Neurosurgery Facts, Figures, and Links

[Dimoak]

Thanks for the helpful thread. I had a couple of questions that weren't so easy to look up. What determines if the NS training is 5 years vs 7 or 8? From what I heard is that the 5 years is just the residency, and then the extra 2 years are for the fellowship for the total of 7.

The majority of NS residencies are at a base of 6 years. The reason you sometimes hear 5 is because the first year was often General Surgery prior to moving to NS; however, this is essentally being eliminated. The 7 years is if an individual does a research year. Fellowship training (such as spine, skull base, etc.) will often tack on additional time on top of the standard training timeline.

Also, as someone pointed out, it probably is very difficult to match from a DO school.

Generally, <5% of all NS allopathic housestaff are DOs. However, it's important to remember that there are NS DO residencies, for which only DOs are eligible. There has been some speculation as to the quality of some DO NS residencies, but they do exist and produce competent Neurosurgeons.

What about the role that the rank of your MD school plays? As I was browsing through the resident profiles in places like UCSF and Harvard, it is easy to see that almost 90% of their residents have pedigree, often in both the undergrad and the medschool. This sure could be self-selection bias, but I am not sure.

It plays a role, but not overly more so than in other specialties. The trend is evident because a large part of "prestigious" medical school graduating classes are from "prestigious" undergraduate institutions. In turn, many of the people who match into "prestigious" residencies are from "prestigious" medical schools. There is certainly variation to this, but a trend does exist. People who put value in the name of an institution are also likelier to try extra hard to land such an institution. But to most people who aren't particularly interested in an academic career where name-dropping is more heavily emphasized, name is not as important as finding a place that has the right balance of attributes for them and as a result will be a place where they'd be happiest to train.

How easy is it to do an away rotation at one of these top notch programs? Are there any criteria which determine if you will be granted the request to do an away rotation?

"Ease" of landing auditions at a particular program is directly proportional to the "ease" of matching into it. Programs will rotate the people who have the best chance of (and in their opinions, likeliest to rank them) matching at the location. The better a match an applicant seems, the likelier they are to be granted a rotation.

Also, if the program grants you an interview, then I am assuming you can go ahead and tank them as #1 without being afraid that you won't have a shot there just because it is top notch.

[/QUOTE]
You should always rank every program you interview at that you would like to train at. Even if you feel your interview went atrociously and they're going to burn any trace of you ever stepping foot into their hospital the moment you're out of earshot, if you liked that program the most, you should still rank it #1. Remember, you're matched according to the highest program you ranked and the highest spot a program ranked you. When those line up, you match. If a program ranked you highly enough to get a spot, but you didn't rank them, you'll go unmatched if none of the programs you did rank endedup filling with applicants they ranked higher than you.

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[Excelsius]

...
"Ease" of landing auditions at a particular program is directly proportional to the "ease" of matching into it. Programs will rotate the people who have the best chance of (and in their opinions, likeliest to rank them) matching at the location. The better a match an applicant seems, the likelier they are to be granted a rotation.
...

Thanks for the information. Concerning the above: you start your clinical rotations in your third year. Therefore, in order to be considered a good fit the only thing you can have going for you up to that point is 1.Step I score, 2. AOA in your classes (which I see too many times around SDN people saying that honors during the first two years is not important), 3. Research and publications (where I hope I can include the extensive research done in undergrad), and 4. LOR from a known neurosurgeon. Is my assessment of these four steps valid as the only things that a program can use to judge your competitiveness as a fresh MS3?

Now what if your school does not have AOA? Or what if it doesn't have a proper research department, especially a department in NS? I would presume that these would make any possibility of away rotations at most of these top programs much harder or impossible unless you have a Step I score of 240+ or if your school is really "prestigious."

I wish there was a way to quantify the effect that the name of your school has on your ability to match. That would make it easier to make an informed decision about how much more to pay for pedigree when selecting a medschool. If Drexel were to be cheaper by over $100K than JHU, it is not clear whether it is better to select JHU.

I am assuming you are an NS resident/fellow or an attending. If you have any "lessons learned" advice for this field, it would be great if you could share some of them. I am especially wondering about research and its role in NS competitiveness.

