Can anyone suggest a good resources for behavioral neurology related pharmacology. I am a behavioral neurology fellow and want to brush up my knowledge about psychiatry pharmolcogy.

Does anyone know about the status of the program? On ERAS it states that the program is not offering a training position for Neurology anymore

Is the article-based continuing certification ABCC pathway different from the 90 CME pathway (with category 1 and self-assessment questions)? Do you have to do both to avoid the 10 year exam? Or just one or the other? Or does ABCC count towards the general CME? I’ve looked at their website and I just don’t understand what I’m supposed to be doing.

Hi, is anyone attending AAN 2025 in April? Looking for 2/3 roommates (female) from 3rd to 10th April. Please DM me. Alternatively, if anyone is looking for a roommate, please DM!

After my psych and neuro rotations, I’ve been stuck trying to decide between the two. I’m posting this here in the hopes that people further along in training can give me honest guidance.

Neuro pros:

• ⁠I like the more objective nature of thinking about the brain and enjoy the closer ties to neuroanatomy (I really enjoy thinking about the connection of neuroanatomical structures to body/behavioral function)

• ⁠I enjoy feeling useful in an emergency situation.

Neuro cons:

• ⁠As my clinical year has gone on, I’ve learned that work life balance matters to me a lot. I have heard quite a bit about how bad neuro is in that regard, particularly in the first two years.

• ⁠The vast amount of knowledge neurologists at the attending level are expected to know stone cold intimidates me. IM killed me with all the disease processes, drugs, etc I had to keep track of, so I’m a little scared of the responsibility of caring for complex medical patients.

Psych pros:

• ⁠I find psychiatric diseases incredibly interesting. I did my PhD on ventriculomegaly and so had to learn a lot about schizophrenia. Diving into all that literature was honestly one of my favorite academic experiences.

• ⁠Fantastic work-life balance, even as resident.

Psych cons:

• ⁠this is admittedly very vain, but while I respect psychiatrists so much as physicians, ultimately I think I may be bothered that many people disagree/dislike them or do not consider them real doctors.

• ⁠I don’t love the idea of doing talk therapy with patients. It just all feels so awkward and artificial to me. I’ve loved the many genuine interactions I’ve had with patients on all my rotations, but therapy feels too forced.

Hey everyone, I have been fortunate to interview at programs that I really wanted. Most of them are planning to be at ISC, however I will not be able to attend the conference. Does this have any significance in terms of your chances at the program/ or any impact on the application?

My sensory exam needs some refining. While in a rush, I typically just stroke a patient's deltoids and shins and ask if they feel equal. But I want to refine this to figure out what exactly I am testing and where to localize this. Am I testing dermatomes, cutaneous nerves or both? Is one clinically more important than the other? Let's pretend I only have one patient per day to do a full comprehensive exam: how would you do a full, purely academic, sensory exam on a patient?

Hi im a non-US IMG, applying neurology. The programs im confused to rank are: prisma health greer, university of Missouri Columbia, SIU (southern Illinois university).

I was considering UMiss then Prisma then SIU. Based on the location and the program and its connections in the future, can you help me rank them please? Any input would be appreciated

I have heard that old exams are posted online but cannot seem to find any. What are some consistently high yield topics?

Hi everyone, I am an IMG with YOG 7 and completed a PM&R residency in my home country.

These are my statistics:
Step 1 240, Step 2 250, Step 3 240 (all in the first attempts)
I'm a Green card holder
Publications: 9 journal articles (3 Pain medicine-related)
Conference abstracts: 8 (4 in Pain medicine conferences)
3 months of USCE

Additional degree: MSc in a Canadian University
I'm now doing a remote research program with a doctor in the US.

What is my chance to apply for Neurology (because I found myself in love with neurology after my home residency program and want to aim for pain medicine or interventional neurology fellowship)?

My main concern is my YOG, so I’m curious if I still have a chance to match into neurology. I’d appreciate your thoughts and advice!

Had a few questions about Neurology auditions/residency as an MS-3 at a DO school. Right now my specialties of interest are IM and PM&R but for the longest time during our neuroanatomy block M1 year i wanted to be a stroke neurologist because i genuinely loved neuroanatomy and learning stroke syndromes. I have a Neurology elective lined up in April and Im in a tough spot because that’s pretty late in VSLO season. I have a feeling I might like my Neuro rotation and have to scramble to get a Neuro audition.

