Bettina Schmitz is Senior Registrar and Head of the Epilepsy Research Group in the Department of Neurology at the Charite, Virchow-Klinikum, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany. She qualified in medicine from the Free University in Berlin in 1986, and worked as a research fellow at the Institute of Neurology in Queen Square, London, before returning to Berlin in 1992 to take up a post as registrar in the Department of Psychiatry at the Free University. She qualified in psychiatry, psychotherapy and neurology. She completed her MD in 1989, her PhD in 1997. Dr Schmitz' research has focused on e...