Asking a chair of Neurosurgery to be one of my committee members?

[DentistScientist]

Hello,

I am doing dentistry/PhD (DDS/PhD) and my PI suggested me to find committee members.


My PI recommended these following people as my future committee members

(1) a dentist scientist faculty member in my school, she is in oral medicine department. (MD is not required for oral medicine, very different than oral surgery field)
(2) a PhD professor, who is in the same department (oral biology) as my PI
(3) a professor whose field is not related to my research field or my professional field (so maybe neurosurgery chair?)

One of my two career aspirations is to go into the MD integrated, oral maxillofacial surgery residency program and build my application for my K awards so that I could be an academic oral surgeon. To make this possible, I was told to go to the residency program that is supportive toward K awards and research.

Currently, at my school, I am unable to have an academic oral surgeon as one of my committee members. Most people at my school who do enough research to be a committee members for PhD students are in medicine.

Therefore, I am looking for someone in medicine preferably in surgical field, who could help me with my application to oral surgery residency and my career goal.

Do you think this is a good or a bad idea?

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[ValentinNarcisse]

Unless this person is content expert in your area of research, it will make scheduling your committee meetings near impossible.

 

[StIGMA]

You are many years away from being able to apply for a K. Your K mentors will likely be very different than your PhD mentors (if you switch institutions, they will definitely be different). Just get committee members that you think will not be roadblocks to you graduating.

... to apply for a K, you will need support of your department chair to hire you as faculty while you are nearing the end of OMFS residency or during a post-doc/instructor/asst prof position after OMFS residency. Again, you are a good bit away from needing to think about that.

 

[DentistScientist]

Thank you guys. Then I am leaning toward finding a committee member who are not roadblocks to my graduation.

So if not about K award, how about finding a surgeon scientist mentor in medicine preferably in surgical specialty who could be helpful in MD integrated OMFS match? I just cannot find a way to do this though my dental school is literally attached to medical school and its main teaching hospital...

 

[StIGMA]

That’s a great idea, preferably someone with some overlapping interests (research) or background (ENT)

 

[DentistScientist]

That’s a great idea, preferably someone with some overlapping interests (research) or background (ENT)

Yes I was thinking about that too. OMFS overlaps a lot with ENT and plastics. And the chair of ENT is qualified to be my PhD commitee member and his son is my high school friend. The only concern I have is that, since these surgical fields overlap one another, would this either help or hurt my chances? as these fields could be either collaborating together or competing each other for patients.

 

[mark-ER]

One other bit of advice, do not use PUA in your nick, even on an anonymous forum. With your relatively unusual credentials, I bet I track down who you are without much difficulty. Stay anonymous, be careful what you post under what name even if you think you are anonymous.

 

[DentistScientist]

One other bit of advice, do not use PUA in your nick, even on an anonymous forum. With your relatively unusual credentials and credentials, I bet I track down who you are without much difficulty. Stay anonymous, be careful what you post under what name even if you think you are anonymous.

Thank you. I just changed mine.