How difficult is neurosurgery compared to other surgical fields?

[Guest]

T3 since multiple top schools dropped out of the rankings or...?

[Guest]

Always been T3 bud.

[Guest]

You mean you go to harvard?

[Guest]

No one’s impressed.
The IM losers know more medicine than you probably ever will as a neurosurgeon.
While you’re busy operating all day, they get time to do real research.

[Guest]

99% of "Real research" is done by PhDs. MDs mostly do pointless retrospective studies, and the ones who do good research behave like PhDs (that is, devote themselves to research). Even clinical trials are basically designed by specialists and the MDs just carry it out.

Physicians never acknowledge that they stand on the shoulders of PhDs, who are the ones responsible for advancing medicine.

[Guest]

Yeah, all those rat and mouse studies really advancing medicine…how many times have they cured GBM in mice again?

[Guest]

On average, a single principal investigator offers a marginal contribution to their field during the course of their academic careers. It usually takes the collective work of 20+ PIs to offer any sort of meaningful results that will push a field forward. There are some very intelligent PhDs who offer a great amount of valuable research during their careers but they are very rare.

Also, not all retrospective studies are pointless. Yes, there are many low quality studies, but there are also many that help with patient care. Likewise, I've seen many bad basic science papers. Basic science does not automatically mean valuable.

Finally, to do the poster talking about IMs doing "real research." First, most people who go into IM and the derivative specialties don't even do research. Probably >90 percent of the residents and attendings at your institution don't even do research. Of those who do, those are MD/Phds.