Neuro-Ophthalmology — Specialty Profile

Exploratory, not prescriptive. This profile blends hard data (pay, match rates, burnout, demographics, each sourced and dated) with generalizations and synthesized opinion about culture and "who fits." It's here to help you get curious and go find out for yourself, not to tell you who to become. Numbers marked ⟳ verify change every year; check the linked source before you quote one. Last reviewed: 2026-08-04.

Also called: neuro-ophth, NO. A 1–2 year fellowship entered after either an ophthalmology residency or a neurology residency, not a residency you match into from medical school. Organ system: the visual pathway, from the optic nerve back through the brain, plus the nerves that move the eyes.

Subspecialty fellowship of Ophthalmology, and of Neurology.

The 30-second version

Neuro-ophthalmology sits between two specialties and belongs fully to neither, diagnosing the visual system's problems when the eye itself is normal. A patient arrives having lost vision in one eye over days, or seeing double, or with swollen optic discs found on a routine examination, and the question is whether the cause is optic neuritis, giant cell arteritis, raised intracranial pressure, a compressive lesion, a stroke, or a functional disorder. Answering it requires the ophthalmologist's examination and the neurologist's differential at the same time, which is why the fellowship accepts both. The work is almost entirely cognitive: long histories, careful examinations, imaging interpretation, and diagnoses that frequently arrive at conditions that are neither eye disease nor treatable by an eye doctor. It is also, by the numbers, the most severely understaffed subspecialty in ophthalmology, with a documented 20% workforce shortage and six states with no neuro-ophthalmologist at all. The only pay figure anybody publishes for it is an average base salary of $215,000 from a 2017 society survey, which the Academy's own reporting describes as comparable to a comprehensive academic ophthalmologist. The trade at the center of the field: probably the most intellectually satisfying diagnostic work in either parent specialty, done almost entirely in academic jobs, inside a payment system that pays for procedures this field does not perform.

Quick dashboard (details and sources below)


Training after med school	5–6 years (ophthalmology 4, or neurology 4, + 1–2 yr neuro-ophthalmology fellowship)
Total from college start	~13–14 years (4 undergrad + 4 med school + 4 residency + 1–2 fellowship)
Training chain	Med school (4) → Ophthalmology (3 + intern yr) or Neurology (3 + intern yr) → 1–2 yr neuro-ophthalmology fellowship
Entry routes	Ophthalmology and neurology both, which is unusual and central to the field ⟳
Competitiveness	Very low. Roughly a third of fellowship positions go unfilled, and only about 5 new specialists enter annually against 10–14 needed ⟳
Typical full-time pay	Average base salary ~$215,000 in a 2017 NANOS survey, high earners above $400,000; nothing more recent is published ⟳
Pay vs. parent (comprehensive ophthalmology)	Below, but the two figures do not compare cleanly: a 2017 base salary against a current all-settings total-comp band of ~$410,000–$490,000 ⟳
Lifestyle	Outpatient, clinic-only, essentially no call and almost no procedures ⟳
Burnout	No subspecialty figure; parent ophthalmology is 25.8% against a 41.9% all-physician average (AMA 2025), second-lowest of the rows it names ⟳
% women	No published subspecialty figure; parent ophthalmology 28% practicing, neurology 33% (AAMC, 2022 data) ⟳
DO / IMG accessibility	Depends on the door. Ophthalmology is among the least open; neurology is ordinary at 18.8% DO and 22.4% IMG of filled positions, against 21.5% and 25.2% class-wide ⟳

What they actually do

Optic neuropathies are the core. Optic neuritis, often the first presentation of multiple sclerosis or of MOG or aquaporin-4 antibody disease; non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy; and giant cell arteritis, which is the field's emergency, since untreated it blinds the second eye within days and the treatment is steroids started before the biopsy comes back.

Papilledema and raised intracranial pressure is the second large category, most commonly idiopathic intracranial hypertension, which requires distinguishing true disc swelling from the pseudopapilledema that sends many patients to the clinic unnecessarily, then lumbar puncture, imaging, and management shared with neurosurgery and neurology.

