EEG education in Brazil: a national survey of adult neurology residents

BACKGROUND: In light of the established challenges of resident EEG education worldwide, we sought to better understand the current state of neurology resident EEG education in Brazil. OBJECTIVE: To define Brazilian EEG practices including in-residency requirements for EEG training and competency. METHODS: We assessed the perspectives of adult residents (PGY1-3) on EEG education and their level of confidence interpreting EEG with a 24-question online survey. RESULTS: We analyzed 102 responses from 52 Brazilian neurology residency programs distributed in 14 states. There were 18 PGY1s, 45 PGY2s, and 39 PGY3s. Ninety-six percent of participants reported that learning how to read EEG during residency was very or extremely important. The most commonly reported barriers to EEG education were insufficient EEG exposure (70%) and ineffective didactics (46%). Residents believed that standard EEG lectures were the most efficient EEG teaching method followed by interpreting EEG with attendings’ supervision. Roughly half of residents (45%) reported not being able to read EEG even with supervision, and approximately 70% of all participants did not feel confident writing an EEG report independently. CONCLUSION: Despite the well-established residency EEG education requirements recommended by the Brazilian Academy of Neurology (ABN), there seems to be a significant lack of comfort interpreting EEG among Brazilian adult neurology residents. We encourage Brazilian neurology residency leadership to re-evaluate the current EEG education system in order to ensure that residency programs are following EEG education requirements and to assess whether EEG benchmarks require modifications.