Sleep Medicine Fellowship

We are an ACGME-accredited clinical Sleep Medicine Fellowship program that spans 12 months. The overarching goal of the UVA Sleep Medicine Fellowship is to provide a supportive learning environment for our fellows to become comprehensive experts in sleep medicine. Upon completing the fellowship program, our fellows will be board-eligible in Sleep Medicine.

Block diagram and additional info for each rotation

Summer Boot Camp – July

After completing the GME introductory and onboarding, each Sleep Medicine Fellowship experience will begin with a two-week Summer Sleep Boot Camp. During this time, our faculty will provide introductory lectures and guidance about general sleep disorders and the overall processes, outlining ways to optimize the Sleep Medicine Fellowship experience.

Fellow Continuity Clinic

The Sleep Medicine fellow continuity clinic is a longitudinal clinical experience that runs the duration of the clinical fellowship. Fellows will each participate in a half day per week of clinic. During that time, they will be the primary sleep physician providing clinical assessment and care recommendations under the direct supervision of a sleep medicine faculty member. The fellow clinic is embedded in each rotation throughout the year, aside from vacation and/or leave time.

CSOP (Comprehensive Sleep Outpatient)

During the CSOP rotation, Sleep Fellows will spend approximately five half days a week with multidisciplinary sleep faculty members in various sleep clinics spanning pulmonary sleep, neurology sleep, pediatric sleep, ENT sleep, and anesthesia sleep. Additionally, the fellows will spend two half days a week with independent sleep procedure scoring and interpretation and two half days a week with faculty mentored sleep procedure interpretation. The remaining half day per week will be dedicated to the continuity of sleep fellow clinical experience.

Certain aspects of the CSOP will be maintained on each elective, inpatient, pediatric, and neuropsych block, including two half days a week of independent sleep scoring, two half days a week of faculty-mentored sleep study interpretation, and one half day a week of fellow continuity clinic.

Electives

Each fellow will receive two to three elective blocks throughout the fellowship. Elective topics include career development-focused and personalized topics in many clinical and academic experiences.

Inpatient

Each Sleep Fellow will partner with a sleep faculty during their inpatient block to assess aspects of sleep-disordered breathing, hypoventilation, movement disorders, and other sleep disorders that impact inpatients during hospitalized care. We will participate in initial consultations and follow-up visits in the workup and treatment of patients with sleep disorders. This may include performing unattended sleep studies on inpatients and initiating positive pressure treatment.

Pediatrics

The Sleep Fellows will participate in an enriched pediatric sleep medicine rotation involving additional clinical experience in pediatric sleep clinical practice. They will also have additional pediatric sleep scoring and interpreting experiences in partnership with pediatric sleep medicine boarded faculty.

Neuropsych

Sleep Fellows will participate in a hybrid block with dedicated clinical experience in the neurology and behavioral medicine sleep clinics. This tailored rotation provides additional exposure to movement disorders impacting sleep, parasomnias, circadian rhythm disorders, and insomnia.

The overarching goal of the UVA Sleep Medicine Fellowship is to provide a supportive learning environment for our fellows to become comprehensive experts in sleep medicine. To achieve this overarching goal, we propose the following goals and objectives:

1. Fully adhere to the ACGME Sleep Medicine Requirements. Ensure stable program leadership with a well-supported program director, coordinator, and core faculty members to oversee a comprehensive program.
2. Provide structured clinical exposure – Our clinical programs in sleep medicine span adult and pediatric sleep medicine across multiple disciplines, including pulmonary, neurology, anesthesiology, surgery, and psychological sleep expertise. We will routinely assess to ensure appropriate and professional supervision and accountability of our faculty for each fellow.
3. Provide adequate resources for our fellows. These include appropriate space and facilities for personal belongings, outpatient clinical education, and inpatient learning support.
4. Diversity of patient population – Provide a diverse experience by partnering fellow clinical rotations with multiple clinicians spanning several departments and ensuring adequate patient population diversity.
5. Diversity and complexity of medical illness – Clinical and research exposure to include the full range of sleep disorders, including circadian rhythm disorders, hypersomnia, insomnia, narcolepsy, parasomnias, sleep-related breathing disorders, sleep movement disorders, and sleep disorders related to medical or psychiatric conditions.
6. Education on career development – Ensure adequate educational exposure per the ACGME requirements, which include clinical case discussions, research conferences, QI/M&M conferences, and career exploration topics.
7. Attention to evaluation, feedback, and assessment of core competencies—We have a well-established group of educators who will ensure robust participation in core faculty, the clinical competency committee, and the program evaluation committee. We will maintain structured mechanisms for feedback, evaluation, and assessment.
8. Scholarship—Per the ACGME, the program must demonstrate evidence of scholarly activities. This will be demonstrated by reviewing faculty scholarship and integrating scholarship into the rotations for each fellow, which will align with each fellow’s interests.

Didactic programs: In adherence to the ACGME Sleep Medicine Fellowship guidelines, Sleep Medicine Fellows will participate in a robust conference series that will run longitudinally from August until June. The conference series will include a multidisciplinary journal club, clinical case conference, research exploration, quality improvement, and sleep pearls. Additionally, we will partner with other academic sleep centers to provide collaborative conference platforms to enhance networking and education.

See information on salary and benefits on the GME website.

Fellow wellness is a top priority of our program and is a factor in all decisions related to the fellowship program. There is an abundance of resources available. See information on GME well-being resources and learn more about the Faculty & Employee Assistance Program.

Application is a two-step process:

1. Enter ERAS application information once open. Documents will be accepted from ERAS only.
2. Submit your ERAS application to the specific institution of your choice (i.e., University of Virginia). We begin reviewing applications on the third Wednesday in July, and interviews are completed by the end of October.

The following documents must be submitted to the ERAS system before we will evaluate your application:

• Common application form
• Personal statement
• Medical school transcript
• Three letters of recommendation (one from your program director and two others from your current institution)
• Wallet-sized color photograph
• ECFMG status report (foreign medical graduates only)

Contact Lizzie Daniels, Fellowship Coordinator, with questions:
Email – meg5cy@uvahealth.org
Phone – 434-924-9610