Collaborative Excellence in Neurology

The Yale Neurology Residency has taken several steps to support collaborative excellence.

Our departmental mission includes the following goals:

Foster an environment of universal respect for all and create a culture that promotes community-building
Promote scholarship and community outreach
Support professional development

Faculty Leadership Roles

Reshma Narula, MD
Director of Collaborative Excellence
Dr. Reshma Narula is an Associate Professor in the Department of Neurology at Yale School of Medicine, where she serves as the Program Director for the Yale Neurovascular Fellowship Program and the Departmental Director for Collaborative Excellence. She specializes in the care of patients with cerebrovascular disease and completed both her neurology residency and vascular neurology fellowship at Yale New Haven Hospital.

Dr. Narula has a strong passion for medical education. She completed the medical education track during her residency and went on to pursue a medical education fellowship through the Yale School of Medicine during her faculty tenure. Drawing on this expertise, she has significantly expanded the Vascular Neurology Fellowship Program, now one of the largest in the country. Her dedication to teaching has been recognized with numerous honors, including the AAN A.B. Baker Teaching Recognition Award (2024) and the Neurology Attending of the Year Award (2021).

Her academic interests include the evaluation and management of cryptogenic strokes—strokes of unknown origin—and she previously served as the site primary investigator for ARCADIA, a NIH StrokeNet trial. In 2025, she received the Wendy U. & Thomas C. Naratil Pioneer Award through Women’s Health Research at Yale, supporting her research into two underdiagnosed vascular disorders that disproportionately affect women: reversible cerebral vasoconstriction syndrome (RCVS) and coronary vasospasm.

Dr. Narula is also an elected member of the Gold Humanism Honor Society and is a strong advocate for patient-centered care and interdisciplinary collaboration in clinical practice, education, and research.
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Vanessa Cooper, MD
Associate Director of Collaborative Excellence, Education
Dr. Cooper completed her undergraduate education in New York at Stony Brook University prior to attending New York Medical College in Westchester, New York. Following this, Dr. Cooper completed her medicine intern year and neurology residency at Yale New Haven Hospital. Dr. Cooper graduated completing a year as a chief resident in the residency program. Dr. Cooper followed her neurology training with further specialization in headache medicine at Yale. She now serves as an Assistant Professor of Neurology with a special focus on headache disorders.
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Education

Training Opportunities

Yale Neurology makes training available for creating a more inclusive workplace and educational environment that is respectful of different lived experiences and perspectives. Trained facilitators lead these case-based sessions.

Gaps in Health Access and Outcomes—Patient Safety Quality Improvement & Clinical Grand Rounds

We have dedicated quarterly sessions during our Clinical Grand Rounds and PSQI time slot to focus on patient cases within our clinical environment that highlight elements of health care access inequities. Patient case discussions are accompanied by a review of the literature and best practices, followed by an open discussion. Attendees include faculty, residents, fellows, students, and other clinical staff.

Opportunities

Yale Visiting Elective Scholarship Program to Enhance Access to Health Care Careers in Neurology

This program offers an opportunity for eligible students to spend four weeks in a neurology elective at Yale New Haven Hospital’s York Street campus. Students are offered a choice of elective experiences in general inpatient neurology or the inpatient neurology consult service.

Application Review and Behavior-Based Interviewing

The application review focuses on how each applicant can contribute to the mission of our program through clinical care, scholarly work, and leadership in the neurology community.

During the residency interviews, candidates are asked a series of four standardized, behavior-based questions that are aligned with the residency program mission. These questions are designed to ensure the interview focuses on each candidate’s suitability for the role of neurology resident and their potential as an academic neurologist, as well as mitigate the sources of bias that can affect the interview process.