Are there any well-known neurology loan repayment options for working in underserved/rural areas (e.g., PSLF)? Has anyone done it?

I'm studying for my board. I got the Claude for Chrome extension and after each TrueLearn question block I ask it to look at all the questions I mark or got wrong and generate 1-3 high-yield Anki cards. If you haven't done something like this with an LLM before, you should see it -- it just figures out how to navigate through the website and read the pages. I also asked it to generate cards for each histology topic I need to know and the cards it generated are absolutely *beautiful*. What a time to be alive

My apologies if this seems like a choppy post. I don’t have a specific question so much as I’m just trying to start a discussion.

I’m a PGY-3 going into general outpatient neurology where I no doubt will be seeing and managing patients with seizures and managing antiepileptic medications.

Given the recent highly publicized trial (please forgive me as my intention is NOT to start a political commentary in this sub) it made me wonder how much physicians can potentially be liable for their patient’s actions.

This has me worried, especially since it appears that the initial medication we put everyone on is Keppra. In my residency the attendings appear to be pretty reasonable about considering alternate options besides starting with keppra in patients with a history of significant mood disorders. I plan to carry this in my practice as well.

I’ve had patients families describe patients as “monsters” on certain AEDs. I’ve had patients tell me they have had raging suicidal thoughts on certain AEDs. And of course we all know that one of them has a black box warning of homicidal ideation.

And only a fraction of my resident clinic patients have a psychiatrist they are established with. And I also plan on working in an underserved community where not many patients will have access to good mental health care.

The overall discussion I want to start is how can we help our patients and also protect ourselves legally when it comes to the psychiatric side effects of AEDs? Especially when patients with epilepsy are more likely to have behavioral and psychiatric co-morbidities?

A while back, I shared a project I’ve been working on called Oliver Snacks — a free, short-form neurology podcast series designed to deliver clinical neurology teaching cases in under 10 minutes.

We’ve now released more than 50 episodes, covering an array of neurologic diseases and discussing their clinical features, localization, pathophysiology, diagnostic workup, and management.

If you’re a neurology resident, fellow, APP, attending, or just someone who likes learning neurology in bite-sized chunks, please feel free to check it out!

Would love to hear what topics people have found useful—and what you’d want to see covered in future episodes.

https://open.spotify.com/show/2GiCy6v2j8VDleL7pKsdYc?si=540606fd3f954f44

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-dr-pod/id1797082982

I’m an older resident and will be finishing residency in my mid-40s. I’m currently in the middle of figuring out what direction I should take after residency, and honestly, I’m pretty torn.

I really enjoy stroke, and part of me wants to pursue a stroke fellowship. At the same time, I also want to be realistic about finances.

My ultimate goal is to end up in Texas, closer to family, but I’m open-minded about other options.
Lately, I’ve been questioning whether pursuing stroke is actually the best decision for me. Sometimes I think I should just go the neurohospitalist route, and maybe add neurophysiology/EEG to broaden my skill set and earning potential.
Other times, I think I should pursue a more outpatient-heavy specialty, like movement disorders, which I genuinely enjoy. The lifestyle seems more sustainable, with less call and fewer nights, and at this point in life, that’s becoming increasingly important to me.
So I’m basically stuck between:
Stroke fellowship → more specialized, but more training and potentially a tougher lifestyle
Neurohospitalist → start earning sooner, potentially good income, but more inpatient/call
Neurohospitalist + neurophys/EEG → potentially broaden my options
Movement disorders or another outpatient-heavy career → better lifestyle, which is becoming more attractive to me
For those who have been through this, especially anyone who finished residency later in life, how did you think about the trade-off between income, additional fellowship training, career satisfaction, and lifestyle?
Would you still recommend fellowship at this stage, or would you prioritize getting out of training and building a career/life sooner?

I am going to take the APBN neurology board in one week. How strict are they when names on IDs don’t match exactly? On my passport, I have a hypen in my first name but on my SSN/driver license there is just a space where the hypen should be.

Please any advice on what to focus on the last 11 days for the board exam
Did half Cheng Ching (big high-yield topics) + one pass true-learn + now you know neuro notes but not questions. Did flashcards. Thinking of maybe doing now now you know neuro questions or another pass-on true learn.
Any specific subjects that are recommended to focus on

Teaching signs to students can be difficult. Real patient needs consent and can be of variable quality. Textbook descriptions don’t convey what a sign looks like in motion, and the animations that do exist are usually 2D approximations.

AI video generation isn’t accurate for this, so I’ve been trying 3D animation of realistic(-ish) people with various signs instead.

https://www.youtube.com/@VisibileNeurology

It’s a work in progress and I’m still learning as I go, so any input or critique is welcome. Happy to take requests too — especially the signs that are hard to teach.

No product, nothing for sale.

everyone knows you can do more than one fellowship (or none) in neurology, but some combos seem to make more sense together. what’s the most unusual combo you’ve seen? did it have any unexpected benefits?

I’ve only been a tech for 4 years?
But I’ve worked at 3 hospitals had clinicals at 3 as well.

This is the worst career I could’ve ever chosen. I am always so exhausted mentally, not even physically. The phrase “leave it at work” has lost all meaning because EEG/Neurodiagnsotics is such a niche field that everyone knows everyone.
You can’t leave it at work because it spreads and everyone knows about it.

It’s so clique-y and everyone is like🤞. If you’re new the senior techs will put you where you DONT want to go, will talk crap, and throw work on you no matter what you. They will judge you for you studies no matter what, blame you.

