Sandipan Pati, MD, is the new Epilepsy Division Director for the University of Minnesota Comprehensive Epilepsy Program (MINCEP) and professor of neurology at the University of Minnesota Medical School.
The University of Minnesota Physicians (M Physicians) St. Louis Park Clinic MINCEP Epilepsy Care Program is a Level 4 Comprehensive Epilepsy Center that provides specialized inpatient and outpatient epilepsy care to Minnesotans and our neighbors in surrounding states. MINCEP was the first comprehensive epilepsy center in the U.S. and has set the standard for epilepsy care since 1964.
About Dr. Pati
Dr. Pati is an epilepsy neurologist with a clinical interest in difficult-to-treat epilepsy and brain stimulation therapy. Specifically, he focuses on complex epilepsy cases that require more specialization to treat or where brain surgery is not feasible. “I love that aspect of it,” he says, “that challenge.”
Dr. Pati attended medical school in India before continuing training in the United Kingdom. He then completed a Neurology residency in the U.S. at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix.
He continued his epilepsy training for two more years at Harvard University and Massachusetts General Hospital. Before arriving in Minnesota, Dr. Pati taught neurology and cared for patients with academic health systems across the U.S.
His research interests include designing novel epilepsy circuit-based brain stimulation therapies to improve seizures, sleep and other epilepsy-related comorbidities.
“Combining engineering with devices and brain physiology is the way in epilepsy, and that's what attracted me to that field,” Dr. Pati says. “Whether they're implanted devices to treat or monitor seizures, it's neural engineering combining with physiology to develop a precision therapy for that patient.”
What excites Dr. Pati most in epilepsy and neurology research is combining what he calls the three D’s—Data, Drugs and Devices—to diagnose or create innovative treatment plans for patients.
Dr. Pati explains that by using data from an implanted device to study a patient’s brain waves, clinicians can identify when a seizure is more likely to occur. Then, when they know how a patient will react to a medicine, clinicians can combine those insights to give that patient the right amount of medication dosage at the right time to prevent a seizure from happening.
A day in clinic
Dr. Pati sees patients in both outpatient and inpatient settings.
In the outpatient clinic, Dr. Pati works with patients to explore options for new medications, devices or surgical therapies to treat epilepsy. “Those outpatient days will be either seeing the patients or actually doing what we call device days, when they come in and I'm programming the devices that are used to control their seizures.”
While in the outpatient clinic, Dr. Pati also teaches medical students, residents and fellows from the U of M Medical School. “That’s another significant commitment of ours, to train the future neurologists and epileptologists.”
Dr. Pati will also see patients who are admitted to the hospital and weaned off of their medication to induce seizures, allowing him and his team to analyze their brain waves with a tool that measures them, called electroencephalogram (EEG). During those inpatient days, Dr. Pati spends his time reading brain waves and talking to patients to determine the best course of care.
“When you're talking to the patients, you're also addressing the family and getting different aspects or dimensions of the disease, not just the history about the seizures or the epilepsy. You are trying to get as much information as possible and use all the data points to formulate a plan appropriate for that patient.”
Building on MINCEP’s legacy
As the MINCEP Epilepsy Program Director, Dr. Pati has plans to grow the program’s service to patients across Minnesota and our surrounding states by leveraging the University of Minnesota’s resources to advance epilepsy care.
Dr. Pati aims to integrate disciplines across the University—in neural engineering, machine learning, bioinformatics, genetics and more—to improve patient care and treatment.
“That's the whole philosophy of patient-specific comprehensive care,” he says. “Our goal is to deliver the best evidence-based therapy and generate new evidence for tomorrow.”