Specialties
Residency training program
The goal of the Neurology Residency Training Program at UC Davis is to provide future neurologists with a broad exposure to patients and clinical situations. The program is designed to shape future clinical neurologists into discriminating physicians and scientists with a wide range of expertise. The Department of Neurology has built a solid training program based on the neurosciences and patient care. Residents are expected to complete the program with a strong neuroscience background, including the ability to comprehend technical literature with objectivity, discrimination and judgment.
The Department of Neurology was established in 1968. It is currently undergoing a period of expansion alongside the growing interest and research in neuroscience at UC Davis. The department currently has 37 full-time faculty members, of whom 24 are clinical neurologists and 13 are basic or clinical neuroscientists. Several faculty members from other departments with joint appointments in neurology participate in training and neurology didactic programs. Several new faculty members are expected to join the department in the coming year. Community physicians are also members of the clinical faculty and assist with teaching residents in the outpatient clinic.
Many department faculty members actively engage in clinical and basic neuroscience research programs. In addition, faculty members provide expertise in all subspecialty areas of neurology, providing a broad range of clinical and teaching excellence for trainees.
Facilities
The UC Davis Medical Center is in Sacramento, a 20-minute drive from the UC Davis campus. The medical center is the primary teaching facility for the UC Davis School of Medicine and postgraduate medical education. It offers complete inpatient services, diagnostic facilities and 24-hour major emergency medical services. It is also a major referral center for Northern California and averaged 425 patients per day in 2005.
The neurology department offices are located at the medical center. Faculty members have offices at the medical center, the UC Davis campus, the Center for Neuroscience, and at the Department of Veterans Affairs medical centers in Martinez and Sacramento. Department research laboratories are also available at all locations.
UC Davis Medical Center adult neurology clinics are held at the Lawrence J. Ellison Ambulatory Care Center and pediatric neurology clinics at the UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute, which conducts medical investigations of neurodevelopment disorders. The institute houses clinical and research sites for the study of these disorders, including autism. Clinics and faculty offices for child neurology, child psychiatry, developmental pediatrics and pediatric genetics are also located at the institute.
At UC Davis Medical Center, the Department of Neurology shares a 17-bed neuroscience inpatient unit, adjoing the neurological intensive care unit, with UC Davis Department of Neurological Surgery. Supervised by four full-time faculty members, neuroradiology facilities feature four clinical and two research magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanners, four computed tomography (CT) scanners and an angiography suite equipped for interventional studies.
Both inpatient and outpatient clinc training is offered to neurology residents at the Mather VA Medical Center, located about 15 minutes away from the UC Davis Medical Center. The Mather VA Medical Center has an outpatient facility and hospital with beds and is located approximately 15 minutes from the UC Davis Medical Center. The Mather Center contains a 100-bed inpatient facility and numerous outpatient facilities. Neurology residents rotate through the neurology outpatient clinics, electromyogram (EMG) service and inpatient consultation service.
Program details
The resident training program is three years with five positions available each year. One trainee will enter at the PGY-1 level, spend a year with the Department of Internal Medicine and transition to the neurology department for the second year. Four trainees enter the PG-2 year after completion of a preliminary internal medicine PG-1 year. Training in each successive year is designed to increase the trainee's responsibility and sophistication with regard to patient care.
In addition, each resident can spend time in a focused project under the guidance of a faculty member. This experience is designed to develop clinical neurologists into discriminating physicians and scientists, readily able to review literature and new developments in the field. Currently, a one-year ACGME-approved neurophysiology fellowship training program is available to two residents who have completed three years of training.
How to apply
All applicants must apply through the Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS) and register for the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP). The deadline for receipt of all application materials is November 15. All application materials must be received through ERAS (no paper application materials, including CVs will be accepted).
- ERAS application
- Three letters of recommendation (one should be from a neurology rotation)
- Dean’s letter
- Medical school transcripts
- USMLE scores (Parts I and II, if available)
- Personal statement
- Curriculum vitae (via ERAS)
Interviews will be conducted through the months of November through January with no interviews being scheduled between the week of Christmas and New Years.
Additional information
If you have any questions, call Alicen Arsenault, house staff coordinator, at