Neurology vs Cardiology

The specialty you enjoy the most is the sexiest one.

the 2 fields are pretty darned different. It's your life, you're going to be spending >80-90% of your life working in it, so all that matters is what you find sexy, and not what others see as sexy. You prob wont even have time to go into the general public to boast about being a cardiologist, neurologist, whatever.

Dont know about the general public's perception but I would think cardiology was far sexier.... plus on dates you could say you are a heart doctor and wiggle your eyebrows suggestively

Although the idea of telling your date that you are a 'Brain Doctor' aka neurologist has some appeal... I think the 'Heart Doctor' definitely wins.

I think both are in pretty high demand. The huge difference (besides the obvious difference in subject matter), is that cardiology is HEAVILY clinical (even the research), while the future of neurology lies in the science and in lab research. That said, neuro still does involve a heck of a lot of clinical work, as tons of patients have neurologic issues (stroke, epilepsy, radiculopathy, neuropathy, parkinsons, neuro-oncology, etc, etc etc, etc) and you can also pursue an interventional radiology track or pain, or neuro-CCM. Granted i'm only at the PGY-1 level, but from what it seems to me, in cardiology, one is kinda forced into a career path that is heavily clinical. Research is important, but the research seems to entail clinical trials for the most part.

Personally, i kinda have a preference for neurology. I think there's a lot more variety, and i find neuroscience fascinating. The one thing that put neurology #2 on my career choice list after what i ended up choosing, was that clinically often nothing could be done to intervene to save a patient, say from a devastating stroke or herniation, etc, and often it was just about observing, and either the patient got better thanks to their own body, or they died. The research is absolutely fascinating though. Even though i'm not going to be a neurologist, I think i want to work on research in neuroscience. There's a lot to be discovered there.

That said, i do like cardiac physiology too. However in cardiology, the common things present EXTREMELY commonly so it tends to get repetitive. I also think a career in neurology provides for a more flexible lifestyle than cardiology does.

Cardiologist = Neurosurgeon >>> Neurologist.

LOL @ "Brain Doctor"

salmonella said:

what about doing internal medicine residency first, then do neurology residency afterward? Is this commonly done? Will a double boarded internist/neurologist be more marketable?

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not commonly done...can't think of where it would be more marketable...maybe rural setting where there is no neuro.


tm

Billy Shears said:

Cardiologists get paid a lot more though. I don't think anyone will deny that.

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well maybe so, but what does that have to do with anything? It's not like neurologists are paupers. I say, go into what you enjoy & what fascinates you.

I don't think Neurosurgery is THAT competitive. There aren't a lot of spots, but there isn't a lot of demand for them, either. If the residency wasn't 7 years of toil followed by a career of toiling, I'd think there'd be more takers.

At any rate, I was just offering my opinion on relative "sexiness", which is what the OP was talking about. If you asked the average joe on the street which was more impressive, I think he'd go with cardiology and neurosurgery over neurology.

salmonella said:

what about doing internal medicine residency first, then do neurology residency afterward? Is this commonly done? Will a double boarded internist/neurologist be more marketable?

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It isn't commonly done because people who want to be double-boarded in medicine and neurology will typically do one of the many combined residencies which are available, which allows you to sit for the boards of both specialities after five years.

prazmatic said:

On the other hand, anyone who so much as passes the boards could land an IM residency somewhere (not putting down internists, please dont flame me), work for a couple years to get a fellowship, work less hours in a day, and has less control over life than someone who cuts brains. How can you even begin to compare the 2?

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While you are correct about IM itself not being competitive, cardiology (along with GI) is an intensely competitive fellowship within that group which, if it were it's own speciality separate from IM, would probably vie with neurosurg, derm, ortho, etc. in terms of competitiveness. On average, the folks who end up going into cards are similar to the type of folks who end up going in the aforementioned fields.

Purifyer said:

Dont know about the general public's perception but I would think cardiology was far sexier.... plus on dates you could say you are a heart doctor and wiggle your eyebrows suggestively

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hehehe
"I fix broken hearts baby"

drbon said:

hehehe
"I fix broken hearts baby"

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cheesy. . .

salmonella said:

Just out of curiosity, which specialty sounds sexier to the lay public: Neurology or Cardiology? What do you guys think?

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The only way medicine sounds "sexy" is if you say you are a...

neurosurgeon
trauma surgeon
pediatric surgeon
pediatrician
EM doc
medical missionary in Africa
"rich enough to buy this Audi"

AmoryBlaine said:

The only way medicine sounds "sexy" is if you say you are a...

neurosurgeon
trauma surgeon
pediatric surgeon
pediatrician
EM doc
medical missionary in Africa
"rich enough to buy this Audi"

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a pediatrician is sexy? I think you've had one too many Flintstones vitamins.
p diddy

AmoryBlaine said:

The only way medicine sounds "sexy" is if you say you are a...

neurosurgeon
trauma surgeon
pediatric surgeon
pediatrician
EM doc
medical missionary in Africa
"rich enough to buy this Audi"

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yeah, since when is a pediatrician sexy? Maybe to those who like cartoon character printed ties and little stuffed animals hanging off a stethoscope!

