Residency and research

[Fritz]

I am just starting medical school and I am curious about something. Are there any places out there that don't require you to do research as part of your surgery residency training. The way I see it, if you are not interested in academics and only want to do surgery why do research? Does the patient that you are operating on really cares if you investigated the signaling pathways of such and such? My feeling was always that patients really cared if their doctors had "good hands". What's up with the research requirement? Someone please enlighten me!
Thanks.

Fritz.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[surg]

I would say the the number of residencies that require time off for research is less than 35%, with almost all those being big academic centers. Many academic centers have research encouraged where the majority of residents do research but some don't. Virtually all community programs don't require research years.

However, ALL programs require some evidence of scholarly activity, although that doesn't have to be bench work. Writing a poster/abstract/review paper, for your local research day sometimes qualifies. This is important to help aid you in understanding how to read the literature. Once you have to write something, you quickly realize how shoddy much of the "literature" is.

 

[aboo-ali-sina]

you should realize that research is not just signalling pathways. It is also developing new surgical techniques in animal models, studying different clinical patterns.

For example, a surgeon might be interested in performing a randomized controlled trial on the effects of antibiotic coated suture and the incidence of wound infection. So this is not sitting the the lab and pipetting aliquots of chemicals.

You should keep that in mind before ruling out research.

 

[Fritz]

I would hate to go back to the lab and do basic research. I can look into something that is directly related to surgery, but to go back and do bench work, it would be a horrible thing. No offense to people who like, however, I would be totally miserable to do basic research.
Thanks for the answers.

Fritz.