Ocular motility and diplopia covers the cranial nerve palsies and their causes, from microvascular third nerve palsy to aneurysmal compression, plus internuclear ophthalmoplegia, nystagmus, thyroid eye disease, and myasthenia gravis, which presents to eye clinics as often as to neurology.

Chiasmal and retrochiasmal disease brings pituitary tumors, strokes, and other intracranial lesions whose first sign is a visual field defect the patient may not have noticed.

And functional visual loss, which is a substantial share of referrals and requires an examination technique specifically designed to demonstrate intact vision without confrontation or humiliation.

Representative work: afferent and efferent examination, including pupil testing, color vision, and formal ocular motility assessment · optical coherence tomography and visual field interpretation · MRI and MRA interpretation alongside radiology · temporal artery biopsy · lumbar puncture · botulinum toxin injection for blepharospasm and hemifacial spasm · strabismus surgery for adult diplopia at some centers · optic nerve sheath fenestration at a minority of centers · management of immune-mediated optic neuropathies with the newer biologics.¹

A day in the life: clinic, and long clinic. New patient evaluations run to an hour or more, because the history is complex, the examination is detailed, and the outside imaging has to be reviewed personally rather than read from a report. Much of the practice is consultative: patients arrive already seen by an ophthalmologist, a neurologist, or both, with the question unresolved. A meaningful share of the value delivered is a confident diagnosis of something benign, which prevents further investigation and reassures a frightened patient.

On call: minimal. Giant cell arteritis and acute papilledema need urgent attention, but they arrive during the day through referral rather than at night through an emergency department.

The training path & time to completion

Two doors, one fellowship.

Via ophthalmology: medical school (4 yrs) → intern year → ophthalmology residency (3 yrs, SF Match) → 1–2 year neuro-ophthalmology fellowship.

Via neurology: medical school (4 yrs) → intern year → neurology residency (3 yrs) → 1–2 year neuro-ophthalmology fellowship.¹²

The fellowship is one year in the standard configuration, with two-year research-inclusive options at academic centers.
It is not ACGME-accredited and leads to no subspecialty board. The American Board of Ophthalmology issues no subspecialty certificates, and the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology has no neuro-ophthalmology certificate either. The field's professional home is the North American Neuro-Ophthalmological Society, and fellowship completion is the credential.³⁴
The two doors produce genuinely different practitioners. An ophthalmology-trained neuro-ophthalmologist can perform strabismus surgery and brings a far more refined ocular examination; a neurology-trained one brings the broader neurological differential and is more comfortable managing multiple sclerosis, myasthenia, and headache. Many practices want one of each.
Total from the start of college: about 13 to 14 years.

The accessibility difference between the doors is the most practically useful fact here. Ophthalmology is among the least open residencies in medicine: IMGs take about 2% of matched positions, and only about a third of the DO applicants who apply match at all.⁴ Neurology is an ordinary door by comparison, with DO graduates taking 18.8% and international graduates 22.4% of its filled PGY-1 positions, against 21.5% and 25.2% across all PGY-1 positions.⁵ Those two DO figures measure different things — a match rate on the ophthalmology side, a share of seats on the neurology side — so read each on its own terms rather than against the other. If neuro-ophthalmology is what you want and the ophthalmic examination is not the specific draw, the neurology route reaches the same fellowship through a far wider gate.

How competitive is it?

This is one of the least competitive fellowships in American medicine, and the field says so itself.

Roughly one-third of neuro-ophthalmology fellowship positions go unfilled in recent years. ⟳
About 5 new neuro-ophthalmologists enter the workforce annually, against 10 to 14 needed just to replace attrition.³
The field carries a documented 20% workforce shortage. More than 20% of neuro-ophthalmologists report patient wait times exceeding three months, only 8 states have adequate specialist coverage, and 6 states have none at all.³ ⟳
Over a third of the workforce is in the third decade of practice or later, so attrition is accelerating.³

The consequence is that anyone who wants this field can have it, and that a graduate enters a market where demand overwhelms supply. That is an unusual position, and it should be weighed against the compensation section below rather than in isolation.