Thank you.

 

[FutureCTDoc]

Size of Neurosurgery Programs 2005-06 Match

U Alabama Birmingham - 2
Barrow NI - 4
U Arizona - 1
U Arkansas - 1
UC Davis - 1
Loma Linda - 1
UCLA - 3
USC - 2
Cedars Sinai LA - 1
UC San Diego - 1
UC San Francisco - 3
Stanford - 2
U Colorado - 1
Yale - 2
George Washington - 1
Georgetown - 1
U Florida - 2
U Miami - 2
U South Florida - 2
Emory - 2
Medical College of Georgia - 1
Northwestern - 2
Rush - 2
U Chicago - 2
U Illinois Chicago - 1
Loyola - 2
U Illinois Peoria - 1
Indiania U - 2
U Iowa - 2
U Kansas - 1
U Kentucky - 2
U Louisville - 1
LSU New Orleans - 1
Tulane - 0
LSU Shreveport - 2
U Maryland - 2
Johns Hopkins - 3
MGH - 3
Brigham - 2
Tufts - 1
U Michigan - 2
Henry Ford - 2
Wayne State - 1
U Minnesota - 2
Mayo Clinic - 3
U Mississippi - 2
U Missouri Columbia - 1
Washington University - 2
St. Louis University - 1
U Nebraska - 1
Dartmouth - 1
UMDNJ - 1
U New Mexico - 1
Albany - 1
SUNY Buffalo - 2
Albert Einstein - 2
Columbia University - 3
Cornell - 2
NYU - 2
Mt. Sinai - 2
NYMC - 1
U Rochester - 1
UNC - 1
Duke - 2
Wake Forest - 2
U Cinncinnati - 2
Case Western - 2
Cleveland Clinic - 3
Ohio State - 2
U Oklahoma - 1
Oregon HSU - 2
Penn State - 1
Temple - 1
U Pennsylvania - 3
Jefferson - 2
U Pittsburgh - 3
Allegheny General - 2
U Puerto Rico - 1
Brown - 1
MUSC - 1
U Tennesse Memphis - 2
Vanderbilt - 2
UT SW - 2
UT Galveston - 1
Baylor - 3
Methodist Hospital Houston - 1
UT San Antonio - 1
U Utah - 2
U Virginia - 3
MCV - 2
U Washington - 2
West Virginia U - 1
U Wisconsin - 2
MCW - 1

Plus:
WesternU/COMP Arrowhead 3
MWU/CCOM BroMenn Bloomington 2
MWU/CCOM Stroger Cook County 1
MSU-COM/Garden City 1
MSU-COM/St. John 2
NYCOM/St. Barnabas 2
NYCOM/LIJ 2
OUCOM/Doctors 2
OUCOM/Grandview 1
PCOM 2
EVVCOM 2
These are osteopathic match, DO only residencies that are AOA approved.

 

[BrainBox]

Hello

I have been a Neurosurgical PA for a while. Now want to go on with my education and become MD with intention to get into neurosurgery residency. How hard is it to match with one? What do you think the chances are if one goes to school in the states vs canada?

have the residents seen any change in quality of training with the 80hr work week?

thanks

 

[CogitoA1]

Thanks for the information. Concerning the above: you start your clinical rotations in your third year. Therefore, in order to be considered a good fit the only thing you can have going for you up to that point is 1.Step I score, 2. AOA in your classes (which I see too many times around SDN people saying that honors during the first two years is not important), 3. Research and publications (where I hope I can include the extensive research done in undergrad), and 4. LOR from a known neurosurgeon. Is my assessment of these four steps valid as the only things that a program can use to judge your competitiveness as a fresh MS3?

Now what if your school does not have AOA? Or what if it doesn't have a proper research department, especially a department in NS? I would presume that these would make any possibility of away rotations at most of these top programs much harder or impossible unless you have a Step I score of 240+ or if your school is really "prestigious."

I wish there was a way to quantify the effect that the name of your school has on your ability to match. That would make it easier to make an informed decision about how much more to pay for pedigree when selecting a medschool. If Drexel were to be cheaper by over $100K than JHU, it is not clear whether it is better to select JHU.

