Interviews with specialists

[mblank]

---

Members do not see this ad.

I have some students (college freshmen) who need to do interviews of professionals in a field of interest. A few of them would like to interview medical professionals (cardiologist, neurosurgeon, etc). We are a small school, and I don't have any good contacts for them. Does anyone know who they might be able to contact for those interviews?
Thanks

 

[kyamh]

Go to a website for the nearest hospital/health care provider service.

Find the department you are interested in.

See if the physicians' emails are listed online (they usually are), otherwise, find the admin assistant email.

Start sending out emails and detail exactly what you want - say you are an undergraduate student from X, and that you would like to find out more about profession Y. You were wondering if they may have B number of minutes (usually 20-30 for this kind of thing) available in the near future to talk to you. Thank them for their time and consideration.

Wait

If no response after a week, email more people.

Don't email too many at once, you don't want to be stuck with too many people who offered to give you their time.

If you don't give some broad times you are free in the initial email, then you better take whatever time the physician gives you - this isn't a time to email back and forth to find a time/date that works well with your schedule.

 

[kyamh]

The bottom line is that you don't need contacts. You just need to suck it up and start emailing physicians you have a legitimate interest in talking to. I got to chat with the head of neurosurgery at a huge-name hospital because I (as an insignificant liberal arts student) had the guts to email him. He turned out to be a great guy and gave me a unique perspective on medicine that changed my outlook entirely.

 

[pyrrion89]

Mail physicians you don't know. Do it enough times and something great will happen. Speaking from experience here.