Peds neuropsych career question

[PsychStudent203]

Advertisement - Members don't see this ad

.

 

[megamaramon]

Hi! I have a lot of similarity with your training and background.

I have my PhD in school psychology, worked in public education for a few years, then transitioned to academic medicine. My time is currently split between a developmental center and a children's hospital.

At the children's hospital, I do pretty much what you would expect a pediatric neuropsychologist to do. My work at the developmental center, however, is different. Every neuropsychologist is first and foremost a psychologist, so conducting ASD evals is possible if you have the training. You may have to bill using different codes if the child does not have medical complexity that warrants neuropsychology codes. That's totally fine (in my state, psych eval and neuropsych eval codes are reimbursed at the same rate despite my grumblings).

You can have a blend of developmental and neuropsych easily. For example, children with spina bifida have complex medical histories and developmental concerns. Children with tuberous sclerosis have higher likelihood of autism than the general population. Neuropsychologists with neurodevelopmental training are perfect for children with genetic disorders and autism concerns, especially since several genetic conditions have epilepsy and/or brain tumors in the mix. In fact, I was telling a colleague today that we need to hire a neuropsychologist who specializes in neurodevelopmental disorders. While I have done it for years, it's not my clinical passion and the hospital leadership have plans for deployment in oncology clinics. I'm phasing out of a lot of the IDD/ASD cases (the "crawl under the table" testing), and we don't have anyone to fill that role once I transition to a different population.

 

[borne_before]

PhD school psych gang member reporting here as well. I'm at an AMC. I'm doing autism evals right out. Our peds neuropsychs don't touch autism at all.

Don't devalue your skills as a testing psychologist. There really aren't any shortfalls of having a doctorate degree in school psychology other than people from clinical backgrounds don't know what we can do. We are pretty rare tho.

I think of myself as a neurodevelopmental psychologist above all, with extra understanding of schools.

 

[PsychStudent203]

Hi! I have a lot of similarity with your training and background.

I have my PhD in school psychology, worked in public education for a few years, then transitioned to academic medicine. My time is currently split between a developmental center and a children's hospital.

At the children's hospital, I do pretty much what you would expect a pediatric neuropsychologist to do. My work at the developmental center, however, is different. Every neuropsychologist is first and foremost a psychologist, so conducting ASD evals is possible if you have the training. You may have to bill using different codes if the child does not have medical complexity that warrants neuropsychology codes. That's totally fine (in my state, psych eval and neuropsych eval codes are reimbursed at the same rate despite my grumblings).

You can have a blend of developmental and neuropsych easily. For example, children with spina bifida have complex medical histories and developmental concerns. Children with tuberous sclerosis have higher likelihood of autism than the general population. Neuropsychologists with neurodevelopmental training are perfect for children with genetic disorders and autism concerns, especially since several genetic conditions have epilepsy and/or brain tumors in the mix. In fact, I was telling a colleague today that we need to hire a neuropsychologist who specializes in neurodevelopmental disorders. While I have done it for years, it's not my clinical passion and the hospital leadership have plans for deployment in oncology clinics. I'm phasing out of a lot of the IDD/ASD cases (the "crawl under the table" testing), and we don't have anyone to fill that role once I transition to a different population.

Thank you so much for the reply! Super interesting that you're split between those roles. Is the split role a part of your employment (such as the developmental center being a branch of the hospital), or do you work part time at each?

Apologies if this is too personal, but I'm curious about your internship experience. With the high competition for "pure" pediatric neuropsych internships, I'm also looking at more general assessment-based internships (such as conducting psychoeds or brief developmental evals) that might not fall under "neuropsych" but that a school psychology background might fit really well with. When I try to look into forums about the relationship between non-neuro assessment internships and neuro post docs, it's usually referring to adult neuro. I'm interested to hear from your perspective if you think that would be a barrier!

 

[PsychStudent203]

PhD school psych gang member reporting here as well. I'm at an AMC. I'm doing autism evals right out. Our peds neuropsychs don't touch autism at all.

Don't devalue your skills as a testing psychologist. There really aren't any shortfalls of having a doctorate degree in school psychology other than people from clinical backgrounds don't know what we can do. We are pretty rare tho.

I think of myself as a neurodevelopmental psychologist above all, with extra understanding of schools.

Thank you! Agreed, and I do wish that there was a better understanding of our roles within the psych field. I would love to potentially end up working in an AMC, so that's helpful to hear!