I am assuming you are an NS resident/fellow or an attending. If you have any "lessons learned" advice for this field, it would be great if you could share some of them. I am especially wondering about research and its role in NS competitiveness.

Thank you.

http://www.nrmp.org/data/chartingoutcomes2007.pdf

This report, by the NRMP, unfortunately does not consider neurosurgery directly as such, however it does contain aggregate data on highly competitive specialties.

For highly competitive specialties, it found that graduation from a top 40 NIH research medical school was not a significant predictor of match success. I'm unsure of the extent to which a medical school's qualification for that list is correlated with its pedigree, however.

Research publications were not a significant predictor of success for highly competitive specialties.

AOA membership was a significant predictor of success.

See page 15 et seq.

Step 1 scores seem to have the strongest impact.

I'm not sure of the extent to which these results can be extended to neurosurgery programs, but it's a fair bet that they're significantly indicative. The report concentrates on quantifiable data. Based on a quick skim, I didn't see any investigation into the impact of LORs.

I'm citing this report here simply to add to the discussion. As someone who has yet to even apply to medical school, I have no firsthand knowledge and frankly little secondhand knowledge concerning neurosurgery programs.

 

[pseudoknot]

http://www.nrmp.org/data/chartingoutcomes2007.pdf

You may find the 2009 edition more useful:
http://www.nrmp.org/data/chartingoutcomes2009v3.pdf
It does contain stats from the first year where neurosurgery was in the NRMP.

 

[Excelsius]

You may find the 2009 edition more useful:
http://www.nrmp.org/data/chartingoutcomes2009v3.pdf
It does contain stats from the first year where neurosurgery was in the NRMP.

Excellent. Unfortunately, most of the data is useless. The only sure thing you can conclude is that higher Step 1 score increases your chances of being matched, but even a step score below 210 leaves you pretty good chances of matching.

As far as the role of the medschool, it is completely inconclusive. Yes, the ratio of unmatched students is higher if the school rank is lower than top 40, but first of all this sample size is much smaller and second we don't know whether these same students lacked proper research and publication as a result of less research funding. What we need is this: http://www.nrmp.org/data/programresultsbyspecialty.pdf but it still does not have NS. Maybe 2009 version will?

 

[emericana]

Useful Links:

Societies
American Association of Neurological Surgeons
.....AANS Neurosurgery Cyber Museum
.....AANS Medical Student Resource
Congress of Neurological Surgeons
.....CNS Medical Student Curriculum
.....CNS Case of the Month
.....CNS Video Library
Society of Neurological Surgeons
American Society of Pediatric Neurosurgeons
North American Spine Society
North American Skull Base Society
Women in Neurosurgery

Journals
Journal of Neurosurgery (The White Journal)
Neurosurgery Journal (The Red Journal)
Annals of Neurosurgery
Neurosurgical Focus via MedScape

Neuroanatomy and Neuroradiology Websites
USUHS Neuroradiology Cases
Skull Base Anatomy Flash Movie
WUSTL Neuroscience Tutorial
Web Path Neuroanatomy Tutorial
The Brain Tutorial
University of Wisconsin Neuroradiology Tutor

Other Sites
San Francisco Matching Program
NSMatch Public Forums
Ken Liu's Brainfart - Neurosurgery Resident Blog
Uncle Harvey - Neurosurgery forums, news, and case presentations
Information on Osteopathic Neurosurgery Programs
Neurosurgical Photos

FYI Journal of Neurosurgery (The White Journal) links to a porn site

 

[MossPoh]

FYI Journal of Neurosurgery (The White Journal) links to a porn site

German porn nonetheless. I wonder what the impact factor of that journal is?

 

[mmmcdowe]

German porn nonetheless. I wonder what the impact factor of that journal is?