I hate this field. Maybe others haven’t had this expirience but I have been so different places in different states and they’re exactly the same.

I work for a medium sized Neurologist office in Ohio (40 providers) and am looking for any recommendations on Neuro Rad groups to read studies from our MR department. Currently have a group we are with but are needing to go another route. Anyone have a group they have had success working with?

I’m a current fellow looking into mostly private practice jobs. I’m at a big academic center where most people stay here so I have little guidance. Was curious what kind of questions I should be asking, what the process is like, and any overall advice in optimizing contract negotiations? Thanks in advance

I have two recent examples:

1) Guy I was seeing for post-concussive syndrome after traumatic SDH. He complained of spacing out while driving i.e. realizing he wasn't really paying attention. No LOC, confusion, etc. Otherwise, driving fine; no close calls, etc. Seems like inattention related to TBI rather than seizure. I ordered routine EEG just to check, but didn't restrict him from driving. I'll get ambulatory and restrict driving only if routine is abnormal.

2) Lady with focal epilepsy that brought up she occasionally finds herself staring off. Easily comes out of them if called, no confusion, etc. Has been having them for years. Recent ambulatory to evaluate other things was normal, but spells weren't captured. I suspect they are behavioral/day-dreaming. I'm watching them and haven't restricted driving.

Am I being too lax? I get that there is a chance they are epileptic but EEG's cost money and taking away someone's driving privileges, even temporarily, is a burden to them. Any guidelines on how to handle this stuff? Anything I should read?

HI Everyone,

I am a second year medical student interested in neurology and I was wondering if anyone knew of any research opportunities or has a project that I can learn more about and potentially join.

Thanks!

What’s a good Neuro anatomy / localization resource you would recommend for neurology resident

Thanks 🙏

Hi! Is there a single spreadsheet of all the upcoming neurology open houses? If not, do you guys want to drop the ones you know about, and we can start a thread?

If I am unsure whether I'll end up doing Academia or Private Practice, would a Neuromuscular fellowship be worth pursuing? This would make me confident in peripheral pathology, but I wonder if it would pigeonhole me into remaining in academia. Would a neuromuscular fellowship provide a good ROI for private practice?

I’m a 4th year applying neuro and need a distraction from ERAS before I lose what’s left of my sanity.

I'll go first.

1. I throw a prayer up every time I have to type "hemorrhagic" and still only have a 50/50 shot of spelling it right the first time.
2. I have learned and forgot which one an UMN pattern of weakness is no short of 20 times

A. Flexors in UE and Extensors in LE
OR
B. Extensors in UE Flexors in LE

1. It takes me a solid 5 seconds to mentally trace and re-derive whether a patient's left field cut localizes to the left or right occipital lobe. I wish I just knew it cold, but I always forget whether the cortical lesion is contralateral to the visual field or to the location on the retina (ie. left visual field → right side of the retina → Optic chiasm → ... → ... → Right hemisphere)

2. When I find a positive palmomental or jaw-jerk reflex, I briefly feel like I've discovered buried treasure.

3. I still don't understand why Hoffman's sign works as an UMN sign, and at this point I'm too afraid to ask

Title. Using a throwaway as to not dox myself.

I failed the exam last year. Looked in the mirror and took hand-up accountability. Fair enough, I didn’t prepare well enough qualitatively and quantitatively.

This year has been different. I’ve done tons of reading and have gone through TrueLearn with two full passes at this point with handwritten notes and I do objectively feel more prepared and confident this time around. I had heard that the AAN official resource can sometimes essentially have copy/pasted questions to the actual exam, so I bit the bullet and purchased it.

I am getting obliterated by these questions (mid-high 60’s), and I don’t remember the actual exam last year being this nit-picky. Can anyone reassure me on this? I’m starting to freak out and we’re about 2.5 weeks out from showtime.

Thanks for reading if you got this far.

Hello everyone - tomorrow is my first day working as a doctor in a neurology department in the Czech Republic, straight out of med school, and I'm honestly pretty terrified. I never did any extra rotations in neurology, only the usual classes/clinical practice in med school, which was a few years ago. I was convinced I would go into psychiatry, so I forgot A LOT since then. Well, plot twist, I'm starting neurology tomorrow.

I've been trying to revise some basic neuroanatomy and pathways, but obviously I started too late to magically relearn neurology before my first day lol. I'm especially rusty with the neurological exam and localization, which is probably what scares me the most.

So my question is mainly for people who remember being a completely new doctor in neurology: what should I focus on first? What is actually important to know in the first days/weeks, what should I revise at home, and what should I pay attention to when learning from more experienced doctors?

Basically, if you could go back to your first week in neurology, what would you tell yourself to learn first? I'd also love to hear what your first days/weeks in neurology were like and how long it took you to stop feeling completely lost :D

Thank you!!

I need advice about negotiating a per diem contract for weekend neurology coverage at a hospital within NYC.

When the contact was initially signed by both parties (myself and a private group that has a contract with the hospital for inpatient neurology coverage), the rate was 250/hr on a 1099 basis, with the expectation I'd provide coverage for 48hrs. There's an in-house PA that does the grunt of the work by seeing the consults while I'm mainly responsible for code stroke coverage. Overall, seems like a chill role for the attending.

A day before my first weekend was to start, the group changed the rate to flat fee of $4000 on a 1099 basis, which translates to $83/hr. I'm trying to negotiate higher to a rate that is closer to market rate (according to google gemini lol) to 150-200/hr.

Any advise on this? Is the rate they're proposing fair or am I getting screwed?

Thank you in advance.