Epilepsy Surgery Education: A Survey of US Epilepsy Fellowship Program Directors

PURPOSE: To understand the current state of epilepsy surgery education delivered to epilepsy fellows in the United States.

METHODS: An online survey focused on characteristics of epilepsy surgery education was distributed to all 93 epilepsy fellowship program directors listed on the ACGME website (accessed in May 2022). Programs were stratified per the number of fellows currently enrolled: 0 to 3 (group A) and ≥4 (group B).

RESULTS: Forty-one of 93 (44%) epilepsy fellowship programs were included in the study. The average number of resective surgeries, ablations, or corpus callosotomies per year was mostly 0 to 30 (54%) in group A and mostly >30 (80%) in group B (P = 0.05). The average number of intracranial implantations per year was mostly 0 to 20 (58%) in group A and mostly >20 (80%) in group B (P < 0.05). The average number of neurostimulation implantations per year was 15 (range 0-90; vagal nerve stimulation), 7 (range 0-25; responsive neurostimulation), and 4 (range 0-10; deep brain stimulation). In 78% of programs, fellows are not required to present a minimum number of epilepsy surgery cases in multidisciplinary conference before graduation. Roughly half of programs (51%) reported not using objective measures to assess fellow competency in epilepsy surgery.

CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest significant variability in epilepsy surgery volume and, consequently, fellow exposure to surgical cases and lack of standardized, objective measures in fellow teaching and assessment in the field of epilepsy surgery across programs in the United States. We advocate development of a core epilepsy surgery curriculum including minimum standards at the national level.