Shlee S. Song, MD, a specialist in stroke treatment and research, has joined Cedars-Sinai Medical Center’s Department of Neurology as associate director of the Stroke Program.

Song has published articles in peer reviewed publications such as Stroke and Review of Neurologic Diseases, presented abstracts at conferences across the United States and participated in several stroke-focused research projects.

She is a lead investigator and steering committee member of a multicenter clinical trial involving patients who have suffered recent “unwitnessed” strokes – with unknown timing of onset. Song is studying the use of MRI brain scans to estimate time of onset and determine which patients may be candidates for drug intervention. The “clot-busting” drug t-PA (tissue plasminogen activator), the only medication proven and approved for stroke treatment, must be given within three hours of stroke onset in most patients, although in some cases, benefits are seen up to 4.5 hours after symptoms appear.

Song also is associate investigator of an international clinical trial of hypothermia – controlled cooling of body temperature – as a means of reducing neurological damage following stroke. This study is led by Patrick D. Lyden, MD, chairman of the Department of Neurology.

She is certified in neurology and vascular neurology by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology and is a member of the American Academy of Neurology and the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association.

After earning a bachelor’s degree in psychobiology at the University of California, Los Angeles, Song earned her medical degree at the American University of the Caribbean in St. Maarten, NI. She continued her medical training with an internship at St. Agnes Hospital in Baltimore and a neurology residency at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., where she served as chief resident. She then completed a clinical fellowship and stroke research at the National Institutes of Health’s Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, Section of Stroke Diagnostics and Therapeutics in Bethesda, Md.

Cedars-Sinai is a regional stroke referral center for complicated cases. The Stroke Program has received the Gold Award from the American Stroke Association, is certified as a Primary Stroke Center by The Joint Commission and is an Approved Stroke Center of Los Angeles County’s Emergency Medical Services Agency.