You might do well in that field. Neurologists are notorious for being pompus and self absorbed. You should validate the stereotype well.
Are you serious about persuing Neurology? I think that is a speciality that is going to expand greatly in the next 20 years. I have read a lot about Spect and Pet imaging lately. Are you familiar with them? What do you think of PET and SPECT? Useful or just quackery?
I don't know much about that technology other than it can be used to detect cancers becasue they are more metabolically active. I don't think there is any reason to think of the technology as quackery. I was at a neurology "morning report" the other day and they were trying to figure out why a woman was having some lower extremity weakness and the MRI of the spine wasn't that clear and they weren't able to get a diagnosis. It was suggested that they should have used a PET scan to look for possible cancer that might have been impinging on the spinal cord.
Yeah. I think I like neurology. The brain and the spinal cord and all the different pathways with stroke, parkinson's disease, epilepsy, head injuries, alzheimers disease, meningitis, peripheral neuropathies. It is pretty interesting how the anatomy and the different regions of the brain interact and how much you can pick up just using a physical exam. We were examining a old guy with dementia and the neurologist were illiciting all the reflexes that are normally just present in babies like a "rooting reflex" where they would stroke his cheek and he would turn his head and make a sucking kind of motion with his lips as if he were looking for a nipple. Then he would interact with them like some crotchety old dude after making doing all the little baby reflexes. It was pretty weird. It is possible to isolate a lesion to a certain area just by physical exam and history. I like that.
