Can I work in neuroscience without being a doctor?

[lazerquest]

I'm extremely interested in neuroscience careers, (psychiatrist, neurologist, neurosurgeon, ect.), but the posts about the decreasing rates of doctor happiness and increasing rates of student debt are scaring me. How involved could a registered nurse or physicians assistant be in this field? Can you think of any other careers that may fall into this field? (I can't see myself doing research.)

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[WedgeDawg]

You could check out clinical psychology (PsyD), but from what I hear, you need research to get into it and your career might not have as much stability as if you were to go the med school route. Audiology and Optometry are technically within the realm of neuroscience. You can be an RN, NP, or PA who works in, say, a neuro ICU or in neurosurgery ORs (though I think they rotate between services), but that's not going to give you any sort of real exposure to neuroscience.

Why are you interested in a career related to neuroscience?

 

[DesertPT]

Neurological rehabilitation is another possibility. Very different work from what physicians do on a daily basis but very cool! I'm of course a little biased...

I would pick a career based on whether you really want to go into that profession in general, not based on a particular specialty of interest. Most high schoolers who want to be a doctor think they are going to be a neurosurgeon. Hearing one cool lecture about neurosciences or reading a couple of cool articles about how amazing the brain is really tends to light people's fire and they think its neurosurgery/neurology or bust. The reality though is that your interests will almost certainly change while in med school, nursing school, PT school, PA school etc. And I don't think it's really possible to know as a teenager that committing to 15 years of training to be a neurosurgeon is going to be the right path for you.

And if you are still in high school you really don't need to be figuring this out right now anyway! I literally didn't have clue one what I was going to do with myself until I was at least 22 and things worked out just fine. It's totally fine to have interests but realize that you need to take things one step at a time. Get into college and then go from there.

 

[beestrng]

OTs work in neuroscience too

http://www.ot.chhs.colostate.edu/faculty-staff/patricia_davies.aspx

 

[DesertPT]

OTs work in neuroscience too

http://www.ot.chhs.colostate.edu/faculty-staff/patricia_davies.aspx

Indeed. Pretty much never see a neurological patient that doesn't get OT & PT (at least for adult inpatient rehab). The line between the domain of PT & OT when it comes to neurological rehabilitation gets blurrier and blurrier all the time.

 

[Goro]

You can get a PhD in the field.