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Preventing neurophobia in medical students, and so future doctors

¹ Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, UK
² Department of General Practice & Primary Care, King’s College London, London, UK

Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Dr L Ridsdale
King’s College London, 5 Lambeth Walk, London SE11 6SP, UK; l.ridsdale@iop.kcl.ac.uk

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Although neurophobia is a longstanding problem, it has only recently been given the name. In 1994, Jozefowicz, an American neurologist, described it as "a fear of the neural sciences and clinical neurology" held by medical students and doctors.¹ This fear can lead to paralysis of thinking or action. Neurologists on both sides of the Atlantic will be familiar with referrals from medicine or psychiatry of patients with questions like "? organic brain ?". Other patients, who have not previously been referred, but who clearly have neurological signs, have a clinical record in which the examination reads "CNS NAD". Neurologists have come to infer that this acronym for "Nothing Abnormal Demonstrated" can equally mean "No Assessment Done".

Fear of neurology and avoidance of the examination of the nervous system is not only a problem for hospital specialists. It pursues medical graduates when they go out to practice in the community. Epilepsy . . . [Full text of this article]

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