I think it's most recent IF was 32D

 

[obgyny]

Size of Neurosurgery Programs 2005-06 Match

U Alabama Birmingham - 2
Barrow NI - 4
U Arizona - 1
U Arkansas - 1
UC Davis - 1
Loma Linda - 1
UCLA - 3
USC - 2
Cedars Sinai LA - 1
UC San Diego - 1
UC San Francisco - 3
Stanford - 2
U Colorado - 1
Yale - 2
George Washington - 1
Georgetown - 1
U Florida - 2
U Miami - 2
U South Florida - 2
Emory - 2
Medical College of Georgia - 1
Northwestern - 2
Rush - 2
U Chicago - 2
U Illinois Chicago - 1
Loyola - 2
U Illinois Peoria - 1
Indiania U - 2
U Iowa - 2
U Kansas - 1
U Kentucky - 2
U Louisville - 1
LSU New Orleans - 1
Tulane - 0
LSU Shreveport - 2
U Maryland - 2
Johns Hopkins - 3
MGH - 3
Brigham - 2
Tufts - 1
U Michigan - 2
Henry Ford - 2
Wayne State - 1
U Minnesota - 2
Mayo Clinic - 3
U Mississippi - 2
U Missouri Columbia - 1
Washington University - 2
St. Louis University - 1
U Nebraska - 1
Dartmouth - 1
UMDNJ - 1
U New Mexico - 1
Albany - 1
SUNY Buffalo - 2
Albert Einstein - 2
Columbia University - 3
Cornell - 2
NYU - 2
Mt. Sinai - 2
NYMC - 1
U Rochester - 1
UNC - 1
Duke - 2
Wake Forest - 2
U Cinncinnati - 2
Case Western - 2
Cleveland Clinic - 3
Ohio State - 2
U Oklahoma - 1
Oregon HSU - 2
Penn State - 1
Temple - 1
U Pennsylvania - 3
Jefferson - 2
U Pittsburgh - 3
Allegheny General - 2
U Puerto Rico - 1
Brown - 1
MUSC - 1
U Tennesse Memphis - 2
Vanderbilt - 2
UT SW - 2
UT Galveston - 1
Baylor - 3
Methodist Hospital Houston - 1
UT San Antonio - 1
U Utah - 2
U Virginia - 3
MCV - 2
U Washington - 2
West Virginia U - 1
U Wisconsin - 2
MCW - 1

I was really surprised to learn how small these neurosurgery programs are... only 1 position open for most programs?? What's it like to be the only resident in your program (of the same year)?

 

[moosetracks]

I was really surprised to learn how small these neurosurgery programs are... only 1 position open for most programs?? What's it like to be the only resident in your program (of the same year)?

From what I saw while shadowing at neursurgery department, they had a PGY-2, a PGY-4, and a PGY-6. They also had 2 other residents from surrounding hospitals (A PGY-6 and a PGY-4). The 6th years were co-chiefs and they were almost always scrubbed in. The 4th years kind of rotated for ER shifts while the 2nd year was doing their own thing.

While they rounded together, they each kind of did their own thing.

I wouldn't really be able to tell you the specifics but that's what I saw.

 

[neurothin]

hallo all,
I need your help: i'm looking for "Cranial Neuroimaging and Clinical Neuroanatomy: Magnetic Resonance Imaging andComputed Tomography (Thieme Classics)" free downloadable version
thank you

 

[happyfeet123]

If you already have a good amount of publications (5-10; both basic science and clinical reviews) going into the match process, would a research year off really help, regardless of step 1 score? I dont see how much a research year for this type of applicant would help but I may be wrong.

 

[wlt217]

I'm a pre-med interested in learning about neurosurgery (yes I know, it seems like every pre-med wants to be a brain surgeon), and I recently bought an app, Neurosurgery Survival Guide, to help gain some familiarity with topics in NS. Perhaps many of you are already familiar with the app (it's advertised on uncleharvey, main page), but I found it to be well worth the cost for my purposes. It provides enough detail that I can learn directly from reading the app, but also serves as a source of topics for further study.

Anyone else have suggestions for learning/reference material?

Actually, I see uncleharvey also has a great list of books ... although many of them are pricey textbooks. (And I'll have to wait until I'm back in the US to find them anyway). But I guess it can't hurt to ask if anyone else has anything.

 

[james2333]

Its way too early for you to be reading resources on Neurosurgery and buying apps. Worry about getting into a medical school first. After that you should be worrying about doing well in your first two years, then doing extremely well on your board exams, then rocking your clinical rotations and doing research, then if you have the stats and you enjoyed your neurosurgery rotation you can look into reading books and prepping for your Sub-Is. Honestly you're just wasting your time. None of that will help you get into a medical school. You may even change your interests after med school starts as most people do.

