Question about Neuro-Ophtho

[ruthless29]

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Hey everyone, long time reader (like every night) and first time poster here. I appreciate all the great knowledge on this forum.

I'm at the end of my MSIII year and am pretty sure Neuro is a great choice for me, but I'm still toying with the idea of doing something a little more procedural. I was wondering what the difference is between Neuro --> Neuro-Ophtho and Ophtho --> Neuro-Ophtho, and what the difference would be in their day to day work. It seems like going the ophtho route would just allow you to do procedures. Is there any benefit at all to doing the neuro route?

Also, since there are so many fellowship options available after Neuro, what are the more procedural ones? I know NeuroIR is one but i was wondering what else is out there.

Thanks everyone for your responses!

 

[danielmd06]

Hey everyone, long time reader (like every night) and first time poster here. I appreciate all the great knowledge on this forum.

I'm at the end of my MSIII year and am pretty sure Neuro is a great choice for me, but I'm still toying with the idea of doing something a little more procedural. I was wondering what the difference is between Neuro --> Neuro-Ophtho and Ophtho --> Neuro-Ophtho, and what the difference would be in their day to day work. It seems like going the ophtho route would just allow you to do procedures. Is there any benefit at all to doing the neuro route?

Also, since there are so many fellowship options available after Neuro, what are the more procedural ones? I know NeuroIR is one but i was wondering what else is out there.

Thanks everyone for your responses!

Well, if you like procedures, neurology has more than most people realize. Ye olde general neurology typically only has EMG, EEG, and the lumbar puncture. Outside of this (and usually with fellowship training), there are a wealth of procedures including botox (for migraine and movement disorders), EMG, EEG, sleep studies (including PSG, MSLT, and MWT), evoked potentials, intra-operative monitoring, neurocritical care, and neurointerventional. I am probably forgetting some others. There are also neuroimaging fellowships if you want to count interpretation of neuroradiology studies.

Neuro-opthalmology is admittedly pretty cool. My understanding is that you may function as a general neurologist who knows more than the usual ophtho, but that it can be built up to the point that you are essentially a non-operative ophthalmologist in the out- or inpatient setting (ie all of your patients are eye-related and you are basically practicing 100% subspecialty). To my knowledge, you won't do a single surgical procedure as a neuro-opthalmologist. That is reserved for the people who completed residencies in ophthalmology.

 

[typhoonegator]

Unless you count fitting prisms as a procedure, then neuro-ophtho is not a procedural specialty.

You do get to do formal fields, nystagmography, etc. But this is more of an examination than a procedure.

Ophthalmologists are eye surgeons, or at least they can be.