The honest read. There is no competition to speak of. The scarcity is entirely on the employer's side. What determines whether you should do this is whether you want the work and can accept what it pays.

Board: none. Certification is general ophthalmology through the ABO or general neurology through the ABPN, depending on your door.³⁴

Compensation — the robust version

This section is the reason the field is short of people, and it deserves to be stated without softening.

The figure, and everything attached to it. A 2017 internal survey by the North American Neuro-Ophthalmology Society put the average neuro-ophthalmologist's base salary at about $215,000, with high earners above $400,000. The Academy quoted that survey in 2023 and set the number against a comprehensive academic ophthalmologist, calling the two comparable.³ ⟳

The comparison, and why it will not carry the weight people put on it. Comprehensive ophthalmology runs roughly $410,000–$490,000 total compensation across all settings, with partners and owners near $610,000 and retina near $700,000.⁴ Setting $215,000 beside that involves three mismatches at once: nine years, base salary against total compensation, and an academic-only field against a band whose upper half is private practice and ownership. The direction is not in doubt, and the mechanism below is well documented, but any specific multiple you compute from those two numbers is an artifact of the mismatch rather than a measurement. Nobody publishes a current neuro-ophthalmology compensation line to replace it with. ⟳

The mechanism is straightforward and structural. American medicine reimburses procedures far better than cognition, and neuro-ophthalmology is almost purely cognitive. A visit takes an hour, generates an evaluation and management code, and produces no procedure. A retina specialist in that same hour performs several injections. The subspecialty's clinical value is enormous and its billable output is small, and the payment system does not distinguish between those two things.

The compounding problem is that the field cannot solve this internally. There is no cash-pay component, no procedure to add, and no volume strategy that preserves the quality of an hour-long neuro-ophthalmic evaluation. Academic departments largely carry these clinics as a service, which is why nearly all the jobs are academic.

What partly offsets it. Scarcity is real leverage, and a physician entering a field with a 20% workforce shortage and six states with zero coverage can negotiate. Some neuro-ophthalmologists maintain a general ophthalmology or general neurology practice alongside, which raises income substantially, and combined practice is one of the field's recognized survival strategies.

Limited-data caveat: the $215,000 is a base salary from an internal NANOS survey conducted in 2017 and quoted in an American Academy of Ophthalmology workforce article of April 2023, so the article is six years newer than the data and the data is now nine years old. MGMA and Doximity publish no neuro-ophthalmology line. Treat it as the best available, note that it is base rather than total compensation, and verify against actual offers. ⟳

Lifestyle

Clinic-only, outpatient, and daytime. There is no operating room in most neuro-ophthalmology practices and no inpatient service beyond consultation.
Essentially no call. Urgent conditions arrive by referral during working hours.
Long appointments set the pace. Fewer patients per day than any other ophthalmology subspecialty, with the intensity in the cognitive load rather than the throughput.
Academic structure shapes the week, since almost all jobs are academic, with teaching and consultative demands attached.
Geographic flexibility is theoretically excellent and practically constrained. Six states have no neuro-ophthalmologist and demand exists everywhere, but the jobs that exist are at academic centers, because that is who can subsidize the clinic.

Lifestyle rating: 5/5. No call, no nights, no procedures, and full control of the schedule. On lifestyle alone this is among the best in medicine, which makes the compensation problem the entire story.

Wellbeing — the part to take seriously

No neuro-ophthalmology-specific wellbeing data exists. Inherit ophthalmology at 25.8% burnout against a 41.9% all-physician average, second-lowest of the rows the AMA's 2025 Organizational Biopsy names.⁴ ⟳

The distinctive satisfaction is diagnostic. Practitioners describe this as the most intellectually rewarding work available in either parent specialty: the examination genuinely localizes the lesion, the reasoning is elegant, and the patients arrive undiagnosed after multiple prior opinions. Delivering a confident answer where several other physicians could not is a specific and repeatable professional pleasure, and it is why people stay in a field that pays what this one pays.

