Geriatric Neurology Fellowship

Core training for the Geriatric Neurology Fellowship program takes place in the UCI Health Memory Clinic, which has locations at the UCI Medical Center in Orange, the Joe C. Wen & Family Center for Advanced Care (WCAC) in Irvine, and the UCI Health Multispecialty Clinic in Laguna Hills. 

As the only academic memory disorders program in Orange County, we evaluate more than 2,000 patients per year and care for a wide variety of neurological conditions affecting cognition and behavior, including rare neurodegenerative disorders. Fellows also rotate in the UCI Department of Family Medicine’s Geriatric Medicine Clinic, which is a site for the GUIDE model of comprehensive dementia care and operates the Health Assessment Program for Seniors (HAPS) multidisciplinary clinic. Other rotations include Neuropsychology, Stroke, Movement Disorders and Neuromuscular clinics. 

Experiential training is supplemented by regular journal clubs, lectures and seminar series. Fellows also participate in longitudinal research studies related to brain aging, benefitting from the rich neuroscience research environment and resources at UC Irvine, including the Institute for Memory Impairments & Neurological Disorders (MIND) and the Center for Neurobiology of Learning & Memory (CNLM). There is an optional second year for fellows completing an independent research project under the mentorship of a faculty advisor.

These materials should be emailed to Brigette Reefer, education manager, at reeferb@hs.uci.edu. Please let us know if you need the application form in a different format.

Applicants must have completed a neurology residency and be American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology board-eligible, with a California medical license prior to the July 1 program start date.

Brian D. Hitt, MD, is a board-certified UCI Health behavioral neurologist specializing in the diagnosis and management of Alzheimer's disease and other cognitive and memory disorders. He earned his medical degree from Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, Ill. Hitt completed both a neurology residency and a fellowship in cognitive and behavioral neurology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas. He holds a PhD in cell and molecular neuroscience from Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., and completed a postdoctoral fellowship studying tau protein seeding activity as a biomarker at the Center for Alzheimer's and Neurodegenerative Diseases at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. Hitt has conducted extensive basic research into the cellular and molecular mechanisms of Alzheimer's and related neurodegenerative diseases. His current research interests include bench-to-bedside translational studies to develop novel diagnostic and therapeutic ways to target the tau protein, which is involved in the pathology of Alzheimer's and several other neurodegenerative diseases.