Like specialty in neurosurgery is opting for one of the most difficult and satisfying careers in medicine. It requires an intensive training of medical school, and then more years of residency specialization in between. In this post, we lay out the academic timeline and requirements for future neurosurgeons.
Medical School
Duration: 4 Years
THE PATH TO BECOMING A NEUROSURGEON First, the journey to become a neurosurgeon begins with completion of medical school (which typically takes four years). Over the course of the six-year curriculum, students spend two years in a pre-clinical phase learning about basic medical sciences through lectures and labs (e.g., anatomy, physiology, and pharmacology), followed by four years in clinical training where they rotate through different medical specialties - such as surgery.
Without the fundamental knowledge and initial hands-on experience that any medical specialty requires, medical school is essential. Those looking to pursue a neurosurgery career, for example, may target competences in nervous system-related subjects or extracurricular activities like volunteering work neuroscience research.
Residency in Neurosurgery
Duration: 6-8 Years
Upon completion of medical school, the journey to becoming a neurosurgeon advances to residency training in neurosurgery. This is where the civil surgery training actually happens and can take six to eight years in all. In residency, aspiring neurosurgeons will be trained to perform a combination of surgeries and patient care in the high-pressure setting of the operating room by experienced neurosurgeons.
Residents learn a multitude of procedures from various basic diagnostics techniques to very complex surgical operations on the brain and spinal cord. The length of this training represents the intricate and focus-driven course of a residency in Neurosurgery, which guarantees the minimum proficiency of all neurosurgeons upon their graduation.
Board Certification
Neurosurgeons also need to pass a board certification exam after they've finished with residency, which is given out by the American Board of Neurological Surgery. It is important because it confirms that a surgeon knows and has necessary skills to perform neurosurgery without supervision.
Optional Fellowship
Duration: 1-2 Years
A few neurosurgeons opt to do fellowships after residency training so that they can specialize in a particular area such as pediatric neurosurgery or spine surgery, which usually lasts from one to two additional years. These fellowships are focused in fields within neurosurgery and include pediatric neurosurgery, spine surgery, or neuro-oncology, allowing for a greater depth of knowledge and experience to be developed during training.
It takes an average of 10 to 14 years, from the time you enter medical school, to become a neurosurgeon. Brain surgeons undertake many years of highly specialized training to safely perform the extremely intricate surgeries of the brain.
If you want to read a long on this path, go to the guide about how many years of medical school to become a neurosurgeon.
The Board would like to remind neurosurgeons, residents in training, and medical students that choosing a career in medicine is a major commitment - one which demands not just high intellectual aptitude and hard work as evidenced by board scores but also a serious devotion to good patient outcomes through excellent work. The graduates of this intense 30-month program, for that is how long it is called, jump to the top ranks of the most valued and trained professionals in the medical profession.