Can Students At Harvard And Princeton Take Medical Courses In Neurosurgery?

Both Harvard and Princeton place the selected graduates of different internship programs in a neurosurgery residency program. That fact sheds a good deal of light on the issues related to this question: Do Harvard and Princeton Universities have medical courses for neurosurgery? The hospitals at both institutions want to have well-trained residents.

The men and women who tackle the coursework that is assigned to students of the neurosurgical field learn about the diagnosis, treatment  and rehabilitation efforts used on those who are either in need of or recovering from neurosurgery. At the same time those men and women who hope to specialize in that challenging field must become familiar with various neurological problems.


Such students read about movement disorders, epilepsy and Parkinson’s disease. Thanks to medical advances, an operation can be used to treat such a problem. Of course, a patient does not recover quickly from such an operation. That is why the students’ coursework must include information on rehabilitation efforts.

Another disorder that should not be overlooked by an instructor, when speaking to a group of aspiring neurosurgeons, is one called hydrocephalus. That stands for water on the brain. It is characterized by a build-up of cerebrospinal fluid in the ventricles of the brain.

For close to thirty years now the surgical treatment for that disorder has been administered even before the affected infant is born. In that case, the obstetrician must acquire some of the neurosurgeon’s skill. Hence, it would not be strange to have an obstetrician speaking to a class of aspiring neurosurgeons.