The distinctive frustration is being the end of the line without the tools. Many of the diagnoses made here are of conditions neuro-ophthalmology does not treat: a stroke, a pituitary tumor, a demyelinating disease. The neuro-ophthalmologist identifies the problem and hands it to someone else, which some find satisfying as pure diagnosis and others find hollow.

The moral dimension of the shortage is real. When six states have no neuro-ophthalmologist and a fifth of practitioners report three-month waits, the people in the field know that patients are going undiagnosed for reasons that are entirely economic.³ Working inside a shortage you cannot fix, caused by a payment structure you did not design, is a specific kind of strain.

Career longevity is excellent. No procedures, no physical demands, no call, and a practice that improves with accumulated pattern recognition. This is a field people practice into their seventies, which is part of why the demographic cliff is arriving now.

Who's in the field (demographics)

No published neuro-ophthalmology-specific demographic breakdown was located beyond career stage.

Career stage is the striking figure. Over one-third of neuro-ophthalmologists are in the third decade of their career or later, so the workforce is aging out faster than it is being replaced.³ ⟳
Women: no subspecialty figure. Parent ophthalmology runs 28% women practicing and parent neurology 33%, both on AAMC's 2022 data.⁴⁵ ⟳
DO and IMG: entirely determined by the door. On the ophthalmology side, about a third of DO applicants match and IMGs take roughly 2% of matched positions. On the neurology side, DO seniors take 18.8% and international graduates 22.4% of filled PGY-1 positions. The first pair are match rates and the second are shares of seats, so they are not directly comparable; what is clear either way is which door is wider.⁴⁵ ⟳
Underrepresented in medicine: no subspecialty figure available. ⟳

Culture, personality & the online stereotypes

Who gravitates here: people who chose their specialty for the diagnostic reasoning and were disappointed by how little of it the day contained. The field draws examination purists, imaging enthusiasts, and people who like localizing lesions. It is heavily academic, heavily consultative, and unusually collegial, partly because the community is small enough that everyone has met. As always, plenty of people in the field do not fit any single mold.

The stereotypes. Community perception rather than fact, each with a kernel and an unfair edge:

"The smartest and worst-paid people in ophthalmology." Both halves are widely believed and the second half is documented.³
"You diagnose things you cannot treat." Substantially true and viewed differently depending on temperament.
"A dying field." Not dying so much as failing to reproduce: 5 entrants a year against 10 to 14 needed, with a third of the workforce late in career.³ The distinction matters, because demand is rising rather than falling.
"Neurologists and ophthalmologists see different patients in the same clinic." Partly true and generally regarded as a strength, since the two training routes produce complementary practitioners.

What people say online (synthesized and paraphrased, not quotes): across trainee and physician forums, neuro-ophthalmology reads as universally admired and rarely chosen. The dominant recurring theme is money, discussed frankly and often with real anger, since posters note that a physician can complete one of the hardest residencies in medicine, add a fellowship, and end up earning less than a general neurologist. A second thread is the entry-route question, with the increasingly common advice that neurology is the more sensible door because the residency is far more accessible and the fellowship is the same. A third is the combined-practice survival strategy, meaning keeping a general clinic alongside. A fourth is the work itself, described in terms unusual for internet discussion: people say it is the most interesting thing they have done in medicine. The tone is affectionate and frustrated in equal measure.

