Sleep Medicine Fellowship Program

The Sleep Medicine Fellowship Program at UAB is a one-year fellowship that offers well-balanced educational experience for trainees. Clinical teaching and formal didactics are provided by faculty with diverse backgrounds and expertise, including faculty with primary training in pulmonary medicine, and neurology. The sleep disorder centers at UAB, as part of Alabama’s preeminent academic medical center, attract patients with a broad spectrum of sleep disorders from across the state and beyond, offering trainees first-hand experience with both common and rare disorders.

Program Mission:

The mission of the Sleep Medicine Fellowship Program is to train highly qualified sleep medicine physicians who become experts and leaders in this multi-disciplinary subspecialty. The fellows’ educational experience builds on their previous diverse residency or fellowship training (e.g. pediatrics, pulmonary medicine, neurology, internal medicine, psychiatry, family medicine, etc.) and our mission is to provide inspiring, well-structured, comprehensive training in adult and pediatric sleep medicine. Besides providing exceptional quality clinical care, our program’s goals also include focused attention on quality improvement and patient safety.

Program Aims:

Our program’s goal is to provide excellent clinical training for fellows in both adult and pediatric sleep medicine.
The faculty is committed to offer comprehensive and practical educational experience including clinics, sleep study reading sessions, EEG review sessions, inpatient sleep consultations, cognitive/behavioral therapy sessions, weekly didactic lectures covering the underlying principles and practice of sleep medicine, and journal club.
The field of sleep medicine is a truly multidisciplinary subspecialty. To make sure that the sleep medicine fellow’s training includes extensive experience in evaluation and treatment of sleep disorders in a wide range of patient population, the fellow’s clinical rotations are divided between the sleep clinics and sleep disorder centers of three sites: Children’s of Alabama, UAB Highlands, and the Birmingham VA Medical Center.
Our program strives for 100% board exam pass rate.
The sleep medicine fellow is encouraged to participate in (or initiate) quality improvement and/or patient safety projects. The fellow has option to join already ongoing QI efforts within the individual sleep disorder centers or clinics at the participating sites or join in on an institutional/hospital QI or patient safety project.

Program Information

Dear Applicant:

We appreciate your interest in our Sleep Medicine Fellowship Program at the University of Alabama at Birmingham! This website provides introductory information describing our Sleep Medicine Fellowship. Web links are provided here to acquaint you with the facilities we enjoy here at Children's of Alabama and University of Alabama Health System. Also included is web information for our city attractions and general accommodations. We hope that enough information has been provided so that you may get a flavor of what our fellowship, division and city are about. If you are interested in applying to our program, we will be accepting application materials beginning on July 1, 2026. The Sleep Medicine Fellowship Program participates in the Subspecialties Fall Match. Interested applicants should apply through the Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS). In addition to the application through ERAS, we will need:
- A personal statement
- Curriculum vitae
- Recent photograph
- MSPE
- Med School Transcript
- USMLE/ COMPLEX Transcript
- Three letters of recommendation – one of the letters must be from your Department of Pediatrics Chairman or from your Residency Director.
All of the above information should be sent through ERAS.

If you must mail any material, please send to:

Hannah Smith, Program Coordinator
UAB Pediatric Fellowship Office
1600 7th Avenue South
3rd Floor West McWane, Sergio Stagno Center
Birmingham, AL 35233

Once we have received the requested completed application along with three letters of recommendation, we will review your application and contact you regarding the possibility of interviewing at our program. We will begin interviewing in August and end late September for one pediatric fellowship position and one adult fellowship position. This program participates in the Sleep Medicine Specialty fellowship match through the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP) and will abide by the rules established by this group. Each applicant must sign the "Applicant Agreement" with the NRMP. (NRMP's telephone number is 202-828-0676; website: www.nrmp.org.) Rank order lists are due by November 19, 2026 with the official match results for the 2026 appointments announced on December 2, 2026.

We look forward to hearing from you. If you have any trouble accessing your electronic files or need further assistance, please feel free to call (205-638-6557).

