Chairman’s Letter
Welcome to the Website of the Department of Neurology, School of Medicine, Stony Brook University Medical Center. It is my pleasure to tell you about our program. I hope you are excited by and want challenges. If you are interested in a prestigious university program, with a major teaching emphasis, we are for you!
First, let me tell you about Stony Brook. We are part of the State University of New York, a thousand acre campus on Long Island, just an hour drive from New York City. We are five minutes from Long Island Sound, and it is easy to see across the water to the Connecticut coastline from the Hospital and Medical Center. Stony Brook as a University Campus, has both undergraduate and graduate schools, as well as Schools of Dentistry, Nursing, Allied Health, and Social Services. Stony Brook is the major employer in Suffolk County. Long Island is home to approximately three million people. As a suburb of New York City, just 60 to 90 minutes plus (depending on traffic) from New York City, Stony Brook is your ideal community. We are close to the excitement of New York City, as well as the Hamptons and bucolic New England. We are surrounded on the north by the Long Island Sound, and on the south by the Atlantic Ocean. Long Island boasts of farms, vineyards, beaches, forests, and camping trails. We have all the amenities of the City, yet we live surrounded by trees and nature. We are 20 minutes away from rolling stretches of uninhabited lands, as well as the most modern shopping malls. It is truly a beautiful area, with one of the top public school systems in the country.
Stony Brook is the premiere Medical School on Long Island, and we are led by a dedicated new Dean who heads the Medical Center Enterprise. Sister institutions are Cold Spring Harbor, and Brookhaven National Laboratories. Neurosciences is one of the top three areas targeted for emphasis by the University over the next decade. We work very closely with the Department of Neurosurgery and Psychiatry, Pharmacology, Biochemistry and Microbiology, to name a few.
Stony Brook has superb Neuroradiology support (state of the art three tesla MRI, cutting edge interventional radiology, MR spectroscopy). We have programs in Neuro-Ophthalmology, and Neuro-Urology. We have two diverse hospital experiences: the Stony Brook University Medical Center, and the Northport Veterans Administration Hospital. Our Medical Center has a NIH-funded General Clinical Research Center, which provides active support for a variety of clinical trials, programs.
Our department has a commitment to teaching, clinical care, and research. We include divisions of Clinical Neurophysiology (with training in EEG and EMG, including inpatient and outpatient monitoring facilities, intraoperative monitoring, and access to a sleep laboratory), Neuropsychology (both adult and pediatrics), Child Neurology (including special interest groups in Epilepsy, Developmental Disabilities, Pediatric AIDS, and Autism), and Vascular Neurology (with an accredited training program, board certified faculty, close cooperation with Vascular Surgery, Interventional Radiology, and Cardiology, and an emphasis on clinical trials and neuroimaging research). We have a very strong program in Multiple Sclerosis/Neuroimmunology (including multiple clinical trials, Neuroimaging research, the only Pediatric MS Center in the country, and a focus on gender issues in MS). I direct the Stony Brook MS Center, which has a national and international reputation. We also have strong programs in Neuromuscular Disease (with a particular interest in ALS, and nerve/muscle biopsies), Neurologic Infections (with a particular interest in emerging pathogens), Parkinson's Disease, Neurorehabilitation, and Behavioral Neurology.
Our Residents have access to some unique opportunities. We offer a movement disorders elective, clinical trials elective, and the ability to arrange research programs with other departments as well as our affiliates. We have a special Pediatric Neurology Series for adult neurology, as well as a number of other innovative teaching initiatives. We encourage our residents getting involved in writing articles, and submitting papers to present at the Annual Neurology Meetings. Our residents go on to topnotch fellowship programs. We encourage dual program applicants (Neurology with Medicine, Psychiatry, Pediatrics).
If Stony Brook sounds interesting to you, please don't hesitate to contact us. I'll be happy to tell you more about us!
