Neurodiagnostic Week 2026
- Roya Tompkins
- 1 day ago
- 2 min read
It’s Neurodiagnostic Week!
Seriously though…I think we need a whole month : )
For many of us in this field it feels like the Best Kept Secret in Healthcare!
A career where you can work in a clinic, a hospital, an operating room or even from home.
How is it that such a versatile and dynamic field can have such a large national shortage of qualified staff?
For those working in the field we know how interesting and rewarding it is:
That wow feeling when you turn on the machine and the waveforms display. It never gets old.
Taking a patient history and based on what they tell you trying to guess to yourself what you’ll see on the screen.
Inquiring from the doctor their thoughts on a test with the opportunity to learn every day.
Some Fun Facts:
In 1924 Hans Berger, a German Psychiatrist inserted silver wires under his subject’s scalp (mostly his children) and invented the EEG recording. He called it an Elektrenkephalogram and first described the alpha rhythm showing how it suppresses when we open our eyes.
In 1937 the first hospital based EEG lab was started with a 2 channel EEG machine at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.
The EEG may be the mostly widely administered test in Neurodiagnostics; however, many technologists are skilled to perform a wide range of testing including Long-Term Monitoring, Polysomnography, Evoked Potentials, Nerve Conduction Studies and Intra-Operative Monitoring.
Even though this field is ‘the best kept secret in healthcare’ most all of us have been trying for years to get the word out.
Let’s begin to think about:
How we can mentor to new staff to improve our national registry statistics?
How we can support our state and national societies?
How we can communicate this field to local students?
This week gives us an opportunity to share what we do, but honestly - let’s take more than a week.
Roya Tompkins, MS, REEG/EP T, RPSGT, CLTM
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