Gen Surg resident with question re Plastics fellowships

[amc123]

So I'm a general surgery resident who is interested in pursuing plastic surgery fellowship when I'm done. I had two questions.

1) How important is it to take time off residency to do plastics research? Does research need to be in a plastics-run lab or with a plastics principal investigator?

2) How important are the ABSITE scores and what kind of scores are fellowships looking for?

Any help appreciated! Thanks.

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[Moravian]

1) How important is it to take time off residency to do plastics research? Does research need to be in a plastics-run lab or with a plastics principal investigator?

I did not do any plastics research. I did some clinical GS stuff on pancreatic cancer to show that I could write, get manuscripts published, and present my work at meetings. My feeling is that the research aspect, on one hand, is just another hoop. On the other hand, it can give you some exposure to plastics people and in this business, who you know (and who knows you) is just as important. That being said, you can still make contacts in the plastics community without being in a plastics lab.

2) How important are the ABSITE scores and what kind of scores are fellowships looking for?

Every place I looked at wanted to know about ABSITE scores. Just like applying our of med school, it's an objective (well, semi-objective) criteria on which to judge applicants.