Making the most of a summer research fellowship

[redblue]

I'm an M1 and very excited to conduct clinical derm research at a top research center this summer. I currently attend a mid-tier medical school, and have been pursuing some derm research here as well. Because derm is such a small field, and who you know can really open doors for you, I'm hoping for any advice in terms of networking at a different institution. It's in a completely different state, and I don't have any prior knowledge about anyone in the department. When I had a phone interview with my mentor, she indicated that I would interact with her only about once/wk. How do I make the most of my time with her and the department?

Any other advice would be greatly appreciated, thank you!

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[DermViser]

I think the key is to set what your project will be the and what the goal is at the end of the 2 months. Is it a publication? An abstract? A poster? Once you know that, you can easier plan toward accomplishing that goal.

Your PI only is meeting with you once a week more to check on your progress as well as if you have any questions, at timely intervals, as I'm sure he/she is busy with many other things he/she is responsible for. Essentially this is a way to showcase your independence, your initiative, and ability to get things done without a lot of handholding. You aren't clinically rotating per say, so networking is more difficult. The key is to be nice, kind, and humble to everyone/anyone you come in contact with in that dept as well having real tangible results at the end of the 2 months.

 

[asmallchild]

I'm an M1 and very excited to conduct clinical derm research at a top research center this summer. I currently attend a mid-tier medical school, and have been pursuing some derm research here as well. Because derm is such a small field, and who you know can really open doors for you, I'm hoping for any advice in terms of networking at a different institution. It's in a completely different state, and I don't have any prior knowledge about anyone in the department. When I had a phone interview with my mentor, she indicated that I would interact with her only about once/wk. How do I make the most of my time with her and the department?

Any other advice would be greatly appreciated, thank you!

I would echo the advice above. Your main job is to successfully complete the project and impress your mentor. You need to find out ahead of time what does completion mean (publication? data collection?) and work hard to get this done in 2 months (which is actually fairly brief for a research project)

That doesn't preclude you from hobknobbing and being nice to everyone you see but all the networking in the world won't get you anywhere if you're known as the medical student who spends more time networking instead of getting work done. In particularly, the traits that DermViser highlighted are traits that all program directors love: independence and initiative.

I've had the (dis)pleasure of working with an MS1 recently who needed his hand held every step of the way. Certainly, there are things that I would not expect an MS1 to be able to do. But this lack of ability to get anything done without my input is a poor start.

 

[redblue]

Thank you for the advice! Hopefully will be able to follow through this summer

 

[DermViser]

I've had the (dis)pleasure of working with an MS1 recently who needed his hand held every step of the way. Certainly, there are things that I would not expect an MS1 to be able to do. But this lack of ability to get anything done without my input is a poor start.

Have had this happen too. Can be very frustrating.