Clinical Neuropsychologists
Life, Physical, and Social Science
Clinical work starts with a full medical history, then tests of intelligence, attention, memory, language, learning, and sensorimotor function. Detailed reports from those results help diagnose traumatic brain injury, seizures, neurodegenerative disease, and related conditions, and separate psychologically driven symptoms from neurological ones. Treatment advice may include therapy, medication, or surgery; the same evaluations support care before and after procedures such as deep brain stimulation. Children with learning disabilities and medical or surgical patients, including people with early dementia or neurologically based chronic pain, are also seen, and families are counseled on the findings. A better fit for those who like diagnostic judgment and close work with medical and surgical teams.
Typical education: Post-Doctoral Training
Annual Median Wage in Field (2025)
$110'840
Median Wage Market Position
$110'840
What you might do
- Interview patients about injury and illness history
- Test thinking, learning, and movement skills
- Diagnose seizure disorders and traumatic brain injury
- Distinguish brain injury from psychological symptoms
- Evaluate patients before and after brain surgery
- Assess children for learning and developmental disorders
Skills that matter
- Telling psychological from brain-based symptoms
- Evaluating patients around neurosurgery
- Recommending therapy, medication, or surgery
- Sorting out complex seizure disorders
- Assessing dementia and neurological pain
- Counseling families after a brain diagnosis
AI & the future of this role
Diagnosing neurobehavioral disorders and advising surgical teams hinges on nuanced judgment under liability constraints. Tools might speed scoring or report drafts, but in-person assessment and high-stakes recommendations are likely to keep this work comparatively resilient.
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Includes O*NET® 30.3 Database information by USDOL/ETA under CC BY 4.0; modified by LostInCareer. Wage/outlook from BLS. Attribution details