"Types of" Research for Neurosurgery

[jessicajonesharvard]

For NSG residency applications, does it help to have research outside of neurosurgery field (publications in neurology or psychiatry journals)?
Or, does it have to be on neurosurgery research?

Also, what about basic neuroscience research that is not directly relevant to neurosurgery and is more relevant to psychiatric field (for example, circuits governing thirst/hunger/depression/anxiety/etc)? Would these help as well?

Thank you.

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[Ak07]

For NSG residency applications, does it help to have research outside of neurosurgery field (publications in neurology or psychiatry journals)?
Or, does it have to be on neurosurgery research?

Also, what about basic neuroscience research that is not directly relevant to neurosurgery and is more relevant to psychiatric field (for example, circuits governing thirst/hunger/depression/anxiety/etc)? Would these help as well?

Thank you.

Neurosurgeon at my school who used to review applications told me that it doesn’t matter as much what field the research is in. By adding research to your CV, you’re just trying to demonstrate the ability to be productive, and the intellectual capacity to think about challenging problems and apply practical solutions. I think it being in a NSG field indirectly matters because it implies you have rapport with a neurosurgeon or more than one surgeon. Since it’s such a small field, the more people you know the better your chances are of being interviewed.

 

[kitsunepixie]

I got more questions and interest about my Plastic Surgery research on Pierre-Robin syndrome and sleep apnea than I did about my research about TBI and the stem cell population in the hippocampus.

 

[chord]

You should have some degree of neurosurgery specific research for several reasons. First, it provides some indication of what subspecialty within neurosurgery you might be interested in or, at the very least, knowledgeable about and able to have a semi-intelligent conversation about. Second, it means that you'll likely have a mentor that's well-known within the world of organized neurosurgery, who will likely write you a letter. Third, neurosurgery, is a highly academic specialty, particularly within residency, and it shows that you have the drive, interest, and capability to at least participate in productive research endeavors within the field.

Now, this doesn't mean that you can't have research in other fields at all. I know people who matched this year who had transplant or cardiothoracic research in addition to some neurosurgery research. I personally had a mix of neurosurgery / neurology / basic neuroscience research.

The only situation I can see it being okay to not have any neurosurgery specific research at all is if you're an MD/PhD with a track record of publications in whatever your PhD is in.

Basic science in the neurosciences is obviously going to be okay, you might just lose out on making some of the connections that you might have otherwise made if your PI was a neurosurgeon rather than a neuroscience PhD.

 

[jessicajonesharvard]

Thank you all for your input.

Also, I have another question. How come most of the neurosurgery journals are low in impact factor, as compared to other brain (neurology, neuroscience, psychiatry) journals? For example, Is it better to have a pub in Journal of Neurosurgery over JAMA Neurology for the neurosurgery residency?

 

[chord]

Thank you all for your input.

Also, I have another question. How come most of the neurosurgery journals are low in impact factor, as compared to other brain (neurology, neuroscience, psychiatry) journals? For example, Is it better to have a pub in Journal of Neurosurgery over JAMA Neurology for the neurosurgery residency?

It has to do with less readership. Impact Factor is effectively a metric of how often any given individual paper is on average cited from a journal. The more niche your subject matter, the less readership and thus citation you'll have, and the lower your IF will be. That's why IF becomes less useful from specialty-specific perspectives and honestly isn't something that I would really focus on. Journal of Neurosurgery, Neurosurgery, and World Neurosurgery are all well respected neurosurgery journals regardless of their impact factor. JAMA Neurology is great, but the paper will likely be something more broadly applicable than what is published in Neurosurgery. Of course, far reaching clinical trials will likely be published in NEJM/JAMA/Lancet etc type journals (for example, DAWN was published in NEJM), but from an applicant's perspective, I think I would focus on trying to get higher author (preferably first author) papers in more specialty specific journals rather than trying to swing a low authorship JAMA paper where you didn't really do anything and have nothing to talk about.

All things being equal, more is better, but this is quite reductionist as things are never equal. The bottom line for prospective neurosurgery applicants is do neurosurgery related research that is interesting to you and that you'll be motivated to work on, be productive and meticulous, and understand and be able to discuss the work you've done and where you want to go in the future.