Sleep Medicine Core Fellow Conference

Topics

Behavioral Insomnia of Childhood	CPAP & BiPAP in Adultsg	CBQ-I
Neurological Sleep Mechanisms I	Neurological Sleep Mechanisms II	Effects of General Medications and Substances on Sleep
Breathing During Sleep: Ventilation & Upper Airway	Narcolepsy	Hypersomnia
Pediatric OSA and CPAP	Sleep Deprivation	ENT Surgical Options for Treatment of OSA
Pharmacological Treatment of Insomnia in Childhood	Sleep in Women	Gastroenterology & Endocrinology Physiology During Sleep
Jet Lag, Shiftwork	Psychiatry Insomnia	Sleep and Medical Disorders in Adults and in the Elderly
Neuromuscular Disease and Sleep Medicine	Practice Parameters for Sleep Related Breathing Disorders	MSLT/MWT
Research Methods Talk	Sleep Essentials	Skeletal Surgical Options for Treatment of OSA
Sleep and Medical Disorders in Children	Sleep and Seizures	Inspire Lecture
Sleep Related Movement Disorders	REM Behavior Disorder

When

1st, 2nd and 4th Friday of each month.

ATS Sleep Medicine Case Conference

Topics

Topics Vary. https://site.thoracic.org/assemblies/peds/ped-case-conference-series

When

3rd Wednesday of each month.

Sleep Medicine Journal Club

Topics

Articles are selected by faculty and fellow presenters. This educational activity has been approved for 1.00 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™

When

3rd Friday of each month.

Pediatric Rotation Month

Monday

A.M.

PSG Reading

A.M.

Pediatric Sleep Clinic

P.M.

Adult Sleep Clinic

Tuesday

A.M.

PSG Reading

A.M.

Pediatric Sleep Clinic

P.M.

Adult Sleep Clinic

Wednesday

A.M.

PSG Reading

A.M.

Adult Sleep Clinic/BSM Clinic

P.M.

Adult Sleep Clinic

Thursday

A.M.

PSG Reading

A.M.

Continuity Clinic/Adult Sleep Clinic

P.M.

Grand Rounds/
EEG Review

Friday

A.M.

PSG Reading

A.M.

Adult Sleep Clinic

P.M.

Didactics, Lectures, Board Review, Journal Club

Adult Rotation Month

Monday

A.M.

PSG Reading

A.M.

Adult Sleep Clinic

P.M.

Adult Sleep Clinic

Tuesday

A.M.

PSG Reading

A.M.

Pediatric Sleep Clinic

P.M.

Adult Sleep Clinic

Wednesday

A.M.

PSG Reading

A.M.

Adult Sleep Clinic/BSM Clinic

P.M.

VA Clinic/Adult Sleep Clinic

Thursday

A.M.

PSG Reading

A.M.

Continuity Clinic/Adult Sleep Clinic

P.M.

Grand Rounds/EEG Review

Friday

A.M.

PSG Reading

A.M.

Pediatric Sleep Clinic

P.M.

Didactics, Lectures, Board Review, Journal Club

EEG Review

Fellows will complete a one-week rotation in the Epilepsy Monitoring Unit during the second half of the academic year under the supervision of a sleep neurologist.

BSM Clinic

Fellow(s) will rotate in Behavioral Sleep Medicine Clinic twice weekly for approximately 6 weeks while on Adult rotation month

Elective Month
- Translational approaches to disparities in sleep and circadian rhythms and their impact on a variety of health outcomes (UAB Highlands Sleep/Wake Disorders Center; Dr. Thomas; funding from AHA, NIH, and PCORI).
- Sleep and circadian contributions to nocturnal hypertension (UAB Highlands; Drs. Thomas, Aulakh, and Patterson; NHLBI-funded 5-year, $2.8 million grant)Improving work flow efficiency in the Sleep Center; Improving follow-up of narcolepsy patients and OSA patients using CPAP (QI; Sleep Disorder Center at Children’s of Alabama).
- Quality improvement initiatives to enhance workflow efficiency in the Sleep Center and improve follow-up of narcolepsy and OSA patients using CPAP (Children’s of Alabama Sleep Disorders Center)Slow wave sleep as a biomarker of rehabilitation-induced cognitive improvement in Parkinson's disease (Dr. Amara, funded by NIH, NICHD).
- Improving follow-up education and EMR documentation for adult narcolepsy and idiopathic hypersomnia (IH) patients.
- Developing improved medication literature/handouts for adult patients using sleep medications, including those for RLS and stimulant therapy (Dr. Patterson?).
- MPI on the McNulty Award: Pilot trial of mindfulness-based therapy for insomnia in adolescents with Down syndrome and their caregivers (Dr. Thomas).
- Grant submitted for SPARC: Studying sleep, circadian rhythms, and pain in adolescents with sickle cell disease (Dr. Thomas).
- Quality improvement initiative to optimize start and total sleep time during polysomnograms (Dr. Nourani, Children's of Alabama Sleep Disorder Center).