Neurological Emergencies
This special program is uniquely designed to provide updates, best practices and ready-to-use algorithms to diagnose neurological symptoms, quickly identify a neurological emergency and take appropriate measures to optimize patient outcomes.
Neurological Emergencies will be held online this year, using live streaming, electronic Q&A and other remote learning technologies.
Click here to view the detailed schedule for this program »
Best Practices for the Workup and Management of Neurological Complaints
Led by top clinical faculty at Harvard Medical School, this program provides state-of-the-art approaches for diagnosis and management of:
- High-frequency neurological symptoms, including headache, back pain, dizziness, altered mental status, weakness and visual changes
- High-risk neurological conditions, including stroke, SDH, TIA, TBI, SAH, cerebral aneurysm, spinal cord compression, cauda equina syndrome, ICH, meningitis, seizures and coma
- Neurological symptoms in special populations, including pregnant and postpartum women
Reasons to Attend
Every year there is a vast amount of practice-changing literature relating to making the diagnosis and taking the first steps in treatment for patients with neurological emergencies. These important updates include current approaches to the history, the physical and early management. This program ensures participants are current with these updates and prepared to:
- Better evaluate high-frequency neurological symptoms and high-risk neurological conditions
- Avoid misdiagnosis in neurological emergencies
- Quickly identify a neurological emergency and act in the first hours to optimize patient outcomes in the emergency, inpatient and outpatient settings
- Optimize your use of CT/CTA (including what to order and how to interpret results)
- Optimize your use of MRI (including what to order, when to order, and when NOT to order)
- Optimize patient safety
- Better understand and mitigate liability
This program is unique in that it:
- Consolidates best practices in the workup of common neurological complaints
- Provides practical tips that you can immediately use, no matter what your practice setting is
- Lays out algorithms for common complaints such as headache, dizziness, back pain and visual problems
- Delivers guidance for stroke and other cerebrovascular events, including first hours after arrival, the focused neurological exam, tips for rapid neuroimaging and treatment (including new data on when to consider endovascular therapy) and best practices in risk management
- Includes dedicated case-based discussion sessions with audience participation, group discussion and opportunities to learn from both your peers and the experts
- Is attended by a cross-specialty and international audience, leading to valuable opportunities for discussion—you can hear the perspectives of those in other specialties and other practice environments
Customize Your Learning Experience for Your Specific Practice Needs
You can tailor your learning experience to your specific interests, choosing from sessions designed for practitioners of:
- Emergency Medicine
- Neurology (Outpatient and Inpatient)
- Hospital Medicine
- Critical Care
- Intensive Care
- Internal Medicine
- Family Medicine
- Urgent Care
Optimized for Remote Education
The 2020 program has been enhanced for distance learning. In addition to being live streamed, all sessions will be recorded and made available to participants for online viewing for 10 days after the end of the course.
Educational highlights of the 2020 program include:
- The optimized neurologic exam
- What neuroimaging to order and how to interpret the results
- A practical algorithmic approach to back pain; how to spot the history and examination “red flags,” when to image and what to look for
- Updates for acute management of spinal cord and cauda equina compression
- An algorithmic approach to headache and when to image
- Advances in subdural hematoma management
- Current workup and treatment of meningitis and encephalitis
- Advances in the management of seizures
- State-of-the-art management of cerebral aneurysms and SAH
- The newest approaches to treat TIA and ICH
- Modern stroke management—optimizing IV thrombolytics and endovascular therapy using advanced imaging rather than just the clock
- Updates in ED and ICU management of TBI
- Bringing them back: brain resuscitation after cardiac arrest
- Updates in ischemic stroke and arterial dissections
- Best current evaluation of altered mental status, coma and diagnosing brain death
- The modern evidence-based evaluation of dizziness: spoiler alert—physical exam beats imaging!
