Clinic, consults, and stroke calls shift by week. Here's a mixed day:
Check overnight patients. Review seizure monitors and scans before the day begins.
Pager goes off. Rapid exam decides if clot-busting drug is safe.
Study MRI and EEG results. Is this finding causing the symptoms?
Test reflexes, strength, and balance. Adjust doses for Parkinson's and migraines.
Advise ER doctors on sudden dizziness. Brain problem, or something else?
See long-term patients. Track change since last visit, decide what to tweak.
Explain a dementia diagnosis to a worried family. Choose words carefully.
Finish notes, answer insurance questions, order tests and therapy.
Hand off hospital patients to the on-call neurologist.
- Test a patient's reflexes, strength, vision, and balance to find where the problem is.
- Read brain scans, EEGs, and nerve tests to confirm a diagnosis.
- Race to assess a possible stroke and decide on clot-busting treatment.
- Prescribe medications and adjust doses for seizures, migraines, Parkinson's, and multiple sclerosis.
- Follow patients for years and track how their condition changes.
- Is this sudden weakness a stroke, and is it safe to give clot-busting medicine?
- Is this scan finding actually causing the symptoms, or is it just a harmless oddity?
- Is this new medication helping enough to keep going, or should I change the dose?
- How much of this hard diagnosis should I share today, and how do I say it?
- Is this a brain problem at all, or could something else be causing these symptoms?
Physicians diagnose and treat illnesses and injuries, prescribe medicine, and help people of all ages stay healthy, often as primary care doctors who refer patients to specialists when needed.
Psychiatrists are medical doctors who diagnose and treat mental health conditions like depression, anxiety, and ADHD. Unlike most therapists and psychologists, they can prescribe medication, and many also offer talk therapy.
Surgeons are doctors who treat injuries, diseases, and deformities by performing operations. They decide when surgery is needed, lead the operating room team, and guide patients through recovery.
