- Supervisors
- Specific objectives
- Structure
- Program description
- Neuropsychology seminars and supervision
Supervisors
Christopher Grote, PhD, ABPP/CN (Director), Joyce Tam, PhD, Monica De Iorio, PhD
Specific objectives
Neuropsychology is a subspecialty within clinical psychology and neuropsychologists are scientist-practitioners. Neuropsychologists must know their patients, the natural history of illness and injury, and individual variations in disease. Thus, we train residents as general clinical psychologists with broad knowledge of neuropsychology and psychopathology. Specifically, we prepare residents to be competent diagnosticians, therapists, and counselors; to be competent giving and interpreting a wide variety of tests and procedures; to understand and integrate medical and other data; to consult with other professionals; and to counsel patients and their families.
Structure
Residents see outpatients in the Division of Behavioral Sciences and consult on hospital referrals from neurology, psychiatry, rehabilitation medicine, and other services. There are no "rotations." Instead, interns rotate between "inpatient" and "outpatient" weeks throughout their 12 months at Rush to ensure their exposure to the widest variety of cases and presenting problems. In addition, residents provide psychotherapy services to outpatients, many of whom were referred for treatment by the neuropsychology service. They also will provide cognitive remediation to outpatients through the Rush Center for Cognitive Resilience.
Program description
We consult on and contribute to the diagnosis and management of a wide variety of patients referred by neurology, neurosurgery, psychiatry, internal medicine, surgery, rehabilitation, and other services. Common patient populations include epilepsy, brain tumor, stroke, dementia, auto-immune and inflammatory disorders (multiple sclerosis, lupus, cerebritis, vasculitis, etc.), traumatic brain injury, and organ transplant. In addition to pre- and post-surgery evaluations for epilepsy and brain tumors, we also perform Wada procedures and assist with intra-operative language mapping. There is also an emphasis on neuropsychological and psychological evaluation of patients with behavioral and psychiatric disorders, such as the schizophrenia, delusional, major affective, anxiety, adult attention deficit, and substance abuse/dependency disorders. We evaluate mostly adults, with occasional opportunities to assess children and adolescents (age seven and up).
In addition to traditional neuropsychological assessment, we established the Rush Center for Cognitive Resilience in fall 2014. The goal of the center is to improve quality of life among patients with cognitive impairment through individualized cognitive remediation programs. Residents are encouraged to see patients in the center, under the guidance of the supervising neuropsychologists.
While we emphasize that the primary purpose of the residency is to develop clinical competence, research activity is also expected and is supported. Interns are given a chance to work with faculty on their research projects and/or to conduct original research that is in addition to their dissertation project. Of course, completion of one's dissertation is of paramount importance, and we highly encourage interns to have the dissertation defense scheduled prior to the scheduling of interviews for postdoctoral fellowship opportunities. Current faculty research projects include those related to epilepsy, non-epileptic seizures, aging and dementia, and ethics.
Residents are first introduced to clinical activities of attending neuropsychologists and accompany them during examinations. They are then responsible for their own patients, including the initial discussions with referral sources, chart review and gathering of collateral data, the examination itself, charting, oral and written reports to referral sources, and consultation with patient, family, and external agencies.
Neuropsychology seminars and supervision
In addition to seminars required of and the various Medical Center activities open to all interns, there are required topical seminars/lectures and regularly scheduled meetings for neuropsychology staff and interns, and elective courses, seminars and lectures. The topical seminars and lectures include Report Writing, Walk and Consultation Rounds (Neurology), Neurological Examination, Epilepsy/EEG, Wada, Movement Disorders/Neurology, Movement Disorders/ Neuropsychology, Alzheimer/Vascular Dementia, Multiple Sclerosis, Brain Mapping/Evoked Potentials, Dystrophies, EMG, and Neuroradiology. The required lectures/seminars/rounds include neuropsychology case conference (weekly), Neuropsychology Journal Club (weekly), epilepsy surgery rounds (during inpatient weeks), Neurology Grand Rounds (weekly), and Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Grand Rounds (weekly). Other didactic opportunities are widely available at the medical school and medical center.
Supervision is intensive, individualized, and provided on all cases immediately. Supervision is rotated among the neuropsychology staff, so interns have the opportunity to work with all neuropsychology faculty.