There are a number of factors that determine a neurosurgeon's lifestyle. These include subspecialty, academic vs. private practice, practice location, availability of residents/PAs, call schedule etc. The same factors also affect your salary. In the end you can tailor your lifestyle to some extent based on what's important to you. It's also important to distinguish the lifestyle of a neurosurgery resident from a neurosurgeon. The former is a lot more difficult in terms of hours, sleep etc.

When a neurosurgeon is on duty, his/her day might be very hectic or simple. It all depends upon the commitments.

• OPD day - It is mandatory to take ward round in morning before going to OPD. It is done to know about current status of patients. Neurosurgical patients can deteriorate at any time. Daily rounds help in knowing change in consciousness and neurological status. After round, OPD begins. It includes patients of headache, seizures, backache and few patients of tumor/neurological malformations. Most patients need thorough examination. So seeing more than 50 patients in a day is quite hectic and damaging to brain.
• Ward round day - Every neurosurgeon takes grand round in ward once or twice a week. This round include examination of dressings, file check up, treatment evaluation, reading and discussion of MRI/CT. Usually this day is relatively light as compared to other days if all patients are okay.
• OT day - Again very hectic day. After round, most neurosurgeons do OT. Most of the neurosurgical procedures are very tiring and of long duration (4–10 hours). Every procedure requires extreme concentration and dine movements of fingers.

After finishing hospital, every neurosurgeon spends the day just like other persons, except light night calls and writing about articles.

Hey there!

The first things first, you will have to build an excellent CV enclosing all of your curricular and co-curricular activities.

Then write down a moving statement of purpose. And ask three referees to write down a recommendation letter for you.

Appear for the GRE exam and also the TOEFL. Make sure, your marks are excellent.

Then, apply for the Harvard University and mention that you are an international student and hence would need a scholarship too. Also, you may apply to additional external scholarship for Indian students/international students that are provided exclusively for Harvard.

Hope this helps. Good luck!

Raja, we have been discussing your career and aspirations for a while now and we appreciate that you want to take Career360's opinion on the matter of your career. So by now, you are aware of the fact what it takes to become a neurosurgeon and what it is to clear USMLE, practise as a resident in the US. We also have discussed the life style and the salary part. Now regarding the first half and later half of the career, we only wish we could predict our timeline on this planet. We do not which might be the first half or which might be the later part. But no wish is bad. If you want to achieve something, you should lest you regret for the rest of your lofe. Now to practise in the US, you may have to appear for USMLE, clear the step 1 and then practise as a resident before you can get the license to practise as a full time neurosurgeon. That is a long process that might take good 4-5 years. You study MBBS in India for 50 months and then complete the 1 year rotational internship and it takes you as many as 5 years. And appearing for USMLE and then working as a resident take another 4 years and so 10 years of your life are spent getting a valid license to practise in the US. And then lets say after 5 years you want to move to Singapore, that takes a whole different processing because you need to appear for their license exam. And you work in Singapore for lets say another 5 years and you come back to India. 15 years of your life are spent studying and getting licenses. But the beauty is within 15 years you can actually get license to practise in 3 countries. So you need to take a call. Or how about you finish MBBS in India, move to Singapore to study your MD/MS and plan on moving to the US? That way the transition is going to be smoother.

As long as you have an active medical license in your country that being india yes you can practice medicine anywhere in the world provided that you have some references who can recommend you to the place you want to work at and a good background check. That is the most important thing to consider. And yes your wish can come true if you work hard for it. All the best

Hi,

Well I would like to tell you that in USA there is no such course as MBBS. In USA every student after schooling gets into a basic BSC or BA undergrad program and has to enroll for pre medicine track along with the degree coursework. After bachelors they have to give MCAT and then enroll in the MD program to become a doctor. There is hardly any scholarships for international students to study medicine in any university in USA.

I hope my answer helps.

All the best.

Hi,

Harvard is one of the top colleges in the world. Great Gmat, good academics, overall personality matters alot to get in Harvard or any ivy league colleges, Work on your essays, have a Gmat score getof 780+, if you have work experience then that helps another thing you will need the best recommendation letters, keeping the academics aside though you should have exceptional acadmic background with straight A's and the don't look for the strong academic only they need something different they see what makes you different than other straight A students, that spike in your profile and the thing that can make you stand out of the world's top students is what will get you in any ivy league.

hey,

harvard is one of the best university of world. you need to get really high score in academic profile with also extra curricular activities to get a chance in harvard.

as per your score you have really less chances in indian top colleges or university let alone harvard.