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How to become Neurologist in 2024

Neurologist Diagnose, manage, and treat disorders and diseases of the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nerves, with a primarily nonsurgical focus.

Neurologist is Also Know as

In different settings, Neurologist is titled as

  • Adult and Pediatric Neurologist
  • Adult Neurologist
  • General Neurologist
  • Neurologist
  • Pediatric Neurologist
  • Physician

Education and Training of Neurologist

Neurologist is categorized in Job Zone Five: Extensive Preparation Needed

Experience Required for Neurologist

Extensive skill, knowledge, and experience are needed for these occupations. Many require more than five years of experience. For example, surgeons must complete four years of college and an additional five to seven years of specialized medical training to be able to do their job.

Education Required for Neurologist

Most of these occupations require graduate school. For example, they may require a master's degree, and some require a Ph.D., M.D., or J.D. (law degree).

Degrees Related to Neurologist

Training Required for Neurologist

Employees may need some on-the-job training, but most of these occupations assume that the person will already have the required skills, knowledge, work-related experience, and/or training.

Related Ocuupations

Some Ocuupations related to Neurologist in different industries are

What Do Neurologist do?

  • Participate in neuroscience research activities.
  • Provide training to medical students or staff members.
  • Participate in continuing education activities to maintain and expand competence.
  • Supervise medical technicians in the performance of neurological diagnostic or therapeutic activities.
  • Counsel patients or others on the background of neurological disorders including risk factors, or genetic or environmental concerns.
  • Interpret the results of neuroimaging studies, such as Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography (SPECT), and Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scans.
  • Refer patients to other health care practitioners as necessary.
  • Advise other physicians on the treatment of neurological problems.
  • Prescribe or administer medications, such as anti-epileptic drugs, and monitor patients for behavioral and cognitive side effects.
  • Prescribe or administer treatments, such as transcranial magnetic stimulation, vagus nerve stimulation, and deep brain stimulation.
  • Prepare, maintain, or review records that include patients' histories, neurological examination findings, treatment plans, or outcomes.
  • Perform specialized treatments in areas such as sleep disorders, neuroimmunology, neuro-oncology, behavioral neurology, and neurogenetics.
  • Order or interpret results of laboratory analyses of patients' blood or cerebrospinal fluid.
  • Order supportive care services, such as physical therapy, specialized nursing care, and social services.
  • Interview patients to obtain information, such as complaints, symptoms, medical histories, and family histories.
  • Inform patients or families of neurological diagnoses and prognoses, or benefits, risks and costs of various treatment plans.
  • Diagnose neurological conditions based on interpretation of examination findings, histories, or test results.
  • Develop treatment plans based on diagnoses and on evaluation of factors, such as age and general health, or procedural risks and costs.
  • Determine brain death using accepted tests and procedures.
  • Communicate with other health care professionals regarding patients' conditions and care.
  • Coordinate neurological services with other health care team activities.
  • Perform or interpret the outcomes of procedures or diagnostic tests, such as lumbar punctures, electroencephalography, electromyography, and nerve conduction velocity tests.
  • Identify and treat major neurological system diseases and disorders, such as central nervous system infection, cranio spinal trauma, dementia, and stroke.
  • Examine patients to obtain information about functional status of areas, such as vision, physical strength, coordination, reflexes, sensations, language skills, cognitive abilities, and mental status.