Voices from the field. Paraphrased from published sources, with links to the originals:

The American Academy of Ophthalmology documents a 20% workforce shortage in neuro-ophthalmology, with more than 20% of practitioners reporting patient waits over three months, only 8 states adequately covered and 6 with none, 10 to 14 new specialists needed annually against about 5 entering, over a third of the workforce in its third decade or later, and, from a 2017 NANOS survey it quotes, an average base salary of $215,000 with high earners above $400,000, which the article calls comparable to a comprehensive academic ophthalmologist.³
The North American Neuro-Ophthalmological Society maintains the shortage as a standing professional concern and is the field's credentialing and professional home in the absence of any board certificate.³

Why people choose it / why people leave

Why choose it: the most intellectually satisfying diagnostic work available in either parent specialty · an examination that genuinely localizes the lesion · two entry doors, one of them through a highly accessible residency · essentially no call, no procedures, and complete schedule control · patients who arrive undiagnosed and leave with an answer · a workforce shortage severe enough that you can work almost anywhere and negotiate · a field small enough to know personally.

Why leave or avoid it: the pay, which is the field's own stated recruitment problem, and about which the only published figure is a 2017 base salary of $215,000 · no procedures, no cash-pay component, and no internal fix for the economics · diagnosing conditions you then hand to someone else · almost entirely academic employment · no board certificate · the strain of working inside a shortage you cannot resolve.

Best fit if: diagnosis is the part of medicine you love most · you want a callless, procedure-free, fully controllable practice · you want academic work and consultation · you can accept the compensation with your eyes open · you would rather be scarce and needed than well paid.

Not for you if: you need procedural work · the pay gap would come to feel like a grievance · you want to treat what you diagnose · you need non-academic employment options.

The FLI angle — Neuro-ophthalmology for first-gen, low-income & immigrant students

Where it fits FLI realities well:

The neurology door is genuinely open, and it is the most important fact on this page. Neurology runs 18.8% DO and 22.4% international graduates of its filled PGY-1 positions, just under the 21.5% and 25.2% across all PGY-1 positions, and the neuro-ophthalmology fellowship is undersubscribed to the point that a third of positions go unfilled.⁵ The same fellowship reached from ophthalmology requires clearing one of the least accessible matches there is.⁴ If this field draws you, the neurology route is the rational one.
PSLF fits this path better than almost any other in ophthalmology or neurology, because the jobs are essentially all academic and academic medical centers are qualifying employers. Given the salary, forgiveness is not a nice-to-have here; it is the thing that makes the arithmetic work.
The lifestyle is outstanding: no call, no procedures, no nights, full schedule control.
Scarcity gives you leverage most new attendings never have, in a field with a 20% shortage and six states with zero coverage.³

Risks to name honestly, and the first one is serious:

The compensation is the field's own stated recruitment problem, and it is thinly measured. The only published figure is an average base of about $215,000 from a 2017 survey, after four years of residency and one to two of fellowship, in a field whose parent specialty averages $410,000–$490,000 in total compensation on current surveys.³⁴ Those two numbers are nine years and two definitions apart, so do not compute a gap from them. What is solid is the shape: almost all the jobs are academic, there is no procedural or cash-pay component, and academic ophthalmology is the low end of the parent field's range. Against a median physician debt burden, that compounds over a career. If your family's financial position depends on your income, model this explicitly, alongside the Money section on debt and specialty choice, before you commit. It does not make the field wrong. It makes it a choice that has to be made deliberately.
The general-neurology alternative pays more for less training. A general neurologist earns around $310,000 without the fellowship.⁵ That comparison is uncomfortable and it is real.
Almost all employment is academic, so the private-practice income route that exists in most of ophthalmology is not available here.
The combined-practice strategy is worth planning for. Many neuro-ophthalmologists maintain a general clinic alongside to make the economics work, and that is a decision to make at contract time rather than five years in.

Bottom line for FLI: the most intellectually rewarding work in this corner of medicine, reachable through a residency door that is open at the ordinary rate rather than gatekept, with a lifestyle almost nothing beats and a PSLF fit that does real work against a low salary. The catch is the salary itself, and it is the biggest catch on this page. Go in through neurology, plan for forgiveness rather than repayment, and decide about combined practice before you sign anything.

