News

U.S. News & World Report ranked Duke University Hospital as the top hospital in North Carolina and the 23rd best across the nation for neurology and neurosurgery in its 2022-2023 hospital rankings. The annual rankings, which assessed more than 4,500 hospitals nationwide, analyze and integrate dozens of medical and surgical services.

William Powers, MD, went to medical school with the intention of being the local doctor of a small New England town. The logical reasoning, intellect, and clinical showmanship of the then-Chair of Neurology Fred Plum got him hooked in neurology, however. Powers hasn't been bored in the five decades since. For this week’s Spotlight interview, Powers talks to us about how neurology has grown as a discipline since he was a resident.

Members of the Duke Neurology Department contributed to 13 new peer-reviewed journal articles this May, advancing our understanding of how viruses that kill cancer cells may be used against brain tumors, the optimal treatments for various types of stroke, the origins of Parkinson’s disease, and more. Read the paragraphs below for summaries of our research from the past 31 days, as well as links to the complete articles themselves.

Hospital Neurology

The second half of 2021 was as eventful as the first for the Duke Neurology Department. Story highlights from July through December of this year include our Leonard White, PhD, winning a national award for excellence in teaching, the founding of a joint Duke/UNC Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, two of our hospitals receiving the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s highest award for quality stroke care, and the School of Medicine receiving  awards totaling $18 million to uncover the origins of Parkinson’s disease.

The Duke Neurology Department continued to grow and expand its missions of providing excellent clinical care, conducting research to improve our understanding of neurological conditions and how to treat them, and training the next generation of neurologists throughout 2021.

Adam Hartman, MD, didn’t decide to specialize in neurology until the last year of medical school, but the puzzle-solving nature of the discipline, and the engaging, fast-paced tempo of acute neurology in particular, drew him in during his residency. Now, he’s one of our new neurohospitalists, where he’ll be treating complex cases in Duke Regional and Duke University Hospitals. For this week’s “Spotlight” interview, Hartman talks to us about why he loves hospital neurology, what he’s looking forward to over the next decade, and running and staying active when he’s not at Duke.

New publications written by members of the Duke Neurology Department published this June advanced our understanding of the origins of Alzheimer’s disease, stroke, and spinal injuries, as well as offering new insights on how to better diagnose and treat these and other conditions. Our faculty contributed to recent articles in Lancet Neurology, Stroke, and other high-impact journals. Read more about each of these stories, and find links to the original articles themselves, in the paragraphs below.
 

Neuromuscular Disease

A patient hospitalized for a heart attack may suddenly have a stroke. A patient hospitalized with a metastatic tumor may suddenly have a seizure. Providers within Duke’s new division of Hospital Neurology specialize in helping patients with complex, overlapping conditions across all three Duke hospitals.

In this Q&A, division chief Matthew W. Luedke, MD, discusses this expanded approach to patient care and how neurohospitalists can help fill gaps in inpatient and outpatient settings.

With 18 new peer-reviewed articles from members of our faculty, August 2020 was a record-breaking month for the Duke Neurology Department. Clinical research highlights published in the past 31 days include an analysis of patients presenting with vertigo in Emergency Departments, an essay on the human cost of COVID-19 and how we can help people connect during difficult times, and a study finding new benefits for therapies for myasthenia gravis.

As the COVID-19 epidemic is making neurological emergencies harder to treat--and potentially more dangerous for the patient--neurology providers at Duke’s three hospitals are rising to the challenge with robots, iPads, and an unprecedented level of collaboration.

The patient in Durham Regional Hospital was unresponsive to questions. The ambulance had brought him into the emergency room with meningitis, or inflammation around the brain--as well as symptoms that could have been caused by COVID-19.