Qualities of Good Neurologist

  • Inductive Reasoning: The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
  • Deductive Reasoning: The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
  • Oral Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
  • Oral Comprehension: The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
  • Problem Sensitivity: The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing that there is a problem.
  • Written Comprehension: The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
  • Written Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
  • Speech Recognition: The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
  • Information Ordering: The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
  • Near Vision: The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
  • Speech Clarity: The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
  • Flexibility of Closure: The ability to identify or detect a known pattern (a figure, object, word, or sound) that is hidden in other distracting material.
  • Category Flexibility: The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
  • Fluency of Ideas: The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
  • Perceptual Speed: The ability to quickly and accurately compare similarities and differences among sets of letters, numbers, objects, pictures, or patterns. The things to be compared may be presented at the same time or one after the other. This ability also includes comparing a presented object with a remembered object.
  • Visualization: The ability to imagine how something will look after it is moved around or when its parts are moved or rearranged.
  • Originality: The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.
  • Number Facility: The ability to add, subtract, multiply, or divide quickly and correctly.
  • Speed of Closure: The ability to quickly make sense of, combine, and organize information into meaningful patterns.
  • Selective Attention: The ability to concentrate on a task over a period of time without being distracted.
  • Mathematical Reasoning: The ability to choose the right mathematical methods or formulas to solve a problem.
  • Memorization: The ability to remember information such as words, numbers, pictures, and procedures.
  • Visual Color Discrimination: The ability to match or detect differences between colors, including shades of color and brightness.
  • Far Vision: The ability to see details at a distance.
  • Time Sharing: The ability to shift back and forth between two or more activities or sources of information (such as speech, sounds, touch, or other sources).
  • Finger Dexterity: The ability to make precisely coordinated movements of the fingers of one or both hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble very small objects.
  • Auditory Attention: The ability to focus on a single source of sound in the presence of other distracting sounds.
  • Hearing Sensitivity: The ability to detect or tell the differences between sounds that vary in pitch and loudness.
  • Depth Perception: The ability to judge which of several objects is closer or farther away from you, or to judge the distance between you and an object.
  • Trunk Strength: The ability to use your abdominal and lower back muscles to support part of the body repeatedly or continuously over time without "giving out" or fatiguing.
  • Arm-Hand Steadiness: The ability to keep your hand and arm steady while moving your arm or while holding your arm and hand in one position.
  • Manual Dexterity: The ability to quickly move your hand, your hand together with your arm, or your two hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble objects.
  • Response Orientation: The ability to choose quickly between two or more movements in response to two or more different signals (lights, sounds, pictures). It includes the speed with which the correct response is started with the hand, foot, or other body part.
  • Reaction Time: The ability to quickly respond (with the hand, finger, or foot) to a signal (sound, light, picture) when it appears.
  • Wrist-Finger Speed: The ability to make fast, simple, repeated movements of the fingers, hands, and wrists.
  • Control Precision: The ability to quickly and repeatedly adjust the controls of a machine or a vehicle to exact positions.
  • Glare Sensitivity: The ability to see objects in the presence of a glare or bright lighting.
  • Night Vision: The ability to see under low-light conditions.
  • Peripheral Vision: The ability to see objects or movement of objects to one's side when the eyes are looking ahead.
  • Gross Body Coordination: The ability to coordinate the movement of your arms, legs, and torso together when the whole body is in motion.
  • Sound Localization: The ability to tell the direction from which a sound originated.
  • Spatial Orientation: The ability to know your location in relation to the environment or to know where other objects are in relation to you.
  • Gross Body Equilibrium: The ability to keep or regain your body balance or stay upright when in an unstable position.
  • Dynamic Flexibility: The ability to quickly and repeatedly bend, stretch, twist, or reach out with your body, arms, and/or legs.
  • Extent Flexibility: The ability to bend, stretch, twist, or reach with your body, arms, and/or legs.
  • Stamina: The ability to exert yourself physically over long periods of time without getting winded or out of breath.
  • Dynamic Strength: The ability to exert muscle force repeatedly or continuously over time. This involves muscular endurance and resistance to muscle fatigue.
  • Explosive Strength: The ability to use short bursts of muscle force to propel oneself (as in jumping or sprinting), or to throw an object.
  • Static Strength: The ability to exert maximum muscle force to lift, push, pull, or carry objects.
  • Speed of Limb Movement: The ability to quickly move the arms and legs.
  • Rate Control: The ability to time your movements or the movement of a piece of equipment in anticipation of changes in the speed and/or direction of a moving object or scene.
  • Multilimb Coordination: The ability to coordinate two or more limbs (for example, two arms, two legs, or one leg and one arm) while sitting, standing, or lying down. It does not involve performing the activities while the whole body is in motion.

Tools Used by Neurologist

  • Audio evoked potential testers
  • Audio stimulators
  • Auditory function screeners
  • Automated external defibrillators AED
  • Automatic blood pressure cuffs
  • Babinski hammers
  • Biofeedback units
  • Cerebral oximeters
  • Computed tomography CT scanners
  • Diagnostic penlights
  • Diagnostic tuning forks
  • Digital audio recorders
  • Digital video cameras
  • Electroconvulsive therapy ECT units
  • Electroencephalogram EEG signal spectrum analyzers
  • Electroencephalograph EEG equipment
  • Electromyographs EMG
  • Electron beam tomography EBT systems
  • Electronic stethoscopes
  • Facial nerve stimulators
  • Magnetic pulse stimulators
  • Magnetic resonance imaging MRI equipment
  • Neurological hammers
  • Neuropens
  • Ophthalmoscopes
  • Otoscopes
  • Peripheral nerve stimulators
  • Polysomnographs
  • Queen square hammers
  • Radio frequency generators
  • Tilting tables
  • Transcranial magnetic stimulators
  • Transcutaneous electric nerve stimulation TENS equipment
  • Ultrasound imaging scanners
  • Variable two-point discriminators
  • Visual stimulators

Technology Skills required for Neurologist

  • Allscripts PM
  • athenahealth athenaCollector
  • Automatic Data Processing AdvancedMD EHR
  • Benchmark Systems Benchmark Clinical EHR
  • Bizmatics PrognoCIS EMR
  • CareCloud Central
  • Cerner PowerWorks Practice Management
  • e-MDs software
  • eClinicalWorks EHR software
  • Email software
  • Epic Practice Management
  • Epic Systems
  • GalacTek ECLIPSE
  • GE Healthcare Centricity Practice Solution
  • Greenway Medical Technologies PrimeSUITE
  • HealthFusion MediTouch
  • IOS Health Systems Medios EHR
  • Kareo Practice Management
  • McKesson Practice Plus
  • Microsoft Excel
  • Microsoft Office software
  • Microsoft PowerPoint
  • Microsoft Word
  • Modernizing Medicine Practice Management
  • NextGen Healthcare NextGen Practice Management
  • Nuesoft Technologies NueMD
  • simplifyMD
  • Vitera Healthcare Solutions Vitera Intergy
  • WRSHealth EMR