An Unexpected Opening--Clinical Neurophysiology Fellowship Position

Wake Forest School of Medicine has an unexpected EEG/Epilepsy pathway position open for 2011-2012. It's a one-year ACGME-approved fellowship. Training leads to eligibility for ABCN and ABPN with a certification in Clinical Neurophysiology.

Click on their link for more information: www.wakehealth.edu/Neurology/Clinical-Neurophysiology-Fellowship-Program.htm

Great free Neurology resource

OK, maybe you you are overwhelmed by the wide selection of Neurology board review books out there.  So why not start out with a freebie? Castle Connolly's Educational Review Manual in Neurology is available for free online. It offers 1,000 pages of tips and tricks for the boards, and searchable text, graphics and images. You'll want to at least give it a look-over before shelling out cash for one of the zillion other board review books available.

Check it out here for free, gratis, zip, zero, gratis: http://www.modernmedicine.com/ccgmp-neurology

UPDATE: Sorry folks. As of August 2012, this link is dead. If it goes online for free again, I will post the updated link.

An Unexpected Opening--Neurology PGY2 Position

Just in case anyone is still looking for a residency spot after this year's mess of a scramble:

Cleveland Clinic in Weston, FL has an open position for a PGY2 to start July 1, 2011. For more details, please contact residency coordinator Belinda Ortiz at ortizb2@ccf.org.

Neurology Board Review Books, as promised

In the excitement over the Match and NRMP denial of service mess I forgot that I originally created this blog to provide a helpful list of best Neuro resources for residents. So, given that the title of this blog is Neurology Board Review books, I think we'd better get down to business!

We buy a certain number of books for our residents to have on hand. Some of them they select; others are chosen for them. We asked them to choose which board review book they wanted. What do you think they chose? Ultimate Review for the Neurology Boards? Nope. Neurology for the Boards? Not on your life.

They selected Mowzoon Nima and Kelly D. Flemming's Neurology Board Review: An Illustrated Guide. They describe it as really comprehensive with lots of useful illustrations. It's a bit expensive, but worth the money. They even use it to study for the RITE exam.

There are so many board review materials out there that it can be a little overwhelming. Next time around I will post a link to a free resource, so you can get your study on at minimal expense.

IMGs post-Scramble

 I got an absolutely insane amount of emails from IMGs looking for residency positions yesterday. I usually get one or two every couple of days. For some reason everyone who did not match decided to email me looking for PGY2 spots yesterday. As we have no openings, it was very strange! Is there some conventional wisdom out there that says that you should email on a Monday? I personally think it 's the worst day to solicit, because when I roll in on Monday morning, there are a zillion urgent emails clogging up my inbox. At least on Tuesday/ Wednesday, I have time to respond to them.


P.S. For some reason, 90% of the IMGs looking for residency spots use the word "keen" in their emails. Again, very curious!

Board Review Books!

Yep, my PGY4s are in the process of buying them. I will post a list of the ones they find most useful next week. Never too early to start studying for the boards...

An Update from the NRMP

As I mentioned earlier, when the Scramble began and the unmatched could not access the list of unfilled programs, there was absolute pandemonium on the forums. Lots of talk of conspiracies by AMGs against IMGs, rumors that hackers had taken down the NRMP servers, talk of a class action lawsuit, weeping and wailing and tearing of hair and railing against the whole Match process in general.

So now, an email from the NRMP. To sum it up, they do not know what happened, but they are investigating. This investigation is expected to take several weeks. Was it a denial of service attack? Who would do that, and why? Or were their servers just overwhelmed? I don't know that the demands of the Match were any greater this year than in previous years, when there have been no problems. We will just have to wait and see what the outcome is. And hope for a better match for all of us next year--AMGs, IMGs, and us poor residency coordinators caught up in this whole crazy process...