Sleep medicine training across the spectrum

Abstract

There is now a new pathway and examination for sleep medicine, sponsored by the American Board of Internal Medicine, and a number of accredited sleep medicine fellowship programs through the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education. This review takes an historical approach to discuss the process of education for sleep physiology and disorders not only in the postgraduate period but also at all levels of instruction. In reality, there is a continuum of knowledge that needs to be reinforced up and down the educational system, of which Sleep Medicine subspecialty training is just one part. Although progress has been made at all educational levels up to this point, the future of training and education will depend on a sustained effort at several levels from undergraduate to postgraduate continuing medical education and will be facilitated by professional societies and other specialties who will collectively promote the value of and outcomes for clinical sleep medicine.

Figure 1.

Educational opportunities to inform, instruct, and assess attitudes and knowledge in sleep and chronobiology. The expertise in Sleep Medicine and Behavioral Sleep Medicine is crucial to this continuum of instruction. Reinforcement of ideas would ideally come not only through instruction from undergraduate and postgraduate training but also through continuing medical, nursing, health professional, and public education informing those who instruct at all levels.