Residents and fellows: how is the relationship with neurosurgery residents at your program ?

[Pseudotumor cerebri]

I tried not to stereotype my neurosurgery colleagues, but as a new PGY-2 working alongside neurosurgery interns in the ICU, some boxes keep getting checked constantly. I have a great working relationship with Physicians and non physicians from every other dept but huh, I'm not enjoying working with them so far. What's it like at your programs?

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[Telamir]

My program they were quite diverse, with two that I really liked who were great people and patient to work with but others were absolute jocks who thought only what they did mattered while simultaneously ignoring all the complications they had.

 

[Little Green Mensch]

I'd like to think we have a good working relationship with Neurology at my hospital. We respond to every stroke alert together, which builds a certain degree of camaraderie. Our Stroke Neurologists also admit a fair amount of isolated TBI (e.g. ditzel traumatic SAH) for observation, which is quite helpful (since they have substantially more manpower).

That said, our Neuro ICU director did once refer to Neurosurgery as "Brain Ortho," take that as you will.

 

[IonClaws]

I'd like to think we have a good working relationship with Neurology at my hospital. We respond to every stroke alert together, which builds a certain degree of camaraderie. Our Stroke Neurologists also admit a fair amount of isolated TBI (e.g. ditzel traumatic SAH) for observation, which is quite helpful (since they have substantially more manpower).

That said, our Neuro ICU director did once refer to Neurosurgery as "Brain Ortho," take that as you will.

What they do seems to be way more delicate and takes a lot longer than ortho...

 

[Thama]

This differed massively between my med school institution and residency institution. In med school, the neurosurgeons were a blast. Hard working, but goofy with morbid humor and absolutely great to be around. In residency, the culture was very different, and while I was friendly with some of the residents, the overall culture was combative and it was clear that they expected to find ways to make neurology do their non-surgical work for them whenever possible, requiring us to stand up for our department and go to war when needed. Even the friendly interactions developed more of an edge as a result.

My impression from talking to people at many institutions is that my residency experience is the far more common one, and that neurosurgeons tend to view anyone doing cognitive work rather than wielding a scalpel/bovie/drill as a useless mouth. This has certainly been the tenor of conversations I overhear between neurosurgeons from time to time when they don't know I'm around or who I am.