at the level appropriate for a practicing physician (non-neurologist);
  2. Perform a "screening" neurologic examination (as defined by the American Academy of Neurology Core Clerkship Curriculum recommendations) on every patient
  3. Conduct a more detailed neurologic examination of systems associated with patient complaints or abnormalities found on screening exam
  4. Demonstrate the skills of clinical localization of lesions within the nervous system on the basis of history and physical findings;
  5. Recognize, appropriately respond to, and initiate management of these common neurologic complaints and syndromes
  • Focal weakness
  • Somatosensory deficits (e.g. Numbness, tingling)
  • Gait and movement disorders
  • Dizziness (e.g. Vertigo, light-headed)
  • Specific cognitive loss (e.g. Aphasia, amnestic disorder)
  • Altered level of consciousness (e.g. Delirium, coma)
  • Headache
  • Back and neck pain
  • Acute ischemic stroke/intracranial hemorrhage
  • Seizures/epilepsy

   6.   Recognize the key features and initiate management of these neurologic emergencies:

    • Coma   
    • Status epilepticus
    • Acute spinal cord dysfunction.           

We look forward to working with you.  If you should have any questions, please feel free to contact us.

David Geldmacher  dsg8n@virginia.edu                                                   

Karen Marie Vale   KVale@virginia.edu                                                               

434-924-5548   

McKim Hall, Room 2001