Finding Clinical Surgery Research

[Anaphase]

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[GoSpursGo]

These cold emails can be frustrating, but it’s really just a matter of persistence. Ideally there would also have been some sort of interest group that you could have interfaces with hiring your first year so you could’ve built some sort of relationship with faculty before you could email them.

Two pieces of advice:

1) if your home institution has a general surgery residency program, emailing the PD may be good place to start. Often they’re a little more invested in education/research/academic stuff than your rank and file faculty members and may know of people in the department who are looking for help on a project, and/or who has been helpful to students in the past.

2) hopefully you’re already doing this, but make sure you’re tailoring your email to the person you’re reaching out to. An email that shows that you know who you’re talking to and have been thoughtful about approaching—“Hello Dr so and so, I enjoyed your lecture/came across your paper on/understand that you have an academic interest in X. I’m a prospective surgery applicant and am also interested in X, and I was wondering if you have any clinical projects on X or anything else right now so that I could get involved”—will be more likely to get a response than a general “hey do you have any research” email.

 

[Anaphase]

These cold emails can be frustrating, but it’s really just a matter of persistence. Ideally there would also have been some sort of interest group that you could have interfaces with hiring your first year so you could’ve built some sort of relationship with faculty before you could email them.

Two pieces of advice:

1) if your home institution has a general surgery residency program, emailing the PD may be good place to start. Often they’re a little more invested in education/research/academic stuff than your rank and file faculty members and may know of people in the department who are looking for help on a project, and/or who has been helpful to students in the past.

2) hopefully you’re already doing this, but make sure you’re tailoring your email to the person you’re reaching out to. An email that shows that you know who you’re talking to and have been thoughtful about approaching—“Hello Dr so and so, I enjoyed your lecture/came across your paper on/understand that you have an academic interest in X. I’m a prospective surgery applicant and am also interested in X, and I was wondering if you have any clinical projects on X or anything else right now so that I could get involved”—will be more likely to get a response than a general “hey do you have any research” email.

Thank you for your reply!!
I did reach out to the General surgery residency PD and he referred me to the surgeon I mentioned in my original post.

 

[GoSpursGo]

Thank you for your reply!!
I did reach out to the General surgery residency PD and he referred me to the surgeon I mentioned in my original post.

Well that’s a bummer. I guess I might circle back and communicate what you’ve said here and see if he has anyone else who he would recommend.

 

[delamj]

YMMV but I found the most success networking through the 4th years who recently matched into a surgical subspecialty I was interested in. I met them during a panel/meet and greet event set up by the Surgery Interest Group at the end of my 1st year, but I probably would have emailed them eventually since I was looking for ways to get connected. They often had good relationships with the attendings and residents and (if your local program has research years) knew which residents were entering their protected research time. They subsequently emailed and got me connected to residents who were just starting up multiple projects.

You could also try cold emailing a few residents, especially the ones going into their research year around June/July. Be sure to look at their publications when available, and I personally would only email if their research portfolio matched my own interests.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Anaphase]

Well that’s a bummer. I guess I might circle back and communicate what you’ve said here and see if he has anyone else who he would recommend.

YMMV but I found the most success networking through the 4th years who recently matched into a surgical subspecialty I was interested in. I met them during a panel/meet and greet event set up by the Surgery Interest Group at the end of my 1st year, but I probably would have emailed them eventually since I was looking for ways to get connected. They often had good relationships with the attendings and residents and (if your local program has research years) knew which residents were entering their protected research time. They subsequently emailed and got me connected to residents who were just starting up multiple projects.

You could also try cold emailing a few residents, especially the ones going into their research year around June/July. Be sure to look at their publications when available, and I personally would only email if their research portfolio matched my own interests.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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