Program Director's Welcome - Vascular Neurology Fellowship Program

On your journey to find a Vascular Neurology fellowship program, you are likely considering many factors. Programs may have unique features, name recognition, and appealing statistics and schedules. However, the most important thing to focus on is what makes you unique and what program best suits your training and career goals. Your fellowship should not be a fifth year of residency; rather, it should augment and complement the foundation that is already in place. The program you choose should be dynamic and flexible enough to bridge this gap.

Our educational mission has several key goals. We want you to finish your training as a competent and confident vascular neurologist, regardless of whether you work as a subspecialist in a quaternary referral center or practice as a solo neurologist in an underserved area. We want you to be fluent in the cerebrovascular literature past and present, while also being aware of how the field is changing. We want you to manage a modern and diverse care-team ecosystem. Most importantly, we want you to become a clinician educator and mentor to future and current trainees.

The most valuable part of any program is the mentorship and guidance you receive from the faculty. It is an apprenticeship in which critical conversations spark critical thinking. A diverse, multigenerational faculty with different training origins combined with an approachable, open-door policy is paramount. I remember the conversations in the hallways of my fellowship – talking to my mentors about tough cases and concepts. The relationship with peers and faculty is what makes a place feel special. You should be seeking differences in opinion and approaches. You want academic debate and challenge, not dogmatic uniformity. I believe we grow and learn best through these interactions.

Being a young program has allowed us to rapidly adjust to the needs of our trainees. We are very proud of our previous fellows and their respective career paths. Some have completed Neuro-Interventional fellowships at Ochsner and others have stayed with us as faculty. I believe we have a program that is flexible enough to meet each trainee’s goals and expectations. Our volume and complexity are exceptionally high, but the schedule is designed to provide down time for reflection and rest. We have a graduated system of autonomy that recalibrates throughout the year to accommodate your learning style and level of independence. This is mirrored by your role in the departmental didactics and personalized curriculum. In the end, it is your journey that we are building together.

Welcome to the Ochsner Vascular Neurology Fellowship and we look forward to seeing you soon.

Sincerely,

Joseph Tarsia, MD
Program Director