I'd add cardiothoracic and plastic surgeons to the list as well.

Wrigleyville said:

At any rate, I was just offering my opinion on relative "sexiness", which is what the OP was talking about. If you asked the average joe on the street which was more impressive, I think he'd go with cardiology and neurosurgery over neurology.

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P Diddy said:

a pediatrician is sexy? I think you've had one too many Flintstones vitamins.
p diddy

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I think most people on here underestimate just how "lay" the "lay public" is about medicine.

I think most people without a family contact in medicine and with no extended personal history of illness absolutely get most of their info from House, ER, scrubs, and gray's anatomy. I honestly think that most people literally don't understand a thing about medical education, specialties or the profession as a whole, as they've never had the interest nor the need to learn... and the questions I've gotten from family and friends in the first two years of school have so far served to back me up.

I'm not sure the average joe on the street could tell you the difference between a neurosurgeon and a neurologist.

I can also tell you that yes, for sure, to someone not familiar with medicine, pediatrics is sexy. The bad rap peds gets from us, as med students, is that they get paid squat and it's 'boring' since it can be so repetitive. To someone outside of medicine these neither of these really makes sense. A peds (and family for that matter, and psych, and IM, and anything else you can think of) salary is still way more than most people outside of medicine will ever make (please no one try to tell me anything about 'i-banking'....)...and most people would never understand what you mean by working with sick kids is 'boring,' because they honestly don't realize that most kids that most pediatricians work with are not actually all that sick.

Derm, urology, radiology are most definitely unsexy. I really don't believe most people would expect these to be highly competitive specialties, nor especially lucrative. Most people don't even understand what a lot of what we consider high-powered specialties do -- like rads, for example. There are plenty of people who couldn't completely tell you the difference between a radiologist and the xray tech. And even if we as med students understand medical professionalism, and that one part of the body is the same as any other and all need medical attention, and that some people really like uro for its combination of medicine and surgery, and it's good treatment outcomes, and this and that and the other thing, if I was a urologist out at a bar picking up women, I would likely say I was a 'surgeon.' Ophtho I can see people thinking is impressive, and some other surgical subspecialties. But my point is, I'm really not convinced that a lot of people have any idea about this stuff that we take for granted. As an educated college graduate who had long planned on medicine, researched schools, taken lots of sciences etc, I definitely had NO IDEA what the "prestigious" specialties were, until the first month of med school when it becomes rammed down everyone's throat. If some of us, intelligent and educated people with interests in medicine, didn't know this stuff until we got to med school, how on earth would anyone with no connection whatsoever to medicine know that?

In short, I agree with AmoryBlaine's list of medical sexiness. There might be others who might have it on an individual basis, ie any specialty might seem cool to an outsider for certain specific reasons, like I dunno, if the doc is a stud researcher in that field at an elite hospital everyone's heard of, or something...but I'd agree those are the handful that do it in and of themselves, like all you have to say is 'trauma surgery' and -- there you have it, sex appeal.

P Diddy said:

a pediatrician is sexy? I think you've had one too many Flintstones vitamins.
p diddy

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To the "lay" public, absolutely. But you're right, I'm high on Bam-Bam right now.

jocg27 said:

There are plenty of people who couldn't completely tell you the difference between a radiologist and the xray tech.

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Your post seems right on. I laughed at this quote. Soon after I was admitted to med school a friend and I were talking about different specialties and she looked at me and said, "You don't need to go to med school to be a radiologist!" That was fun to explain. Later on, since I started thinking about neurology, my wife's parents started asking me about why I wanted to do brain surgery. These are all college educated people, but there is just no reason for them to know about medical training. I think of it as being similar to knowing the different types of lawyers. I might be able to name a few kinds, especially those types from TV shows, but I couldn't tell you the career path you take to get there, or what their day to day activities entail.

I had the same thought! It has been more than once that a patient has told me about their family member who is a "radiologist" - come to find out they're a radiology tech.

If you are a geek that asked this question, you have told the world that you need to brag about being a doctor to get laid. How sad. You have no social skills.

Well I have realized anything with the word "forensic" in it seems to excite people, especially coming from a guy like me doing psych-nothing gets less play than a psychiatrist however whenever I meet someone for the first time and it comes out my interest in going into FORENSIC pyschiatry-they must get lost on the word forensic and not hear psychiatry but it adds oodles of sexiness. Even forensic pathology sounds good. Not sure what else can be forensic-forensic cardiology oo la la!

Analyzethis said:

Well I have realized anything with the word "forensic" in it seems to excite people, especially coming from a guy like me doing psych-nothing gets less play than a psychiatrist however whenever I meet someone for the first time and it comes out my interest in going into FORENSIC pyschiatry-they must get lost on the word forensic and not hear psychiatry but it adds oodles of sexiness. Even forensic pathology sounds good. Not sure what else can be forensic-forensic cardiology oo la la!

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That settles it. From now on, I'm Dr. Nort Herner, forensic forensicist.