Neurology Training
Doctors go through three phases in their career: Training, further training and continuing education. Further training to become a neurologist is multifaceted and currently lasts a total of six years.
It is divided into four phases:
- 1 year of inpatient clinical general internal medicine
- 3-4 years of clinical neurology
- 1-2 years of clinical neurophysiology and sleep medicine
- up to 1 year of research in medicine or biomedicine, neuroradiology, neurosurgery, neuropaediatrics, psychiatry and psychotherapy, intensive care medicine, child and adolescent psychiatry and psychotherapy
Documents
The following documents can be downloaded on theWebsite of the SIWF.
- training programme
- regulations on further Training
- interpretation of Art. 31 of the regulations on further Training "Absences and leaves of absence"
What does neurology deal with?
Neurology deals with disorders of the entire nervous system. This includes the central nervous system, to which the brain and spinal cord belong, and the peripheral nervous system, which includes all the nerves that lie outside the skull and spinal column.
Neurology also deals with impairments of the vascular system and the musculature. Neurologists treat diseases such as strokes, dementia, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, Parkinson's disease, headaches, polyneuropathies and tumours of the nervous system.
Good reasons for further training in neurology
1. More and more people are dependent on neurological treatments!
Neurological diseases affect up to one billion people from all age groups and areas of the world. Increased life expectancy has led to a global rise in neurological diseases such as Alzheimer's, other dementias and Parkinson's disease. It can be assumed that the number of patients with neurological diseases will increase significantly in the future - also in Switzerland.
2. Neurological research is making rapid progress!
Thanks to the intensive research of the past decades, many neurological diseases can be treated successfully today. In hardly any other medical field are such revolutionary advances in diagnostic procedures and therapeutic possibilities taking place as in neurology.
3. There is still much to discover!
Despite the countless advances, there are still countless neurological diseases for which scientific knowledge and therefore also effective therapies are lacking. One reason for this is certainly the complexity of the brain. It comprises 85 billion neurons and each of these neurons has tens of thousands of connections to neighbouring neurons and generates almost a billion billion or a trillion - that's a one with 18 zeros - signals per second. The complexity of the brain is currently beyond our comprehension and is comparable to that of our universe - so there is still a lot to discover!
4. Neurology allows numerous career paths!
Further training in neurology enables very different, interesting career paths, from hospital neurology to rehabilitation neurology and practice neurology to neurological research at universities or clinics.