MS1 curious about Neurosurgery residency

[Soccerfan5527]

Hi everyone.

I am an MS1 interested in Neurosurgery. I know the common things I have been told to focus on is research, step 2, research, rotation grades, LORs and oh did I mention research?

I know research in particular plays a massive role in matching neurosurgery, I was just wondering that someone who matched neurosurgery at a Barrow or UCSF what does their research output look like? How many research items and how many first-author papers?

Also how big of a role do class rank and preclinical grades play in neurosurgery applications? I've heard that as long as you're not bottom 10% no one cares but does it matter to a place like Barrow or UCSF?

P.S. Barrow and UCSF are my dream programs because of the wonderful endovascular research that comes out of there and I want to be able to take part in that. I am not just saying those 2 names because of "prestige" or anything.

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[Kierkegaard's Bud]

Here is one piece of advice, don't ask questions that can easily be found online.

For starters, you can google the UCSF NSGY residents; they have their publications linked to their profiles.

 

[voxveritatisetlucis]

To match there you probably need to attend a top medical school and they usually don’t rank or do aoa

 

[mrbreakfast]

Don't worry about what other people did. If you want to match neurosurgery anywhere - let alone at a top institute - you should have the proverbial pedal floored from day 1 until match day.

 

[Davidfromcali]

Places like UCSF typically go for people who show evidence of eventually becoming an academic. That’s done through research. It looks like all three of UCSF’s incoming interns are from MSTP programs. I spoke to a UCSF NSG resident who actually told me most residents there either took a research year or completed a PhD.

 

[Soccerfan5527]

Places like UCSF typically go for people who show evidence of eventually becoming an academic. That’s done through research. It looks like all three of UCSF’s incoming interns are from MSTP programs. I spoke to a UCSF NSG resident who actually told me most residents there either took a research year or completed a PhD.

Thank you for the information, I really appreciate it! That's what I was contemplating if I should take a research year or not, mainly because I have been enjoying research a lot over the last 6-7 months. Good to know that most residents do take one. Thank you again!

 

[imidazzle92]

I wouldn't take a research year just to try to match UCSF, Barrow, etc. otherwise you may be disappointed. There's a lot of luck and connections on top of an otherwise stellar application to match top NSGY programs (true for other specialties too).

The number of research items doesn't mean much for those top places because it's inflated with posters and presentations. I think the median is 23 or something for NSGY, probably a third of that includes PMID-indexed papers.

 

[YoungMoneyMint]

To match there you probably need to attend a top medical school and they usually don’t rank or do aoa

Michigan students in shambles rn