April 21, 2003
A: FROM MENTOR SUSAN MODESITT IN KY
Alexis,
The fields that you mention (neurophysicist, neurologist, neuropsychologist
and neurosurgeon) are all different and do require alternate pathways to
obtain the appropriate degrees. While all of them overlap in the sense that
they deal with disorders of the brain and nervous system, the actual daily
jobs would be vastly different.

Both neurologists and neurosurgeons are medical doctors. To become a
neurologist, you would attend medical school and do a neurology residency (4
years, I think). Neurologists deal with patients that have neurological
deficits (for example stroke victims or patients with ALS, also called Lou
Gehrig's disease). These doctors do not perform surgery but would work in
diagnosis and medical therapies for their patients. Neurosurgeons may deal
with some of the same patients but only see and treat those patients that
require surgery (head trauma, tumors, aneurysms etc). To become a
neurosurgeon requires medical school and a neurosurgery residency that is
5-7 years long.

A neuropsycologist is a psychologist with special training in neurologic
disorders. To do this requires a PhD, you might ask someone in the
psychology field to comment on exactly what the job entails. My experience
in medicine with neuropsychologists is that they perform a battery of tests
to help diagnose problems (depression, cognitive deficits etc).

A neurophysiologist (I think this is what you meant as opposed to a
neurophysicist) is also a PhD (usually in physiology) which requires about
5-7 years after college and the daily job would be much more research/lab
oriented toward identifying the molecular/cellular basis of disease or
function.

Hope this helps