Stroke centers

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.
Cincinnati, UCSF, UCLA, MGH, Columbia, Pittsburgh. Also good are Stanford, Iowa, UT Houston, Miami - those are just the programs I am well familiar with. Surely, there are other good ones.
 
In the south: UT Houston

In the north: Columbia
 
Thanks for the post guys. I was able to find this response on an older thread:

"For Stroke: The best stroke programs are in major cities with high volume of stroke patients. The future of stroke care is 'telemedicine'. At some programs that I saw, a single center is providing stroke coverage to over 10 hospitals and multiple ERs using telemedicine. Whenever a patient shows up to any ER, say 50 miles away, the 'stroke beeper goes on' so the stroke fellow/attending gets notified immediately. They access the telemed system and get connected immediately to the peripheral ER, do a quick NIHSS, authorize thrombolysis and get the patient transferred to their center. This gives them a high volume of patients in treatable time windows for intravenous and endovascular thrombolysis. This I felt was fantastic. These programs did a high volume of intra-arterial as well as endovasc thrombolysis. There are regular protocols for CT/CTA/CT Perfusion. Very few programs in the US have a telemed stroke program.
The best stroke fellowship programs (in the opinion of many people) are
MGH: has telemed, Schwamm and Koroshetz are prominent. Have fellows going into neurointerventional as well.
UT Houston: excellent telemed program. Jim Grotta is a major name in cerebrovasc disease. Has largest volume of stroke patients in the US (over 700 patients a year). TPA rate exceeds 30 % (national average is 2-3%). Largest volume of stroke patients receiving endovasc stroke therapy. Fellows have trained in interventional as well.
U Cincinnati: Joseph Broderick is a major name in stroke. He is also the PI of IMS (Interventional management of stroke) study. I am not sure about telemed. Fellows trained in interventional as well.
UCLA: excellent telemed and interventional stroke program. Jeffrey Saver is a strength. Fellows trained in neurointerventional as well.
U Pittsburgh: Lawrence Wechsler is a strength. Excellent acute stroke and endovascular service. Fellows trained in interventional as well.
CCF: Anthony Furlan is a strength. Tremendous work in intracranial stenting.
Columbia: heavy on stroke epidemiology. JP Mohr is a strength (but more epidemiology). Ralph Sacco has moved to Miami. Strength is stroke epidemiology, TCD, not heavy on thrombolysis.
UCSF: fellows train in NICU as well as stroke (but not sure how it would change, now that ACGME and UCNS requirements are different for stroke and NICU)
Some other programs that have excellent NICU fellowships and do not have as good stroke services. Duke: only stroke epidemiology and basic science. Larry Goldstein is a prominent name,but confined to epidemiology. The general neurology svc does acute stroke management, so there is no stroke svc per se. Wash U: was big in PET imaging in stroke, but William Powers has now left. Mayo Clinic: more in epidemiology. Robert Brown ia prominent name (current president of the ANA), but more involved in epidemiology and basic sciemce; acute stroke svc has a lot to be desired. Hopkins: stroke faculty not as academically renowned as NICU (but certainly have the hopkins name).

There are other programs that may not be at the highest level, but have prominent faculty-U Chicago: Jeffery Frank (NICU), Wayne State: Bill Coplin(NICU) and Seemant Chaturvedi (Stroke), Baylor: Jose Suarez (NICU), Emory: Owen Samuels(NICU) and Marc Chimowitz (Stroke), Barrow: Mark Malkoff (NICU) and Alexandrov (stroke), BIDMC: Louis Caplan (stroke), BU: Viken Babikian (stroke)"
 
I interviewed at about 12 programs & terminated another 6 interviews after matching where I wanted. My impression is:

1st tier:
Stroke+ Tele+ Intervention (neurologists) group:
U Cincinnati, UCLA, UT-Houston, U Miami, UPMC, MGH, Case Western

Stroke + epidemiology group
Columbia, UT Houston, U Miami, UCSF, Mayo

2nd tier:
Stroke + TCDs +Tele
MCG, Barrow Institute, UT-South Western

Stroke volume-all work & no play
SUNY-Buffalo (800-1000 pa. 2 fellowship positions but usually fill up just 1 place- loads of experience.......& exhaution)

Stroke + intervention for Muslims only
U Minnesota, UMDNJ Newark

Some home truths about Stroke Fellowship training:

CCF doesnt have Tony Furlan anymore. He moved to Case in 2008.

Ralph Sacco moved to U Miami in 2007 from Columbia.

It is a professional hazard to go to the Muslim programs if you want to train in stroke & go on to Intervention. Non-muslims may be booted out after their stroke fellowship. This has been told to me by members of their own faculty & if you dont believe it, go through their fellows names when you interview there, better still go ahead & join the programs.

Certain programs are averse to training neurologists in Intervention, some despite having trained neurologists in the past ie SUNY Buffalo, Barrow, UCLA
 
Last edited:
It is a professional hazard to go to the Muslim programs if you want to train in stroke & go on to Intervention. Non-muslims may be booted out after their stroke fellowship. This has been told to me by members of their own faculty & if you dont believe it, go through their fellows names when you interview there, better still go ahead & join the programs.
Click to expand...

Pure nonsence, probably from a true xenophobe 😀. The endovascular fellowship program director at UMN is Rob Taylor, a white American, trained at UPenn and Iowa. The vascular fellowship program director is david Anderson, chairman and certainly not a muslim. Valabh Janardan (one of the endovascular faculty) is a non-muslim Indian. Just because Dr Qureshi is from Pakistan and Mustafa Ezzeddine (Neurocritical Care director) is Lebanese does not mean the UMN program is for muslims only...: Using that logic, only jews need to apply to Saver-Liebeskind-Starkman-Dobkin UCLA program. I pity your narrow-mindedness and regret I will have you as a colleague. Your post is hateful and you should be ashamed of yourself.
 
Last edited:
And I can speak a little about UMDNJ. I rotated in Inv Neuro there for a month my 4th year. Kirmani is pakistani, Giaccomo is Italian and another guy is Indian. One ofthe fellows was white, and the stroke fellows, one was white and one was probably Indian.

Kirmani is young, hip and as "American" as can be.

The poster is a *****. I hope he gets fired from his position
 
Two things:

1) Naming names is not appropriate. If one is "outing themselves" that is fine, but other than that it is not appropriate without permission.

2) Xenophobia is not really relevant in this forum, please try to keep excessive stereotyping out of posts. Obviously, use your own judgment. But I would encourage you all to discuss the actual benefits and bad points of each program apart from what religion or nationality the faculty members are. A discussion on whether faculty members of certain religions or nationalities are biased is probably better suited to the sociopolitical forum.
 
i believe it was wrong to name religious sects and overgeneralize. we certainly don't want xenophobia. but this is a forum for posting opinions (which viewers should remember as being that, not FACTS), which becomes more helpful gien the cloak of anonymity. it's unfair to come down hard (and call him out) on a poster.
 
What is the current opinion of doing a residency at a program that is strong in 1 or 2 of the fellowships that you are interested in? Will having done a residency at the same place give you a better chance at getting a fellowship? Anyone know how competitive the stroke fellowships are?
 
what exactly is a muslim program?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top