Orthopedic Surgery Research - Good or bad idea?

[zammbo]

Hi everyone,

My dilemma is that I am trying to choose my first research topic (I am eager to get started in research) and I am not positive of my interests.

I had an interest in orthopedic surgery coming into medical school but I am nowhere near ready to decide that is what I want to do.

Would orthopedic surgery research be beneficial to my application if I ended up decided on a different type of surgery or anesthesia for example? And by that same token, if i partook in research in general surgery or anesthesia (just to list a couple of examples) would this benefit me at all on a potential application for an orthopedic surgery residency? Thanks for your advice!!

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[.hematoma.]

General consensus from talking to multiple MS3/4 and residents: The field of your research does not matter as much as the act of doing any research. Can it help to do ortho research if you want to do ortho? Totally, but if you choose to do research in, say, peds I think it doesn't matter very much. What does matter is that you make connections in ortho so you can show your interest, which will help when you apply for residency. For many people, those connections are made by doing research, two birds one stone; some people choose to shadow or be involved in the interest group associated with their specialty interest to make those connections.

 

[zammbo]

General consensus from talking to multiple MS3/4 and residents: The field of your research does not matter as much as the act of doing any research. Can it help to do ortho research if you want to do ortho? Totally, but if you choose to do research in, say, peds I think it doesn't matter very much. What does matter is that you make connections in ortho so you can show your interest, which will help when you apply for residency. For many people, those connections are made by doing research, two birds one stone; some people choose to shadow or be involved in the interest group associated with their specialty interest to make those connections.

Okay thanks this is very helpful!

 

[Fenixak]

Hi everyone,

My dilemma is that I am trying to choose my first research topic (I am eager to get started in research) and I am not positive of my interests.

I had an interest in orthopedic surgery coming into medical school but I am nowhere near ready to decide that is what I want to do.

Would orthopedic surgery research be beneficial to my application if I ended up decided on a different type of surgery or anesthesia for example? And by that same token, if i partook in research in general surgery or anesthesia (just to list a couple of examples) would this benefit me at all on a potential application for an orthopedic surgery residency? Thanks for your advice!!

Ortho really only cares about ortho research. I thought I wanted to do ortho, got a lot of pubs and then decided on another specialty. the pubs have benifited my app greatly and I don't regret the hard work. Most surgical specialties prefer you do research in that specialty. Ortho is one of the few specialties that almost requires it.