Picture at Top: Lesli Simers, Elizabeth Roberts, Amy Davis, Joel Morgenlander and Kim Romoda at Graduation Dinner 2024.
Welcome to the latest installment of the Duke Neurology APP Fellowship Newsletter. In our 10th year of the program, it has been great to continue to offer specialty training to APPs and hopefully retain them for our practice. Last year’s fellows, Amy Davis, PA and Elizabeth Roberts, NP are working at Duke in Headache and Neuro-Ophthalmology, respectively. With mixed emotions I announce that Lesli Simers, NP will be leaving Duke. Lesli was in our first class of fellows and has worked with our group in General Neurology ever since. She has been an outstanding partner in the care of our patients and in the evolution of our fellowship. We hope Lesli will always stay connected to Duke and our fellowship. I am excited to announce that Ashley Lengel, PA will be taking over Lesli’s role as associate director of the program. Ashley was a fellow with us and has been working in Neuro-Immunology. Welcome, Ashley!
Nationally, I am in the third year of running a working group of Neurology APP Fellowship Directors. We meet bi-annually, including at the AAN, to discuss issues pertinent to our programs. We are currently working on a list of entrustable professional activities (EPAs) for Neurology APP Fellows in order to have a common baseline of knowledge taught in our programs. We are still discussing the possible value of a Neurology APP certification test.
Please look for our upcoming historical article to be published in Neurology: Education on the rationale for subspecialty Neurology APP training and our 10- year journey at Duke. Co-authors include Lesli Simers, Kelly White and Bryan Walker.
The next AAN meeting is in San Diego in April. If you are a Neurology Fellow alum, please come by the Duke Neurology reception which is usually the Tuesday evening of the meeting.
Dear Duke Neurology Colleagues and APP Community,
I want to take a moment to express my heartfelt gratitude for the Duke Neurology Advanced Practice Fellowship, which I had the privilege of completing in 2016. This program provided me with the specialized training that has been fundamental in my career as a nurse practitioner in neurology. The skills and confidence I gained have been invaluable, allowing me to truly thrive in my role.
After 13 years at Duke Neurology — nearly a decade of that as an NP —leaving is incredibly bittersweet. I owe much of my growth to the fellowship’s supportive environment and the camaraderie I shared with other fellows. The friendships I have built during that time are something I will always cherish.
As I embark on new adventures in The Netherlands, I carry Duke Neurology's lessons, mentorship, and friendships with me. Thank you to everyone who has been a part of this journey.
As part of my biomedical engineering undergraduate program, students participated in co-op work programs on alternating semesters. I was lucky enough to land a role managing TMS technology for a local child neurologist, who recognized my interest in clinical practice and began mentoring me. It only took one day of shadowing for me to realize that this ability to care directly for other people was an incredible gift, and this needed to be my path forward. I had no understanding of what PAs did at that point - I assumed my only way into healthcare was to be a physician. Ironically during this time, I found myself becoming a neurosurgical patient, only to be cared for, educated, and comforted by a PA in the hospital. That role in my healing stuck with me forever and opened my eyes to the many intricate, and equally important, parts of the healthcare team.
In PA school, I was the only student out of 40 to have any interest in pursuing neurology. I loved being trained to serve any specialty, but it was never a question that neurology would be my destination. People assumed that my experience as a neurologic patient independently drove this interest, but it just expanded upon an existing passion and changed my perspective of the patient experience. Many of my classmates pursued full-time roles directly from school, but I wanted to build upon my passion and continue developing my skills in a fellowship program. I knew that I wanted to work somewhere that accepted the challenge of complex cases from all over the world while providing compassionate care, fostering learning, and cherishing diversity. This led me to the APP Neurology Fellowship Program at Duke.
When I applied, I wrote that I wasn’t just interested, but I felt it was crucial that I be here, and I was totally right. Participating in the APP Neurology Fellowship Program provided an exceptional neurologic training, but also completely revolutionized my identity as a provider. Gaining so many mentors in our department has allowed me to shape a practice style based upon experience far past my own, which is an invaluable gift to my career. Working now in Neuroimmunology as a subspecialty clinic, understanding and managing such complex chronic diseases so early in my career as a PA, would have been insurmountably difficult without this training program. I am looking forward to joining the team as Associate Program Director to pay thanks to this program and to uplift other APPs on their way into an amazing career in neurology
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