Fun facts

Six states have no neuro-ophthalmologist at all, and only eight have enough.³
The field does not reproduce itself. About 5 new specialists enter each year against 10 to 14 needed simply to replace those leaving.³
The same fellowship is reached from the least accessible residency in medicine and from one that admits DOs and international graduates at close to the ordinary rate, depending on whether you come through ophthalmology or neurology.
Giant cell arteritis is treated before it is confirmed. Steroids start on suspicion, because waiting for the temporal artery biopsy risks the second eye.
The pattern of visual field loss localizes the lesion along the pathway, which means a bedside test can tell you roughly where in the brain the problem is before any scan.
There is no board in it. Neither the American Board of Ophthalmology nor the ABPN certifies neuro-ophthalmology, so the fellowship itself is the credential.

Sources

Clinical scope and fellowship content — optic neuropathies, papilledema and idiopathic intracranial hypertension, ocular motility disorders and diplopia, chiasmal and retrochiasmal disease, and functional visual loss, with temporal artery biopsy, lumbar puncture, and botulinum toxin as the field's limited procedural repertoire. Composite of published US neuro-ophthalmology fellowship curricula and North American Neuro-Ophthalmological Society materials. (accessed 2026). ↩ ↩²
Match and entry structure. Neuro-ophthalmology fellowships accept applicants from both ophthalmology and neurology residencies; ophthalmology-side fellowships are processed through SF Match alongside cornea, glaucoma, and pediatric ophthalmology. SF Match — Ophthalmology Fellowship (https://www.sfmatch.org/specialty/ophthalmology-fellowship) and Association of University Professors of Ophthalmology, SF Match (https://aupo.org/sfmatch), accessed 2026. ↩
Workforce and compensation. American Academy of Ophthalmology, EyeNet — "Neuro Needs You—and Peds and Uveitis Do, Too," April 1, 2023: neuro-ophthalmology carries a 20% workforce shortage; more than 20% of neuro-ophthalmologists report patient wait times exceeding three months; only 8 states have adequate specialist coverage and 6 states have none; 10 to 14 new neuro-ophthalmologists are needed annually while only about 5 enter the workforce; over one-third of the workforce is in its third decade of practice or later. On pay, the article's own sentence is: "A 2017 internal NANOS survey showed the average neuro-ophthalmologist earns a base salary of $215,000 per year—comparable to a comprehensive academic ophthalmologist—with high earners getting over $400,000." It sits under the article's heading "Myth No. 1: They don't make a good living," in a passage arguing these physicians "earn a competitive livelihood," and it is followed by a note that some practices use revenue-sharing models that pay the neuro-ophthalmologist an extra share of profit. https://www.aao.org/eyenet/article/neuro-needs-you-and-peds-and-uveitis-do-too ⟳ Corrected 2026-08-17: three things about this figure were wrong on this page and together they inverted its argument. The data is a 2017 NANOS survey, not a 2023 figure, and the limited-data caveat had said it came from something other than a compensation survey and dated it to the article's publication. The source benchmarks it against a comprehensive academic ophthalmologist, and this page dropped "academic" and compared it against the whole parent field's total-compensation band, a band whose upper half is partners and owners. And the source presents the number as its rebuttal to the claim that these physicians do not make a good living, where this page turned it into "the largest subspecialty pay cut documented anywhere in the Sky." That superlative and the "roughly half" arithmetic are removed from the 30-second version, both dashboard pay rows, the compensation section, the why-leave list, the figure brief and the FLI risk list. The workforce-shortage half of this footnote is exact and unaffected. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶
