“It has been an interesting and exciting year for me personally. I have been involved in the care of complex epilepsy patients, including surgical candidates which is, as you know a developing area within Epilepsy in particular.

My work involves constant liaising with the other members of the complex epilepsy program at The Children’s Hospital at Westmead about our patients’ complex needs. One thing I have learnt through my involvement in this Fellowship is how much time is needed and spent by different clinicians involved in planning a single epilepsy surgery. This process can take up to a year and includes planning, conducting investigations and going through these complex investigations including video EEG and different scans, presentation and discussions at the epilepsy surgery meetings (both locally and through teleconference with other network hospitals), feeding back to the patients and their family and support them then finally attending their surgery and looking after them post operatively.

So far this year we have completed 8 complex cases, and we have more than 10 cases getting worked up for potential surgeries.

I also have been actively involved in research as part of my PhD project “autoimmune epilepsy in childhood”. So far I have had a paper published in a high impact journal (NEUROLOGY) and had another accepted for publication.”

“Thank you for giving me the opportunity to train in Epilepsy through a fellowship programme sponsored by George Gregan Foundation.

Epilepsy is the most common significant neurological problem in children. The epilepsy program at Children’s Hospital offers experience in the diagnostic and therapeutic approaches to medically intractable seizures. The program is ideally designed for those who wish to acquire advanced knowledge and skills in the comprehensive management of patients with epilepsy and its related disorders.

This fellowship program gives a solid education in comprehensive medical management of patients with epilepsy, in basic clinical neurophysiology, in selection and evaluation of patients who are candidates for epilepsy surgery, and in basic clinical research tools used in epileptology. The Epilepsy Fellowship Program provides additional advanced training in epilepsy and electroencephalography (EEG). During the fellowship I am learning to become proficient in:

• Interpreting EEGs of patients with epilepsy.
• Supervising prolonged video EEG recordings.
• Coordinating special studies.
• Performing surgical monitoring.
• Conducting clinical research.

Active participation in the comprehensive epilepsy program meetings gives me exposure to the detailed clinical, electrophysiological, imaging, SPECT, PET, and neuropsychological work up of chronic epilepsy patients, especially in the context of pre-surgical evaluation. I also attended the teaching sessions in the field of Medicine, Neurology, Neuroradiology and Neuropathology. I am also being exposed to excellent research in epilepsy genetics.

This comprehensive epilepsy fellowship would help me become a better Paediatric Neurologist. After completing the fellowship, I intend to incorporate this knowledge into practice wherever I go".

“Our current Fellow is a highly qualified and experienced Paediatric Neurologist who has completed his Consultant training but developing his Epilepsy knowledge further before starting a Consultant post. He has been a great benefit to our unit here at the Mater Children's Hospital and has allowed us to see more children with epilepsy and with a reduced waiting time.

He is also undertaking a number of research projects this year including a research project into bone health in children with epilepsy attending Mater Children's Hospital Neurosciences Unit outpatients, a project that is an international collaborative with other paediatric neurologists entitled 'Epilepsy Research Using the Internet: an International Pilot Study'. Later in the year we will also be asking him to undertake a short survey of Australian and New Zealand Child Neurologists on the issue of SUDEP.”