Taking off two years for research

[lalalaaaaaa]

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I'm currently taking a year off after MS3 and doing a really awesome research program in public health and infectious disease. I just got offered funding for an additional year to continue my projects, which I would love to do as this is basically like a dream job. The problem is that during my year off, my interests have shifted to wanting to do general surgery. Ideally I would love to continue my research for another year then put it behind me and go all in on surgery. Any thoughts to how surgery programs might view this? Would it look bad to not only take 2 years off school, but also doing things unrelated to surgery?

Thanks for any thoughts on this!

 

[Osteoth]

Would it look bad? Not necessarily.

Bigger question is, how does this fit into the large scale of your career? I would sit down and contemplate your next 10 years, both professionally and personally, and really see if the extra-year of research is worth it. Yeah the job might be great, but if it's your "dream job" to not be in medical school, are you really in the right program in the first place?

 

[lalalaaaaaa]

Yeah the job might be great, but if it's your "dream job" to not be in medical school, are you really in the right program in the first place?

Appreciate your thoughts. Definitely harder to justify another year when put in the bigger picture (so maybe that's the answer to my question!). Just to add, part of the "dream job" is because I'm living abroad and having a really unique/interesting experience that would be hard to get as a physician. So it's more like a short term dream and not necessarily something I may ever be able to get in the future.

 

[Lya]

It sounds like you already decided to take an additional year off. Are you considering a MPH degree down the road?

I know that there are quite a few people who took a second year off for HHMI, so taking 2 years off is not as uncommon. There are also people who do both gen surg and public health like Atul Gawande, so your passion in both fields is not uncommon, either.

Interviewers will likely ask you about your research years, so just think about how those research years could be relevant and applicable to your career in surgery.

 

[Osteoth]

Appreciate your thoughts. Definitely harder to justify another year when put in the bigger picture (so maybe that's the answer to my question!). Just to add, part of the "dream job" is because I'm living abroad and having a really unique/interesting experience that would be hard to get as a physician. So it's more like a short term dream and not necessarily something I may ever be able to get in the future.

Sounds like you are smelling the death of your youth and want to take a sabattical.

Understandable, but I would urge you to take into consideration a few factors. First of all is your personal situation. Are you interested in a family? How old are you? Are you of the gender of which the aforementioned questions would require you to plan ahead if you are interested in a family? What type of situation do you want your family to be in while they are young if you want to have one?

Furthermore, if living abroad/travel is really all you desire, there are several ways to get that without slowing down your training by a year. At the end of your 4th year of medical school most places I've heard of have 1-3 months of "vacation" time where you can take a break.

In addition, I know you mentioned general surgery so a surgery intern year would most likely not look like this, but if you end up changing your mind transitional years often have a few months of "research/filler" time in them as well where you can take time and travel/do research while again not slowing you down.

Not saying don't do what you want, just consider why you're doing it and what it'll cost you. A year at such a pivotal time in your life is not necessarily a trivial thing.

 

[AMEHigh]

I had a similar situation. I took a year off to live abroad and do work in the medical field, but not directly related. I then got offered to stay on longer and I ended up staying an additional 8 months. Granted, I'm not a surgery resident, but so far no regrets and it didn't hurt me on the application trail.