Wanted to ask a few questions regarding auditions. How screwed am I if I have to scramble for auditions because of a last minute switch to Neuro? Additionally, how strong was your neurology knowledge foundation prior to auditions/residency. As i mentioned I loved learning strokes and neuro anatomy but that was two years ago and Ive forgotten a lot of it. Im sure I can relearn it but Im worried on a Neuro audition I wouldnt know anything. So many people that I see are residents have an extensive knowledge and exposure to Neurology. Everyone did neuroscience as an undergrad or did neuro focused research (both of which I didnt’). Im wondering if you can still be a successful Neurologist with a limited exposure to Neurology in general. Thanks and any advice is appreciated.

I'm applying to neurology residency this upcoming year. I have a few questions: (sorry if it's dumb)

1. I see some programs are consult only and some have a mix of both consult and primary. If you're the primary, does that mean you'll be writing admitting H&P and discharge summary and medicine team won't touch the pt? Is being primary a plus in training?
2. Night floats vs 24 hour calls - thoughts?
3. Did you ever consider EMR system when applying to a program?
4. Anyone know anything about Cedars-Sinai or Kaiser SoCal's program? If you're currently in training, what are some pros and cons about your program?

I'll probably have more questions later on. Thanks in advance.

How is it done properly? Where does it localize?

Most people only ever go through a single residency program, and sometimes that limits our perspective. What about your own training—or the training of someone whose neurology prowess you admire—helped forge great neurologists?

Is the old adage that "repetition makes for competency" true, or is there more nuance to that statement? Should neurologists interested in becoming exceptional outpatient clinicians focus on programs with a greater outpatient split, or should everyone aim to gain as much inpatient experience as possible?

The above are just ideas, but the main question I want to explore is this: What experiences during residency do you attribute to your success as a neurologist?

I am a 3rd year DO student that recently decided to apply neurology this coming fall. So far I have no “red flags”, have passed step1/level 1 and planning to take step 2 this summer, have great evals from my rotations, and have multiple volunteer/leadership experiences. I haven’t done any research in med school but have research experiences and a few presentations from undergrad. I will have done 2 neuro rotations by the end of my 3rd year and am planning to use LORs from these. So far, none of my ECs are neuro-related. Is this going to be a problem for trying to match neuro?

Also, how necessary are away rotations for neuro?

Having a tough time deciding on two residency programs. Have a desire to do neurophysiology fellowship after residency.

Program A: Large well known academic program in large city, said to be very rigorous neurology residency, HCOL, but really diverse cases and good training.

Program B: New low tier academic program in my LCOL hometown. Conducted research with one of the faculty members.

Long term goal: private practice after neurophysiology fellowship.

Seeking advice on whether I should prioritize better, but more rigorous training in well known program over a more chill new program near family where I could save more money. Would odds for neurophys fellowship be much lower in smaller program?

What would you choose and why?

When does one get the acceptance emails for the upcoming conference?

Are there genetic markers linked to the risk of Guillain-Barré Syndrome?

I've seen many people reference that the best way to prepare for RITE is to review old RITE exam questions. But I'm having a hard time locating these old exam questions. Does anyone have the pdfs somewhere? For program specific reason I'm going to have to do well in the upcoming one. Any help is greatly appreciated!

This is intended for future Neurologists;

I am writing from UB as a neurology resident, will not specify which year, in light of all of the publicity the university has gotten in regards to bad faith negotiations, etc.

Im really writing to tell you it's not as bad as you would think. There is lots of chatter which will pull you in all directions, but before you certify rank lists, please hear me out.

UB will provide you with fantastic training as a Neurologist. It is both high volume and low on unnecessary admin work. We are consult only service, see plenty of new patients every day, leave our recommendations pertinent to a neurology question, and move on with our list. We don't put in orders. All we do is think Neurology. Coming from a place where we were primary team, I can tell you the learning is increased exponentially.

