Medical Emailing/Connecting with Member of an ADCOM

[Question]

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Hi...this may be a naive and stupid question.

I went to an undergrad that has an associated med school. It took my 2 gap years to figure out what i really wanted to do, but now that i have, i realize it is a pretty niche area of medicine that combines a specific set of skills.

The chair of the ADCOM at my alma mater's med school happens to be in this very specific and niche field that I am interested in. I want to reach out to him more of a networking opportunity, but wondering if this is crazy and frowned upon. I am applying this admissions cycle BTW.

Part of me genuinely thinks someone would be happy to know I'm interested in this type of medicine because its not seen as very glamorous in the traditional sense, and I am actually passionate about this field.

I appreciate the advice 🙂
Have a great week!

— Experts please respond to this post —

 

[GoSpursGo]

Surely the school has networking events where this person might be present, right? Try going to one of those. I don’t think a random email from a current applicant asking for a special 1:1 networking session would be fruitful, no matter how it is approached

 

[Mr.Smile12]

I agree... that's what networking events are for. Find out when the school has an on-campus recruitment event scheduled.

That said, what do you expect to gain if you were to have this networking/coffee chat about this person's research? Most of us like to keep our research interests separate from our other service duties.

You also never know how stable this person's research program funding is.

Don't appear like a brown-noser. Have the coffee chat after you matriculate there or any other medical school. Choose your reason to meet is about medical school admissions or working in that person's field... not both.