Pursuing Neurology in Regard to Neuroprosthetics & Neural Implants [Please Read]

[Dr. Syzygy]

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Hi

I have just graduated with BS degrees in biomedical engineering, electrical and computer engineering and neuroscience with a 3.2 and am looking to apply to DO schools in a couple of years after I have strengthened my application and payed back some student loans. I am applying to DO schools because of my subpar GPA as well as that I feel that OMT will be a useful tool for some neurological and neuromuscular diagnoses and treatments so it would be a good idea to learn it.

I am very interested in the bioelectrical aspects of neuroscience as well as the development of neuroprosthetics and neural implants for rehabilitation for patients with neuromuscular disorders. In my undergraduate years I have helped design medical prototypes for noninvasive rehabilitation of hand and leg neuromuscular disorders

Apart from this research and development aspect I am also interested in patient contact and treatment which I have some experience with through shadowing and nearly 5 years of 911 EMT service.

To satisfy both desires I am looking to do part time patient contact as a neurologist and part time R&D for neurological devices so I am likely looking for an academic or company position with patient care mixed in as a neurologist (I think...😕).

I was wondering If my assumptions or ideas are flawed or if what I propose to do will get me to my goals.

thanks for reading. 🙂

 

[bustbones26]

Hi

I have just graduated with BS degrees in biomedical engineering, electrical and computer engineering and neuroscience with a 3.2 and am looking to apply to DO schools in a couple of years after I have strengthened my application and payed back some student loans. I am applying to DO schools because of my subpar GPA as well as that I feel that OMT will be a useful tool for some neurological and neuromuscular diagnoses and treatments so it would be a good idea to learn it.

I am very interested in the bioelectrical aspects of neuroscience as well as the development of neuroprosthetics and neural implants for rehabilitation for patients with neuromuscular disorders. In my undergraduate years I have helped design medical prototypes for noninvasive rehabilitation of hand and leg neuromuscular disorders

Apart from this research and development aspect I am also interested in patient contact and treatment which I have some experience with through shadowing and nearly 5 years of 911 EMT service.

To satisfy both desires I am looking to do part time patient contact as a neurologist and part time R&D for neurological devices so I am likely looking for an academic or company position with patient care mixed in as a neurologist (I think...😕).

I was wondering If my assumptions or ideas are flawed or if what I propose to do will get me to my goals.

thanks for reading. 🙂

Don't sell yourself short on your GPA. I studied chemical engineering and I know from experience how difficult it is to obtain an engineering degree.

What I will say next may offend some, but sorry, I don't know many of my colleagues that were taking Engineering reactor kinetics, Advanced thermodynamics, and math courses way beyond calculus II. Before anybody thinks I am poking fun at them, keep in mind that I regret this. I was burned out before I even started medical school and that was not a good way to start and be warned, if you have all of these engineering degrees under your belt you may very well face the same fate.

Anyways, there are many biomedical graduate programs that emphasize this type of thing from a non-MD/DO perspective.

If you want to see patients, my advice would be neurology residency followed by a neurorehabilitation fellowship or PM&R with possibe fellowship in neurorehab.

For what it is worth, I am a DO and there of course is heavy emphasis on neuromusculoskeletal medicine in your pre-clinical years, from the osteopathic perspective of course. Its a nice skill to have if you want to use it, but not necessary for your career goals.

 

[oreosandsake]

there is research going on at the Rehabilitation Institute Chicago that would interest you. check out Dr. Kuiken.

http://www.ric.org/aboutus/people/doctors/detail.aspx?doctorID=43

scroll to the bottom for research

 

[07mcattaker]

Dr. Syzygy

whats up, i'm finishing my third year at an allopathic med school, and will be applying in neurology,

what was your core science gpa? (when i was applying this was emphasized more than overall gpa)
how's your mcat?
i ask because those were the two metrics used to screen applicants, but the interview was what got an admission, you seem to have good extracurricular activities and if you interview well, you shouldn't have a problem getting in somewhere. you mentioned you are applying to the DO's, are you also applying to MD programs?

also
did you read Dreadstar growing up?

 

[Dr. Syzygy]

Dr. Syzygy

whats up, i'm finishing my third year at an allopathic med school, and will be applying in neurology,

what was your core science gpa? (when i was applying this was emphasized more than overall gpa)
how's your mcat?
i ask because those were the two metrics used to screen applicants, but the interview was what got an admission, you seem to have good extracurricular activities and if you interview well, you shouldn't have a problem getting in somewhere. you mentioned you are applying to the DO's, are you also applying to MD programs?

My core science gpa is around a 3.2 due to 3 really poor semesters earlier on since I didn't have the study skills and self discipline needed to tackle 20 credit loads of engineering and pure science classes each semester while participating in extracurricular activities, like I do now. I do have a marked upward trend however. 😳

One of the reasons for going the DO route is so that I can take advantage of their grade replacement system which I will utilize to hopefully go from 3.2 to 3.4 pure science. For DO schools, engineering gpa is factored in with the sGPA so my engineering only gpa (3.17 to be exact) will drag down the sGPA even when I do retake some of the Cs and C+s I received earlier on. At my university the class average is set to either a C or a C+ for both science and engineering classes.

I hope to apply with 3.3 sGPA, 3.3 cGPA with 35+ MCAT to only DO schools (due to gpa concerns as well as the usefulness of OMT to my goals as described in an earlier post above). I am most likely going to apply 2 years from now in order to strengthen the application. I'll be working as an engineer till then (hopefully some where in the medical device industry), while re-taking some pure science classes (like genetics and orgo) and shadowing docs on the side. I definitely want to shadow neuro, neuromuscular rehab and OMT docs before I apply.

also
did you read Dreadstar growing up?

No, I didn't read Dreadstar growing up, I mostly stuck to the main stream comics like batman, spiderman and X-men. However, from my brief web search, the adventures of a cyborg sorcerer does sound like an interesting read (the beauty of wikipedia 😀). The name syzygy comes from my interest in astronomy where it means an alignment of three celestial bodies like the moon, earth and sun aligned linearly. It also is defined as the relationship between any two related things. Mostly, I chose the name because it sounded cool and has some meaning behind it 😀.

I really appreciate all the replies. 🙂