Maria Kristina Dorotan, MD

Maria Kristina Dorotan, MD, is a neurologist at the Yale Comprehensive Epilepsy Center who cares for patients who have seizures. She manages their care from initial diagnosis to treatment, counseling them about lifestyle choices and offering complex medical management where necessary, sometimes guiding them through surgical evaluation and treatment.

“I act as the patient’s partner in their care with goals of getting them seizure-free while keeping them feeling good on their medications,” Dr. Dorotan says.

Yale’s Comprehensive Epilepsy Center offers management to those patients who have responded poorly to anti-seizure medications. Dr. Dorotan uses in-depth evaluation and multiple modalities to help understand their seizures, and offers treatment options such as surgery or neuromodulation, a technology designed to alter nerve activity to help decrease seizure burden.

“Epilepsy is such a heterogenous disease, and seizures are a common, poorly understood problem, making this patient population a diverse and fascinating group,” Dr. Dorotan says. “In some cases, epilepsy is a life-long disorder that requires continuous follow-up, and having the ability to help people through different stages in their lives is quite rewarding.”

An assistant professor at Yale School of Medicine, Dr. Dorotan has research and clinical interests in women’s neurology and epilepsy, tumor-related epilepsy and medically refractory epilepsy.