- Functional neurologic disorders—how to distinguish and how to manage
- Acute weakness—the evidence-based initial evaluation
- Practical approaches to bedside neuro-ophthalmology
- Anticoagulants and antiplatelets: what to choose and when
- Medical errors: how to avoid them and what to do when they happen
The faculty is assembled from the best clinician-educators at Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC). The program is designed to deliver the highest quality educational experience:
- Teaching practical, effective clinical reasoning and approaches that enable you to deliver state-of-the-art care
- Allowing ample time for participants to interact with faculty and to pose and get answers to your specific questions
- Providing the latest information in an engaging manner and clinically usable context so that you have knowledge that you can “take home” and immediately apply to patient care
- Case-based discussion with master clinicians walking the audience through the case, including group questions and answers
- Video-clip presentations to maximize learning from real patients
Keynote Speakers
Martin A. Samuels, MD, DSc (hon), FAAN, MACP, FRCP, FANA
Chair Emeritus, Department of Neurology, Brigham and Women's Hospital
Miriam Sydney Joseph Distinguished Professor of Neurology, Harvard Medical School
View bio »
Christopher S. Ogilvy, MD
Director, Endovascular and Operative Neurovascular Surgery, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Brain Aneurysm Institute
Professor of Neurosurgery, Harvard Medical School
View bio »
David Greer, MD
Chief, Department of Neurology, Boston Medical Center
Professor of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine
View bio »
Faculty
Erica Camargo Faye, MD, MMSc
Stroke Neurologist, Massachusetts General Hospital
Instructor in Neurology, Harvard Medical School
William A. Copen, MD
Director of Advanced MR Neuroimaging, Division of Neuroradiology, Massachusetts General Hospital
Assistant Professor of Radiology, Harvard Medical School
Francis W. Drislane, MD
Department of Neurology, Comprehensive Epilepsy Program, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Professor of Neurology, Harvard Medical School
Nicole Dubosh, MD
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Andrea G. Edlow, MD, MSc
Division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital
Assistant Professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Biology, Harvard Medical School
Brian L. Edlow, MD
Neurocritical Care, Massachusetts General Hospital
Assistant Professor of Neurology, Harvard Medical School
Jonathan A. Edlow, MD, FACEP
Vice-Chair, Department of Emergency Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Professor of Medicine and Emergency Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Corey R. Fehnel, MD, MPH
Associate Director, Neuroscience Intensive Care Unit, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Assistant Scientist, Hebrew SeniorLife Institute for Aging Research
Assistant Professor of Neurology, Harvard Medical School
Joshua N. Goldstein, MD, PhD
Director, Center for Neurologic Emergencies, Department of Emergency Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital
Professor of Emergency Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Shibani Mukerji, MD
Associate Director, Neuro-Infectious Disease Unit, Massachusetts General Hospital
Assistant Professor of Neurology, Harvard Medical School
Pushpa Narayanaswami, MD, FAAN
Director, Quality Improvement, Department of Neurology, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Associate Professor of Neurology/Neuromuscular Disease, Harvard Medical School
MingMing Ning, MD, MMSc
Medical Director, General Neurology Consultation Service
Co-director, Cardio-Neurology Clinic
Stroke Service Director, Clinical Proteomics Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital
Associate Professor of Neurology, Harvard Medical School
Christopher S. Ogilvy, MD
Director, Endovascular and Operative Neurovascular Surgery, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Brain Aneurysm Institute
Professor of Neurosurgery, Harvard Medical School
Efstathios Papavassiliou, MD
Neurosurgeon, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery, Harvard Medical School
David L. Perez, MD, MMSc
Director, Functional Neurological Disorders Clinic, Massachusetts General Hospital
Assistant Professor of Neurology, Harvard Medical School
Martin A. Samuels, MD, DSc (hon), FAAN, MACP, FRCP, FANA
Chair Emeritus, Department of Neurology, Brigham and Women's Hospital
Miriam Sydney Joseph Distinguished Professor of Neurology, Harvard Medical School
Magdy H. Selim, MD, PhD
Department of Neurology, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Professor of Neurology, Harvard Medical School
Michael G. Silverman, MD, MPH
Cardiology Division, Heart Center ICU, Massachusetts General Hospital
Instructor in Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Aneesh Singhal, MD
Vice Chair, Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital
Associate Professor of Neurology, Harvard Medical School
Peter B. Smulowitz, MD, MPH
Chair, Emergency Medicine, Beth Israel Lahey, Needham Hospital
Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Martina Stippler, MD, FAANS, FACS
Director of Neurotrauma, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery, Harvard Medical School
Guest Faculty
David Greer, MD, Chief, Department of Neurology, Boston Medical Center
Professor of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine
Thanh Nguyen, MD, Director, Interventional Neuroradiology and Interventional Neurology, Boston Medical Center
Associate Professor of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Radiology, Boston University School of Medicine
Matthew S. Siket, MD
Assistant Professor, The Robert Larner, MD College of Medicine at the University of Vermont (UVM)
Interim Director of Stroke Services, UVM Health Network