Hey everyone,

I thought I’d start up a thread that I hope will stay around for a while.

There are lots of younger medical students around here who are interested in neurosurgery, and sites like this one are of key importance in helping us make the decision about whether to pursue the field.  So, all you attendings, residents, MS3/4ers, and anyone else with something to tell us, please use this as your “thought dump” for anything you think we should know.  Hopefully, we can consolidate all this advice into one thread.

Here are some topics to get us started.  Feel free to ask away, or to just offer general advice!

- Given the lifelong commitment that neurosurgery entails and the limited experiences that preclinical med students have in the OR and on the wards, how can we start the decision-making process?  What made you decide to enter neurosurgery?
- Can you recommend some good resources (reading/websites) that can give us an idea of what to expect from a neurosurgical career?
- Why might somebody NOT want to pursue neurosurgery?  Are there any common reasons for students changing their minds?
- What can we do in our first two years to help along our residency apps?  We all hear about research, clinical experience, board scores, etc. - but what do successful applicants to higher-ranking programs do in their early med school years?

Obviously, those are VERY general and VERY open to discussion.  Now you guys do the work…

InItRightNow - 17 December 2008 11:08 PM

Now you guys do the work…

I hope this doesn’t come off as insulting, but it’s actually your job to do the work first by searching this website for questions that have been answered multiple times.  All the questions you asked have been addressed in previous posts.  It will take a while to dig through the piles of garbage left by anonymous users, but you should find some pretty good information.

injinjay - 18 December 2008 04:37 AM

InItRightNow - 17 December 2008 11:08 PM

Now you guys do the work…

I hope this doesn’t come off as insulting, but it’s actually your job to do the work first by searching this website for questions that have been answered multiple times.  All the questions you asked have been addressed in previous posts.  It will take a while to dig through the piles of garbage left by anonymous users, but you should find some pretty good information.

I understand that - that’s the utility of any message board on any website.

My idea behind this thread is to have a place where that the smaller population of younger medical students on these boards could congregate, and where their questions could be culled together to make this site even more useful.  If any questions posted here have been answered before, then just say so and we’ll do the searching.  I’m not asking you all to do our work for us.

This is just for efficiency, and threads like this one are a common feature on many message boards.

FYI, my “you guys do the work” line was a poorly-phrased (it was 3 AM, sorry) attempt to pass the baton to other users.

i hate these worshipful NEUROSURGERY IS GOD!!!!!! threads. yeah, neurosurgery is a life long commitment, but so is internal medicine. do what you want to do. get a lot of opinions, hear out a lot of attendings, but don’t let anybody tell you what’s right for you (e.g., “you should really go into neurology.")

Hey initright now..this is a generic pamphlet on the WINS (women in neurosurgery) site that is helpful for all medical students.  http://www.neurosurgerywins.org/career/index.html It’s entitled “so you want to be a neurosurgeon?” searching this site or if someone posts a wiki will also be helpful.  One thing that might be helpful now is to go into an OR.  If you have never seen a surgery “in real life”, you don’t really know if you’ll like it.  Who knows you might be a fainter?  If you like it be sure to watch a couple neurosurgery cases.  Just seeing if the real thing matches the ideal you have in your head is always a good start.  Good luck.

maybe there should be a separate forum for us MS2s