Neurology with monocular vision?

[pal34]

I'm a 3rd year med student who's always been interested in neurology (did 4 years of neurodev research in undergrad, LOVED my neuro block)...but I have congenital NLP in my right eye (I wear a prosthesis), and while it’s never affected my day to day life, I know I can’t do microsurgery without stereo vision, or handle 3D imaging that well.

Are there procedures/tests/imaging commonly used in neuro that might be difficult for me?

What I can think of at my current level of training is the fundoscopic exam, for which I just use my good eye for both the patient’s eyes. Also, visual confrontation testing. Since you are essentially using your visual field as a reference to compare the patient against, I’m worried this might become a problem for me. How often do you use it with patients?

I want to understand if it's even feasible for me to complete a neuro residency, or if I'm going to have to cross it off 🙁

(just fyi, this is a throwaway)

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[neglect]

I cannot imagine anything done in neurology that couldn’t be done with one eye. Also, and I know this isn’t very pleasant to think about, but if you ever lost vision in the remaining eye, then I think neurology is one of the few specialties you could practice (you’d still need an MA to help with some things).

When I was in med school a doctor told the class that those who don’t have depth perception shouldn’t become surgeons. I thought that was overkill then and continue to think so now. Like laparoscopic surgeries are done with 3D glasses? You don’t think the monocular have plastic brain changes to see depth?

 

[kchan99]

I think the most visually demanding aspects of neurology are looking at eye movements, CT's and MRI's, and through ophthalmoscopes. I'm sure these activities can be done with one healthy eye. I think that for direct confrontation for visual fields you can get a good approximation of where to stand and where to place your hands after working with more attendings and senior residents.

 

[oopsy]

This is entirely a non-issue. You will be fine to do neurology residency with monocular vision. It's hard to imagine what you could miss out. The fact that you even try to look in someone's eyes with a scope means that you're already seeing more than 98% of physicians. Seriously, full steam ahead.