Internship and PostDocs for Peds Neuro

[ironkiwi]

I have completed coursework and several practicums through a Clinical PhD program. I always knew peds neuro was my goal, so I took coursework to follow Houston guidelines, and I completed one adult neuro and one peds neuro prac, the latter being at an AMC. I have a couple NP related pubs (one first-authored) and several posters. I am still having trouble matching to a traditional hospital-based ped neuro internship and I wonder if completing an APA accredited internship with 50% lifespan NP training and 50% therapy training through a small consortium is going to make it difficult to match to a pediatric neuropsych post-doc later on? Thanks for any advice!

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[sevenhells]

Are you a member of the ANST Peds Focus Group? They may be able to provide you with some additional insight on this. Google Groups

 

[ironkiwi]

Are you a member of the ANST Peds Focus Group? They may be able to provide you with some additional insight on this. Google Groups

I am, good idea! The forums there are a little less active, hope to hear something-

 

[AcronymAllergy]

What I generally tell trainees is that if they have a good amount of neuro training in grad school, that affords them a bit more flexibility when it comes to internship. The fact that you have a couple pubs, one first-authored, should also work in your favor. Although the quality of the grad program also factors in.

I'm not a pediatric neuropsychologist, so please take what I say with a grain of salt. But if I had to choose between the internship you mentioned and deferring for a year, I'd go with the former. Particularly if the lifespan internship might allow you to skew towards peds cases if you express an interest in such.

 

[CatsFan]

I’m a current adult neuropsych post-doc at a site that also has peds neuro. I think for both adult and peds neuro, but maybe especially peds, internship seems to be the bottleneck and post docs are a little easier to come by. If you have good peds neuro experience prior to internship and you’re able to get at least some additional experience on internship, I think you should be okay.

 

[ExpertHoopJumper]

I have completed coursework and several practicums through a Clinical PhD program. I always knew peds neuro was my goal, so I took coursework to follow Houston guidelines, and I completed one adult neuro and one peds neuro prac, the latter being at an AMC. I have a couple NP related pubs (one first-authored) and several posters. I am still having trouble matching to a traditional hospital-based ped neuro internship and I wonder if completing an APA accredited internship with 50% lifespan NP training and 50% therapy training through a small consortium is going to make it difficult to match to a pediatric neuropsych post-doc later on? Thanks for any advice!

I have been on this soapbox for a while now, but I'll share it here again because I think it's relevant: internship doesn't matter that much. Where you go for postdoc will matter significantly more to your career than where you go to internship. Your broad neuropsych training will serve you well in the postdoc application phase as you will be able to say that you have relevant training across the lifespan and now would like to focus on peds. Postdoc faculty love that. My recommendation is to go to that APA-accredited internship and immediately begin looking ahead to postdoc. (Also, I think lifespan neuro postdocs are dope and you should consider those as well as just peds.)

 

[WisNeuro]

I have been on this soapbox for a while now, but I'll share it here again because I think it's relevant: internship doesn't matter that much. Where you go for postdoc will matter significantly more to your career than where you go to internship. Your broad neuropsych training will serve you well in the postdoc application phase as you will be able to say that you have relevant training across the lifespan and now would like to focus on peds. Postdoc faculty love that. My recommendation is to go to that APA-accredited internship and immediately begin looking ahead to postdoc. (Also, I think lifespan neuro postdocs are dope and you should consider those as well as just peds.)

There is a huge "it depends" in this statement. Really matters what kind of experience someone has coming into internship. Someone with a good amount of experience at good prac sites, will likely be ok. Someone who doe snot have as extensive exp with neuro? Well then, they really need a neuro-focused internship with some populations of interest to be competitive. Lifespan postdocs are fine, but I will never refer out to a lifespan provider, personally.

 

[ironkiwi]

Thank you all for your feedback, it seems like a plan to take this internship (if I match) and continue to gain peds neuro experience over the next couple months is the route forward right now.