Incorporating sleep medicine content into medical school through neuroscience core curricula
Citation Manager Formats
Make Comment
See Comments

This article requires a subscription to view the full text. If you have a subscription you may use the login form below to view the article. Access to this article can also be purchased.
Abstract
Objective To present (1) justification for earmarking sleep medicine education as an essential component of all medical school curricula and (2) various avenues to incorporate sleep medicine exposure into medical school curricula through (primarily) neuroscience and neurology courses.
Methods Per consensus of a team of leading neurology and sleep medicine educators, an evidence-based rationale for including sleep medicine across a 4-year medical school curriculum is presented along with suggested content, available/vetted resources, and formats for delivering sleep medicine education at various points and through various formats.
Results Growing evidence has linked sleep disorders (e.g., sleep-disordered breathing, chronic insufficient sleep) as risk factors for several neurologic disorders. Medical educators in neurology/neuroscience are now strongly advocating for sleep medicine education in the context of neurology/neuroscience pre and post graduate medical education. Sleep medicine education is also a critical component of a proactive strategy to address physician wellness and burnout. The suggested curriculum proposes a sleep educational exposure time of 2–4 hours per year in the form of lectures, flipped-classroom sessions, clinical opportunities, and online educational tools that would result in a 200%–400% increase in the amount of sleep medicine exposure that US medical schools currently provide. The guidelines are accompanied by the recommendation for use of technological education, to facilitate more seamless curricular incorporation.
Conclusion Even in this era with limited flexibility to add content to an already packed medical school curriculum, incorporating sleep medicine exposure into the current medical school curriculum is both justified and feasible.
Glossary
- AAN=
- American Academy of Neurology;
- AASM=
- American Academy of Sleep Medicine;
- LCME=
- Liaison Committee on Medical Education;
- RITE=
- Residency In-Service Training Examinations
Footnotes
Go to Neurology.org/N for full disclosures. Funding information and disclosures deemed relevant by the authors, if any, are provided at the end of the article.
Editorial, page 587
- Received January 16, 2018.
- Accepted in final form June 11, 2018.
- © 2018 American Academy of Neurology
AAN Members
We have changed the login procedure to improve access between AAN.com and the Neurology journals. If you are experiencing issues, please log out of AAN.com and clear history and cookies. (For instructions by browser, please click the instruction pages below). After clearing, choose preferred Journal and select login for AAN Members. You will be redirected to a login page where you can log in with your AAN ID number and password. When you are returned to the Journal, your name should appear at the top right of the page.
AAN Non-Member Subscribers
Purchase access
For assistance, please contact:
AAN Members (800) 879-1960 or (612) 928-6000 (International)
Non-AAN Member subscribers (800) 638-3030 or (301) 223-2300 option 3, select 1 (international)
Sign Up
Information on how to subscribe to Neurology and Neurology: Clinical Practice can be found here
Purchase
Individual access to articles is available through the Add to Cart option on the article page. Access for 1 day (from the computer you are currently using) is US$ 39.00. Pay-per-view content is for the use of the payee only, and content may not be further distributed by print or electronic means. The payee may view, download, and/or print the article for his/her personal, scholarly, research, and educational use. Distributing copies (electronic or otherwise) of the article is not allowed.
Letters: Rapid online correspondence
- Author response to Dr. Sethi
- Roy E. Strowd, MD, Wake Forest School of Medicine
- Logan Schneider, BS, MD, Stanford Hospitals and Clinics
- Charlene E. Gamaldo, MD, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine
- Rachel Marie E. Salas, MD, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine
Submitted October 08, 2018 - Reader response: Incorporating sleep medicine content into medical school through neuroscience core curricula
- Nitin K. Sethi, Associate Professor of Neurology, New York-Presbyterian Hospital, Weill Cornell Medical Center (New York, NY)
Submitted October 03, 2018
REQUIREMENTS
You must ensure that your Disclosures have been updated within the previous six months. Please go to our Submission Site to add or update your Disclosure information.
Your co-authors must send a completed Publishing Agreement Form to Neurology Staff (not necessary for the lead/corresponding author as the form below will suffice) before you upload your comment.
If you are responding to a comment that was written about an article you originally authored:
You (and co-authors) do not need to fill out forms or check disclosures as author forms are still valid
and apply to letter.
Submission specifications:
- Submissions must be < 200 words with < 5 references. Reference 1 must be the article on which you are commenting.
- Submissions should not have more than 5 authors. (Exception: original author replies can include all original authors of the article)
- Submit only on articles published within 6 months of issue date.
- Do not be redundant. Read any comments already posted on the article prior to submission.
- Submitted comments are subject to editing and editor review prior to posting.
You May Also be Interested in
Dr. Sevil Yaşar and Dr. Behnam Sabayan
► Watch
Related Articles
Topics Discussed
Alert Me
Recommended articles
-
Resident & Fellow Section
Emerging Subspecialties in Neurology: Sleep medicine fellowship after child neurology residencyRobert C. Stowe, Stacey D. Elkhatib Smidt, Thornton A. Mason et al.Neurology, January 28, 2020 -
Editorial
A sleep medicine medical school curriculumTime for us to wake upA. Gordon Smith et al.Neurology, September 05, 2018 -
Views & Reviews
Funding the Educational Mission in NeurologyDavid M. Greer, Jeremy Moeller, Diego R. Torres et al.Neurology, February 08, 2021 -
Contemporary Issues: Innovations in Education
A competency-based longitudinal core curriculum in medical neuroscienceLisa R. Merlin, Holli A. Horak, Tracey A. Milligan et al.Neurology, June 27, 2014