Akanksha Kamal Memorial LEND Transition Fellowship

Director: Pauline Filipek, MD

The Akanksha Kamal Memorial Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and Related Disabilities (LEND) Transition Fellowship is part of the LoneStar Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and Related Disabilities (LEND) Program. The LoneStar LEND, the only LEND in Texas, is housed at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital in a collaboration with the University of Houston, Texas Woman’s University, University of Houston – Clear Lake, and Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children’s Hospital. In addition to transition-specific activities, the curriculum incorporates parts of the standard LEND curriculum including selected seminars and clinical practicum experiences, Intensive Leadership Training, Cultural and Linguistic Competency Workshop, and a Service Learning Project. There are 13 core faculty members from the collaborating sites, with an additional 20 instructional faculty who host LEND trainees in their clinics or lead a Seminar.

The aim of this Transition Fellowship is to train adult-trained healthcare providers in the evaluation and management of common and rare autism spectrum and intellectual developmental disorders (ASD/IDDs) and co-morbidities through the lifespan, focusing on transition into adult care.

The Transition Fellow will develop competence in the assessment of ASD/IDDs by performing detailed histories and examinations of the children, adolescent and adult patients presenting to a variety of pertinent clinic settings, by developing a working diagnosis and treatment plan for each patient to present to the supervisory attending faculty/ physician, and ultimately, to the family.

This program accepts one transition fellow each year. Those who have successfully completed residency training in Child Neurology, Adult Neurology or Psychiatry, are board eligible or board certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology are eligible to apply for this fellowship.

Educational Objectives

  • To train adult-trained healthcare providers in the evaluation and management of common and rare autism spectrum and intellectual/ developmental disorders (ASD/IDDs) through the lifespan, focusing on transition into adult care.
  • To facilitate clinical competence in the assessment and management of ASD/IDDs in adult-trained healthcare providers by:
    • performing detailed histories and examinations of the children, adolescent and adult patients presenting to a variety of pertinent clinic settings; and
    • developing a working diagnosis and treatment plan for each patient to present to the supervisory attending faculty/ physician, and ultimately, to the family.

Clinical Objectives

Patient Care

  • Efficiently obtain neurologic history with integration of information from multiple healthcare and non-healthcare disciplines.
  • Diagnose common and uncommon neuropsychiatric disorders, movement disorders, pediatric epilepsy syndromes, mitochondrial/ metabolic disorders, and behavioral disorders that are comorbid with ASD/IDD, with appropriate referrals when necessary.

Medical Knowledge

  • Efficiently correlate clinical information to generate differential diagnosis and individualized evaluation plan.
  • Engages in counseling families on presenting issues.

Systems-based Practice

  • Uses quality measures to improve patient care.
  • Describes potential sources of system failure in clinical care, such as minor, major, and sentinel events across the lifespan in individuals with ASD/IDD.

Practice-based Learning and Improvement

  • Use critique of scientific studies and personal clinical experience to complete appropriate learning plan.
  • Incorporates scientific studies in development of patient care plan.

Professionalism

  • Mentor others to incorporate patient and family social background into care.
  • Mentor other to practice medicine with compassion.

Interpersonal Communication Skills

  • Manages multidisciplinary patient care activities.
  • Mentors junior trainees and medical students in effective communication with colleagues.

Evaluation

All Transition-specific activity evaluations will be managed through New Innovations. The fellow will receive verbal and written feedback regarding his or her performance in the following methods:

  • Daily, on-the-spot feedback from supervising faculty on projects or in completing tasks.
  • An evaluation meeting with the program director every six months.
  • Written feedback from attending physicians which will be completed every quarter.