Neurology education

The Neurology® Resident & Fellow Section (RFS) was introduced in January 2004 to serve several purposes related to training: a forum for trainee writing; a collection of cases, images, and videos representing classic neurologic findings and disorders of greatest interest to those in training; discussion of issues related to neurology training; and publication of medical education research.

By any measure, the Section has been successful. The number of submissions to the section has increased dramatically (from 12 in 2004 to 190 in 2009). The quality of published manuscripts is high, illustrated by an acceptance rate of about 50%. This acceptance rate is higher than that of the parent journal because the mission of the RFS is to foster among trainees enthusiasm for writing and revising, skills that are often not addressed in other residency-related clinical activities. The RFS published 86 manuscripts in 2009, more than were published in the years 2004–2007 combined. A Highlights booklet, containing representative samples of trainee writing from the Section, has been published each of the past 3 years and distributed to trainees at the American Academy of Neurology Annual Meeting. In the past 5 years, the section has become one of the most frequently accessed sections on the Neurology® Web site.

Because neurology is …