Session 33 A lot medical students go through the process end up at a time where they have to submit their rank list and they have no clue what they want to do. And this is a lot of unneeded stress. In this podcast, I talk to a specialist that you can't get hold of so you can understand what is out there for you. Today's guest is Dr. Lauren Strauss, an academic Pediatric Neurologist who specializes in headaches. She is a DO at a large academic medical center for an allopathic residency program. She is currently the Residency Program Director at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center for Pediatric Neurology. Listen to her thoughts on the field and what you should be looking into. Also check out our other podcasts at MedEd Media. [01:50] Interest in Pediatric Neurology Lauren has an interesting background having started in engineering. She did her major at UPenn in bio-engineering. She has always loved science and math. Her grandfather being an engineer and not having any doctors in the family, Lauren decided to do engineering. She thought bio-engineering would be offering her a big variety. What she found she loved the most was being able to do projects that brought them over to the hospital and allowed them to interact with clinicians. When she decided to do her senior engineering project, she ended up in the Neurology lab where they did research related to vertigo. At that time, she didn't know she wanted Neurology but she knew she liked other things outside of engineering. After graduating in engineering, she decided to take a year off while looking into medicine as an option. She worked at a pediatric practice for her pediatrician. She worked there for a summer which later turned into a whole year. Then she realized she wanted to go to medical school to be a pediatrician. It was during their pediatric subspecialty month that she could rotate through a lot of different specialties and neurology was one of them. It still didn't hit her at that point that it was what she was going to. When she picked a full month in a pediatric specialty, some subspecialties she signed up for were already filled except for pediatric neurology. She did the rotation anyway. "It was the perfect opportunity mixed with meeting the right people at the right time." Then she decided to apply to Pediatric Neurology. Lauren describes it as a hard decision to do.  Nowadays, most programs are categorical where you do your pediatrics and neuro in the same location. But at that time, there were still some where you could train at two separate places. Hence, it was a difficult process. When she talked to her medical school at New York College of Osteopathic Medicine, they never had anyone else who had done Pediatric Neurology. She is very happy she did take the plunge though. Where she ended up doing her training was pediatrics at a larger children's hospital at Long Island Jewish Medical Center. Then she did her child neuro training at Boston Children's Hospital. She then found out that a lot of people will pick an interest within Neurology and academics and go on and subspecialize with fellowship. She initially considered epilepsy since majority of the practice in pediatric neurology is developmental delay epilepsy and headache. Since she had an engineering background, she felt it was best for her to go into epilepsy. The reading of EEG's relies on physics. She soon discovered her love for patient interaction and taking a history from a patient and solving a puzzle. But she didn't love reading an EEG as much and sitting by herself. [06:18] Becoming a Pediatric Headache Specialist Lauren says a lot of people don't know you can subspecialize in headache. As a new emerging specialty, Headache Medicine is part of a UCNS (United Council for Neurologic Subspecialties) fellowship. A lot of people going into the field are adult headache specialists being the paved route. It's much easier from the adult side. "Headache is a new emerging specialty." Lauren notices that