Ghana Neurology Program
The adult neurology residency program at the University of Utah has developed an Infectious and Tropical Neurology Rotation for all PGY-4
neurology residents. This clinical rotation takes residents to two locations each year: Kenya in the autumn and Ghana in the spring.
The clinical rotation is staffed by Dr. David Renner. Together, the group works to provide patient care and clinician education, largely in the arena of infectious neurology. Neurological consultation is provided for all hospitalized patients through formal rounds each morning. A traveling educational lecture series, which is continually evolving and expanding, provides a venue to teach diagnostic and treatment skills to primary care non-neurologists, utilizing available medications and treatments. Residents participate in this educational series, as well as teach in the local medical school lectures. Live patient presentations are the highlight of the afternoon teaching sessions for both residents and faculty alike, focusing upon localization, differential diagnoses, and available treatment options. When possible, our team travels to outlying HIV clinics to provide neurological consultations.
Program Director
David Renner, M.D. graduated from Creighton University in 1991, and worked in metabolic brain imaging throughout medical school. He graduated 
from the University of Nebraska Medical Center in 1997, and pursued residency in adult neurology, graduating at the University of Utah in 2001. After completing a fellowship in EMG/Neuromuscular, he stayed at the University of Utah as a faculty member. His areas of clinical interest lie in HIV-neurology and neuroinfectious diasease; he started the first HIV-neurology clinic in our multidisciplinary HIV treatment center in 2002. He serves as the block director for medical school neuroscience, as well as the adult neurology residency program director, and hence is actively involved in medical education, both local and internationally.
Program Report 2008
The University of Utah Department of Neurology has been providing volunteer neurological care for patients in Africa since 2006. Senior level residents in good standing are eligible to apply for this rotation during their PGY-3 year of training for participation during their PGY-4 year. Medical professionals from the hospitals in both Eldoret, Kenya, and in Kumasi, Ghana, work as in-country hosts.
Each bi-annual trip consists of four volunteers (two neurology attendings, and two neurology residents). Occasionally, non-neurology doctors in training rotate with our group. Our group often travels with a larger group of other health care providers from the University, providing a multidisciplinary consultative team. Typical work-week duties include a one-hour morning lecture on topics from our educational curriculum germane to infectious and tropical neurology, covering diseases such as spastic and flaccid paraparesis, cerebral malaria, opportunistic infections of the brain, CNS complications of HIV/AIDS, and CSF analysis, just to name a few. The didactic series is followed by three hours of in-patient ward rounds, whereby visiting neurologists provide bed-side consultation for the >1/3 of hospitalized patients admitted with primary CNS complications of HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, and parasitosis. Occasionally, lunch time is spent delivering community service talks on topics such as stroke and epilepsy. Afternoon sessions usually incorporate live bed-side teaching, whereby patients with acute neurological disorders can be examined, neurological disease localized, a differential diagnosis identified, diagnostic procedures discussed, and treatment regimens initiated. Afternoons tend to conclude with procedures, such as spinal taps, when necessary. When the weekend schedule permits, our neurology team participates in the village screening day, whereby children are screened for malaria, demographics and basic health measurements documented, and children treated for infectious diseases.