Parent-field figures for ophthalmology. Comprehensive ophthalmology typical comp ~$410k–$490k with partner or owner ~$610k and retina ~$700k, the 4-year training length (1 intern year plus 3 of ophthalmology), and the absence of American Board of Ophthalmology subspecialty certificates: see the ophthalmology and vitreoretinal surgery profiles on this site. Burnout: AMA Organizational Biopsy 2025 — nearly 19,000 physician responses across 106 health systems in 38 states — puts Ophthalmology at 25.8% against a 41.9% all-physician average, second-lowest of the rows it names, https://www.ama-assn.org/practice-management/physician-health/these-9-physician-specialties-report-highest-burnout-rates. Corrected 2026-08-17: the dashboard and the wellbeing section now lead with the AMA row rather than Medscape's 39%. AMA is the instrument this page prefers wherever it publishes a row, because it is free, primary and current, and ophthalmology is one of the roughly fifteen the Organizational Biopsy breaks out. A Medscape-frame rank is not restated in the AMA frame; the two baselines are seven points apart. The Medscape reading, no longer the page's anchor: 39% against a 49% all-physician average, Physician Burnout & Depression Report 2024, n=9,226, fielded July–October 2023, paywalled and returning HTTP 402. Corrected 2026-08-17: this footnote claimed three independent relays agreeing on every row and then named two. Only Healthgrades Pro (https://resources.healthgrades.com/pro/the-most-and-least-burned-out-physicians-by-specialty) prints an ophthalmology row; Advisory Board (https://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/2024/01/31/physician-burnout) carries no specialty table and does not corroborate it. Women in practice, 28%: AAMC, "Women are changing the face of medicine in America" (2022 data), https://www.aamc.org/news/women-are-changing-face-medicine-america, which puts ophthalmology at 28% against a 38% all-physician share for the same year. Women in training: ACGME, Data Resource Book, Academic Year 2024-2025, Table C.21, https://www.acgme.org/globalassets/pfassets/publicationsbooks/2024-2025_acgme_databook_document.pdf, which puts ophthalmology residents at 42.6%. Swept 2026-08-17: this footnote recorded that the body's "~25–26%" sat below the primary, and the body went on printing it in the dashboard and the demographics bullet. Both now say 28% and cite AAMC directly. The DO match rate and IMG share are left attributed to the ophthalmology profile: ophthalmology runs its own SF Match rather than the NRMP's, so those figures are not in the NRMP report this site cites for every other field, and no one here has opened the SF Match's own results. ⟳ The two never belong in the same sentence, and a cross-specialty rank must name which survey it comes from. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹
Parent-field figures for neurology. Typical comp ~$340k–$362k, with the AAN's 2025 survey putting general neurology's median at $309,882: see the neurology and behavioral neurology profiles on this site. Women in practice, 33%: AAMC, "Women are changing the face of medicine in America" (2022 data), https://www.aamc.org/news/women-are-changing-face-medicine-america. Women in training: ACGME, Data Resource Book, Academic Year 2024-2025, Table C.21, https://www.acgme.org/globalassets/pfassets/publicationsbooks/2024-2025_acgme_databook_document.pdf, which puts neurology residents at 50.2% women, ten points above the ~40% this page carries. DO and IMG shares: NRMP, Results and Data: 2026 Main Residency Match, May 2026, Table 2, https://www.nrmp.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Main_Match_Results_and_Data-2026.pdf, which reports 18.8% DO and 22.4% IMG of neurology's filled PGY-1 positions in 2026: of the 999 filled, 181 went to DO seniors and 7 to DO graduates, and 49 to US IMGs and 175 to non-US IMGs. The same table's all-PGY-1 totals row gives 21.5% DO and 25.2% IMG of 38,354 filled positions. Corrected 2026-08-13: this page carried the 2025 cycle's ~16.5% and ~29%. Swept 2026-08-17: the figures were verified against Table 2 and stand. The five sentences built on them did not: this note closed with "Neurology remains among the more open fields on both counts," and the dashboard, the training-path caption, the accessibility paragraph, the FLI bullet and the bottom line all called neurology "among the most open" or "among the most accessible." On the 2026 baselines it is a little below the all-class rate on both axes, so those now state the pair against the baseline. The contrast this page is built on survives, because ophthalmology's ~2% IMG is what makes the neurology route the wider one. Value swept: 18.8% DO and 22.4% IMG, denominator positions filled, source NRMP Main Match 2026 Table 2. ⟳ ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

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