Your 2 cents appreciated?
And to match into this fellowship is it very competitive?
And to match into this fellowship is it very competitive?
what is the best neuropsych fellowship?
- Thread starter Blitz2006
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I have absolutely no idea what a neuropsych fellowship is, but I am almost positive it is not competitive. There is no such thing as a neuropsychiatrist btw. There are neurologists, and there are psychiatrists. And then some people who are both. Psychiatrists who do a neuropsych fellowship are psychiarists.
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Then in the flip side, would there be such things as behavioral neurologists or just neurologists?
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It's not very competitive, like every other psychiatry fellowship. That's largely because it's usually not necessary, since neuropsych isn't a board-certified subspecialty.
I'm surprised that vistaril has never heard of it. It's a pretty well-established subspecialty. But we don't have neuropsychiatrists (except for sub-sub-specialized movement disorders people) at my institution because the general psychiatrists are expected to be capable of handling neuropsychiatric problems.
I'm surprised that vistaril has never heard of it. It's a pretty well-established subspecialty. But we don't have neuropsychiatrists (except for sub-sub-specialized movement disorders people) at my institution because the general psychiatrists are expected to be capable of handling neuropsychiatric problems.
I was being sarcastic...I've heard of it and have referenced it several times on this forum in the past(mostly in negative terms).
You're either a neurologist, a psychiatrist, or both(someone who has completed training in neurology and psychiatry).
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I don't disagree with that general idea - a neuropsychiatrist is NOT a neurologist of any type, just a psychiatrist who is specialized in dealing with certain disorders. But saying that there's no such thing as a neuropsychiatrist is like saying that there's no such thing as a geriatric psychiatrist... you're NOT a geriatrician, you ARE a psychiatrist, but there's nothing wrong with saying that you're a psychiatrist who specializes in geriatric problems.
yeah.....I can buy that perhaps. I do question the utility of this though.....seems like one of these fields for people who want to stay in academics their whole career and do a lot of research. Unlike something like child psych(or even geri to a lesser extent), this is not the kind of thing you can go off and do and have tons of patients funneled your way in community practice. There are some VA TBI units one could work at I guess and do this outside academia, but then you're probably going to be one of those confusing multidisciplinary teams where you're playing second fiddle to neuro.
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Just because it's not something that interests you doesn't mean that it doesn't have utility. I agree that if you want to be a neuropsychiatrist, you're asking for an academic career. Some of us actually want that. I briefly considered doing a neuropsych fellowship to improve my chances at getting a good academic job at my current institution, but then our department chair told me that it wouldn't really matter.
I developed that thought when I rotated on neuro and realized how bad they are at managing the psychiatric manifestations of their patients' neurological problems (no surprise, since adequate management of those complex patients would likely require a real psychiatrist rather than a person who just rotated on psych for 6 weeks), and I mentioned in passing to the dept chair that it might improve patient care if we had a dedicated neuropsychiatrist just to help manage those patients. He said that our consult team should be able to handle that, and if the neurologists aren't consulting us enough, that's their choice. When I thought about it, he was right - there was nothing about those patients that couldn't be handled by the general psychiatrists who run our consult service, but it was outside the scope of a neurologist's practice.
That said, we do have a movement disorders psych specialist (essentially a neuropsychiatrist) who is very good at managing things like Huntington's, tardive, Tourette's, and other less-common but similar problems. In many cases, he takes care of problems that ARE outside the scope of both general psychiatry and general neurology. There's a very small supply (and very small demand) of people like him, so patients drive in from quite far away for his services. Every local psychiatrist refers to him for subspecialty care when needed. As you said, this sort of practice model is only possible at a large academic center, and is only appropriate for people who are interested in academia.
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I don't believe the OP ever mentioned practice setting. I would only presume someone considering a neuropsychiatry fellowship would already assume they're eyeballing practice in some type of academic center.
BCM (Houston, TX) started on Neuropsychiatry division and I believe a fellowship opportunity was to be established with that gift as well.
https://www.bcm.edu/news/donations-and-gifts/gift-division-of-neuropsychiatry-at-bcm
I'm not sure what the start date would be, but you'd get to train with Arciniegas. Outside of his brilliance, he seems very personable. I'm sure he'd be responsive to an e-mail inquiry.
https://www.bcm.edu/departments/psychiatry-and-behavioral-sciences/index.cfm?pmid=24101
https://www.bcm.edu/news/donations-and-gifts/gift-division-of-neuropsychiatry-at-bcm
I'm not sure what the start date would be, but you'd get to train with Arciniegas. Outside of his brilliance, he seems very personable. I'm sure he'd be responsive to an e-mail inquiry.
https://www.bcm.edu/departments/psychiatry-and-behavioral-sciences/index.cfm?pmid=24101