 

[nysegop]

Does someone have, by any chance, more recent data? 2006 is 7 years ago at this point. Things may have changed.

 

[tiedyeddog]

If you already have a good amount of publications (5-10; both basic science and clinical reviews) going into the match process, would a research year off really help, regardless of step 1 score? I dont see how much a research year for this type of applicant would help but I may be wrong.

I asked this exact same question on UH and basically got a no. I am going to be in an almost identical situation.

 

[nysegop]

How do you get research in medical school?

 

[mmmcdowe]

How do you get research in medical school?

Go into any lab and volunteer.

 

[Dr. USMLE]

How do you get research in medical school?

Try to find a productive research mentor. Most students don't realize that the most important decision to make is which lab to join. You should heavily research which investigators have a strong publication track record and try to join the best lab possible. It makes a world of difference.

 

[neusu]

List of neurosurgery programs: https://www.acgme.org/ads/Public/Reports/ReportRun?ReportId=1&CurrentYear=2013&SpecialtyId=35

2011 Charting Outcomes in the Match (relevant pages 122-134): http://b83c73bcf0e7ca356c80-e8560f4...tent/uploads/2013/08/chartingoutcomes2011.pdf

US Senior statistics

programs ranked - 15.2
specialties ranked - 1.1
Step 1 Score - 239
Step 2 Score - 241
Research Experiences - 241
Publications etc. - 7.4
Work experiences - 2.5
Volunteering - 5.8
AOA - 25.3%
Top 40 US - 44.8
PHD - 10.3
Other graduate degree - 14.4

 

[neusu]

2015 NRMP match data: http://www.nrmp.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/ADT2015_final.pdf

Summary:
Neurological Surgery 102 programs, 210 positions offered, 2 unfilled programs. 188/256 US seniors matched. 20/98 non-us seniors (post-grad USMG, IMG, FMG) matched.

 

[neusu]

2016 NRMP Data: http://www.nrmp.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Main-Match-Results-and-Data-2016.pdf

Summary:
Neurological Surgery 105 programs, 216 positions offered, 1 unfilled programs/2 positions. 200/267 US seniors matched. 14/87 non-us seniors (post-grad USMG, IMG, FMG) matched.

 

[NEUROHOPE-ROMANIA]

Every month, all titles published in the journals listed below, accompanied by abstracts, will be indexed by NEUROHOPE - June scan available online n e u r o h o p e . r o / a r c h i v e

1. JOURNAL OF NEUROLOGY NEUROSURGERY AND PSYCHIATRY

2. JOURNAL OF NEUROSURGERY

3. JOURNAL OF NEUROTRAUMA

4. NEUROSURGERY

5. JOURNAL OF NEUROSURGICAL ANESTHESIOLOGY

6. WORLD NEUROSURGERY

7. JOURNAL OF NEUROSURGERY-SPINE

8. SPINE

9. NEUROSURGICAL REVIEW

10. NEUROSURGICAL FOCUS

11. EUROPEAN SPINE JOURNAL

12. STEREOTACTIC AND FUNCTIONAL NEUROSURGERY

13. ACTA NEUROCHIRURGICA

14. JOURNAL OF NEUROSURGERY-PEDIATRICS

15. NEUROSURGERY CLINICS OF NORTH AMERICA

16. JOURNAL OF CLINICAL NEUROSCIENCE

17. CLINICAL NEUROLOGY AND NEUROSURGERY

18. CHILD'S NERVOUS SYSTEM

19. JOURNAL OF NEUROSURGICAL SCIENCES

20. BRITISH JOURNAL OF NEUROSURGERY

21. NEUROLOGIA MEDICO-CHIRURGICA

22. JOURNAL OF KOREAN NEUROSURGICAL SOCIETY

23. POLISH JOURNAL OF NEUROLOGY AND NEUROSURGERY

24. TURKISH NEUROSURGERY

25. PEDIATRIC NEUROSURGERY

26. JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE IN RURAL PRACTICE

27. ASIAN JOURNAL OF NEUROSURGERY