SurgerySurgerysurgery

Clinics & services

Brain surgery

Fellowships

The Department of Neurosurgery offers two year-long fellowships.

Neurosurgery/Epilepsy Fellowship

For a number of years the Austin Hospital has sponsored a Fellowship in Epilepsy Surgery in conjunction with the generous help of Medtronic. This position is for a postgraduate neurosurgeon with an interest in both the medical and surgical aspects of epilepsy. At the Austin Hospital and the Epilepsy Research Centre under Professors Gavin Fabinyi and Sam Berkovic, the fellowship provides experience in the assessment and treatment of all aspects of epilepsy surgery as well as participating in general neurosurgical work.

In addition there are opportunities for research projects at the Melbourne Brain Centre. Candidates are accepted from neurosurgeons world wide and past Fellows have come from Canada, Thailand, United Kingdom, Argentina and India. 

Spinal Fellowship

The Spinal fellowship at Austin Health is a combined Orthopaedic and Neurosurgery program accepting applicants from both specialties.

This is a Post Fellowship Education and Training Program (PFET) approved by the Royal Australiasian College of Surgeons which aims to train surgeons in both simple and complex spinal surgery. 

Most fellows are involved in 300-350 spinal operations with 85 per cent of cases as primary surgeon. Approximately half of these cases involve complex spinal cases (tumour and instrumented fusion). Opportunities for basic and clinical research are also available.

This fellowship is funded by Medtronic and the fellow would also be involved in the Neurosurgery or Orthopaedic on call roster.

Requirements

The fellow should be eligible for specialist in training registration under AHPRA. As part of these requirements, applicants must have an IELTS score of greater than 7 in all four units: writing, reading, speaking and listening.  

Please note these requirements may change. We recommend contacting AHPRA for the latest information. See the AHPRA website.