During the school year, students take classes during the day; in the summer, they go to school in the evenings, which is nice because they feel that they have the daytime hours to work or study.
Some students work part-time during the program, but that’s not ideal. If you can manage it, it’s better to focus only on school, since this is a challenging program. It requires a serious commitment.
The program is intense because students have to prepare for the national registry exams and there is a different exam for each sub-specialty. There’s a lot of material to know.
In the first semester, students have classroom and lab work only. The remaining semesters combine lectures, labs and clinical practice, all in the same week. For example, students might have classes and labs on Monday and Tuesday, and clinicals on Wednesday and Thursday.
The lectures are packed full of information and instructors give frequent tests, so students really have to hit the books outside of class.
In lab, students actually run the procedures on each other. It’s very hands-on. For example, with the EEG, students mark up the head, rub the skin, stick paste on the scalp, put an electrode on the head, and run the procedure on the machine.
For clinicals, students learn on-the-job 2 full days a week at hospitals such as The Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals and Southpointe Hospital, as well as at independent outpatient neurology groups (such as Neurocare in Canton). Students practice conducting real procedures on real patients in the real world. The employees at the clinical facilities supervise students and are very helpful and patient, so it’s a great experience.