Novella's academic specialization is in neurology, including more specifically, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), myasthenia gravis and neuromuscular disorders, neurophysiology, and the treatment of hyperactive neurological disorders.

Novella received his medical degree from Georgetown University School of Medicine in 1991, did a year of residency in internal medicine at Georgetown University Hospital/Washington Hospital Center, completed his residency in neurology at Yale–New Haven Hospital in 1995, and was board certified in neurology in 1998.

Growing up, Novella did not always want to be a physician. In an interview for the Books and Ideas podcast he said,

I think I entertained various career ideas. When I was growing up I thought about being a lawyer for a while and then by the time I went to college, I knew I wanted to go into a science background and I did premed in undergraduate school. So certainly by then I had decided that that’s probably what I wanted to do. So I would probably say in my late teens is when I really decided to go into medicine.

Regarding a career in medicine he said,

The good thing about medicine is that even late in the game there's lots of career paths open to you, even after your residency. After you're basically done with your training, you could decide to be basically clinical or to do mainly research or to even go into industry or to do public health.

Novella is a proponent of scientific skepticism. In response to an editorial in The New York Times in which Paul Davies concluded "until science comes up with a testable theory of the laws of the universe, its claim to be free of faith is manifestly bogus," Novella said,

...
Wikipedia