4th year surgery electives

[eilis721]

Hi everyone, I'm trying to put together my 4th yr schedule. I'm applying for general surgery, so any advice from people who are wrapping up this process would be much appreciated. Specifically, what are your thoughts on doing a 1 month surgery research elective (I have no other research experience except as an undergrad). 1 month seems so short to get a lot out of a research experience, but maybe I am wrong. Do you feel that it benefits an applicant?
Any other elective ideas? I don't want to work like a dog all throughout 4th year, but it'd be nice to have somewhat of a clue for my intern year (if that's possible).

 

[Gator Fan]

Hi everyone, I'm trying to put together my 4th yr schedule. I'm applying for general surgery, so any advice from people who are wrapping up this process would be much appreciated. Specifically, what are your thoughts on doing a 1 month surgery research elective (I have no other research experience except as an undergrad). 1 month seems so short to get a lot out of a research experience, but maybe I am wrong. Do you feel that it benefits an applicant?
Any other elective ideas? I don't want to work like a dog all throughout 4th year, but it'd be nice to have somewhat of a clue for my intern year (if that's possible).

I wouldn't recommend doing a month of research. One month is not long enough to do any meaningful work. Instead, I would think it would be more beneficial for you to do away electives at places you are interested in.

 

[eilis721]

thanks for your input gator fan

 

[SocialistMD]

I'm going to play devil's advocate and tell you the pros of doing a research elective. The condition is to ask the faculty with whom you will be working if they have any data or cases that could be worked into a paper, case report or presentation in a month. I did a research month and managed to write two papers, one of which will be presented at a national conference. When it came to my application, I had something to put in the "publications" section, and I learned quite a bit about the surgical management of pancreatic malignancies involving the surrounding vasculature.

 

[avgjoe]

I'm going to play devil's advocate and tell you the pros of doing a research elective. The condition is to ask the faculty with whom you will be working if they have any data or cases that could be worked into a paper, case report or presentation in a month. I did a research month and managed to write two papers, one of which will be presented at a national conference. When it came to my application, I had something to put in the "publications" section, and I learned quite a bit about the surgical management of pancreatic malignancies involving the surrounding vasculature.

so i'm trying to do the same thing. but unfortunately I'm getting confused as to write large portions of the paper. what I have so far is the abstract. but for example, the methods - as i didn't do the statistical stuff, how do i go about writing it up without asking the prof? also for the intro - i've done a lit search on the research done on the topic so far. i'm planning to talk about that and why our data is new and special - but then that seems to overlap with the discussion... i know this is a very vague question but i'm having trouble planning out what to write where. do you guys have advice on what steps i can take to figure it out?

 

[avgjoe]

oh and for the OP, i've heard that other good rotations to do at some point in 4th year are ICU and radiology.

 

[SocialistMD]

so i'm trying to do the same thing. but unfortunately I'm getting confused as to write large portions of the paper. what I have so far is the abstract. but for example, the methods - as i didn't do the statistical stuff, how do i go about writing it up without asking the prof? also for the intro - i've done a lit search on the research done on the topic so far. i'm planning to talk about that and why our data is new and special - but then that seems to overlap with the discussion... i know this is a very vague question but i'm having trouble planning out what to write where. do you guys have advice on what steps i can take to figure it out?

The intro will write itself once you do the background literature reading. You'll see the format in which it should be written, and you'll see where your research fits in to the current literature available. Simply lay the groundwork of what is known and why it is important to do what you did.

The methods and data are the easy part. They are already done, so you just have to plug them into your paper.

The discussion should explain your data and how it ties in with your intro. There will be some overlap, but that is good, as you want to tie it all together.

My advice is to read everything you can on the specific subject. You'll notice most of them are set up in the same basic way, so the more you see, the better you'll see your paper in your mind.