That's the main point. I also think things are generally blown out of proportion as to how "bad" we have it here. Yes our employer bargains in bad faith. Yes our union sucks and we are stuck at the mercy of the contract for 3 years until we can strike again. But we did get a pay raise. And the neurology training is good. So please, come here

Signed, -PGYx neurology

In neurology clinic I semi-regularly get patients who come for various neuromuscular diagnoses which ostensibly require treatment with IVIG. On further examination however, I often find that the diagnosis was a little suspect in the first place (“primarily sensory” Guillain-Barré syndrome diagnosed due to borderline CSF protein elevation, “seronegative” myasthenia without corroborating EDX, etc), and that there are minimal/no objective deficits which would justify ongoing infusion therapy.

However, when I share the good news with patients that they no longer require costly and time consuming therapy (whether they ever needed such therapy notwithstanding) they regular react with a level of vitriol comparable to the reaction I get when I suggest to patients that taking ASA-caffeine-butalbital compounds TID for 30 years straight isn’t healthy; patients swear up and down that IVIG is the only thing that relieves their polyathralgias, fatigue, and painful parenthesis - symptoms that often have no recognized relationship with the patient’s nominal diagnosis.

Informally I understand many of my colleagues at my current and previous institutions recognize this phenomenon too. I’ve heard it called tongue-in-cheek “IVIG addiction”. The phenomenon seems out of proportion to mere placebo effect (or does it?) and I can’t explain it by the known pharmacological properties of IVIG. I’ve never seen the phenomenon described in scientific literature, although it seems to be widely known. What is your experience / pet hypothesis explaining why some patients love getting IVIG so much?

A few months ago, I came across a piece of information stating that the sounds that babies make (meaning them trying to speak) are not actually random and that there is a neurological substrate of their speech. Does anyone have an explanation for that?

Anyone feel that having fellows take quizzes, exams (midterm + final), OSCEs, etc. during training is odd and almost degrading? Not talking about speciality inservice exams (i.e. EpiFITE), but something the program itself implements. Is this a red flag?

Edit: For context, I’ve seen two “top programs” include these type of things during program overviews this season which is enough for me to DNR.

I think at this point, I (pgy2) am most interested in pursuing Movement Disorders. The one thing that is kind of putting me off is the duration. It seems like compared to some of the other fellowships I am considering, Movement Disorders is almost a guaranteed 2 year program based on the places I've looked at.

I know the argument that it's only an extra year in the grand scheme of things but I feel like I've just been in training for so long that I just want to start my "real" career as soon as possible, if possible.

I was able to find a 1 year program at Northwestern, but are there other 1-year programs out there (especially on the east coast)? And for anyone who is trained in Movement Disorders, is 1-year enough? Or is it better to just suck it up and go for the 2-year option?

Hello everyone and especially the leadership here,

Do you look at step3 scores when you re choosing candidates for competitive fellowships or even residency per say?

Our community is approaching 50k users and I'd like to poll /r/neurology to get some demographic info about who posts / lurks here. Reddit has a limit of 6 poll options; I hope my options are not too US-centric but I am interested in breakdown of academic vs non-academic neurologists here.

View Poll

What's a reasonable patient load per clinical FTE?

I'm struggling to find follow-up slots for my return patients despite double-booking on days I have a fellow with me, and alternating or split-shared visits with my PA whenever possible. I discharge most essential tremor or worried well back to PCP if I can; I do continuing following PD patients due to the complexity of that disease. But now my next follow up is in 2026! My template utilization is already at 175% (I am supposedly 0.15 cFTE but am working more like 0.25 cFTE) and it's unsustainable. My scholarly work is suffering, not to mention access for my current patients.

I am considering closing to new patients, at least temporarily. Have you done this? How do you frame this ask to your admin? (They are not sympathetic to burnout, I already tried that.)

Sorry, I meant Kisunla, not Kesimpta. Just dealing with dad Brain right now.

I have a private practice, and I've got a handful of patients on anti-amyloid therapy at this point I've even got one guy who participated in the clinical trials and now looking to see if his amyloid has returned or not. So just curious what I can realistically tell people when they ask me what happens after three years?

I am filling out a fellowship application off season for a current open position for 2025. I just want to confirm that I'm putting the write things. They have a section for professional experiences. Does that only include paid work as a physician outside of residency or med school, or does that include any volunteer work or research? There is no other section to put volunteer stuff so I just wasn't sure and as I have no actual pain work experience as a physician outside of residency, i would leave that spot blank otherwise. Thanks in advance.