Endovascular & Operative Neurovascular Fellowship
Training in Neurovascular Procedures
The BIDMC Brain Aneurysm Institute offers a two-year clinical fellowship for training in both endovascular and open operative neurovascular procedures. One fellow per year is selected for the two-year fellowship. The Fellowship Director is Christopher S. Ogilvy, MD, who is also Director of the Brain Aneurysm Institute.
The applicant should have satisfactory ACGME accredited (or Canadian equivalent) residency or training in neurological surgery or be at a level of senior resident. Senior-level residents may be considered if they are in an accredited neurosurgery program that offers a broad exposure to the full spectrum of neurosurgery as well as intensive care unit experience.
It is beneficial if the applicant has some level of endovascular experience. To date, many applicants have completed 100 catheter-based diagnostic cerebral angiograms.
If an applicant has no prior endovascular experience, the initial four-month interval of the fellowship is spent in the angiography suite. Following this interval, there is an 18-month interval during which the fellow performs both endovascular and open operative neurovascular procedures on a weekly basis.
Typically, two days a week are spent in the endovascular suite and two days a week are spent in the neurosurgical operating room. One day a week is set aside for clinic, which is attended by the fellows as well as attending staff.
There is a weekly neurovascular conference where new patients are reviewed and follow-up studies on existing patients are discussed with recommendations of treatment/follow-up plans. The neurovascular fellow is involved with presentation of patients and provides input on decision-making and management.
Throughout the training, the neurovascular fellow is given an increasing amount of supervised procedural responsibilities in both the endovascular suite and the operating room. It is expected that by the end of the training, the fellow will be ready to run a neurovascular practice with both endovascular and open operative neurovascular skills.