Who to contact in the Department for Research??

[socrates89]

ok so i wanted to know in order to get a research position who are you suppose to contact in a department

The Chief
Associate Professor
Assistant Professor
Professor
Instructor

I was thinking of contacting the Chief, but maybe he will not respond so are you suppose to contact the top person in the department and they will give you one of the professors to work with or does the chief not deal with things like this and your suppose to contact someone with a lower rank like a professor

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[njbmd]

ok so i wanted to know in order to get a research position who are you suppose to contact in a department

The Chief
Associate Professor
Assistant Professor
Professor
Instructor

I was thinking of contacting the Chief, but maybe he will not respond so are you suppose to contact the top person in the department and they will give you one of the professors to work with or does the chief not deal with things like this and your suppose to contact someone with a lower rank like a professor

Cold contacting a Chairman of a Department about a research position is not likely to be a good idea and may reflect negatively on you if and when you need a LOR for residency. A better strategy is to contact the secretary of the department chair and get a list of research interests/publications of the faculty. From there you may be able to identify someone who might have a project that has room for a student researcher. Once you have the research interests or a line on someone who needs a student researcher, you can do some internet research and get more information about their topics. From there, you can contact the individual researchers with a coherent and knowledgeable letter introducing yourself and be able to discuss why their research interests you in addition to any skills you have that they might need.

Another source of research information may be your faculty adviser who would likely know which faculty members are conducting research and who might likely use a student researcher. If all else fails, you could look at the departmental website where faculty members generally post their research interests. Again from there, you can contact the individual faculty members.

 

[ACSurgeon]

ok so i wanted to know in order to get a research position who are you suppose to contact in a department

The Chief
Associate Professor
Assistant Professor
Professor
Instructor

I was thinking of contacting the Chief, but maybe he will not respond so are you suppose to contact the top person in the department and they will give you one of the professors to work with or does the chief not deal with things like this and your suppose to contact someone with a lower rank like a professor

My med school has a program set up that gives the students an idea of which research projects are available and who to contact. If your school doesn't have a person in charge of hooking up med students and researchers, I would say email the individuals you wish to research with, NOT the chair or some other administrative person. Contacting secretaries of physicians might not be a bad idea, as they can get back to you faster.

 

[socrates89]

yea so i have the list with whos doing what research and everyone including the chief is doing research but im not interested in the type he is doing what about the assistant professor im interested in his research do you think i should contact him by email about research or is he too high up on the list

 

[choweee]

When you find a topic you like, cold-email or call the researcher directly, whether he/she's an assistant prof., prof., associate prof., department head, etc. I did that this summer and found a good number of them were willing to meet with me to talk about their research. How high up they were didn't matter - I got responses from faculty of all levels. How many of them actually had space in their lab, well, that was different matter altogether

I emailed 30 profs and 2 of them had space. Good luck!

 

[socrates89]

anyone else's experience

 

[vtucci]

Check out the department website and see what people's research interests are and cold call them.

Alternatively, if any MDs lectured to you, send them an e-mail indicating interest in their lecture and asking if they have any ongoing research projects that you can get involved with.

Send an e-mail to members of the 4th year class at your school. They will be more in the know about who is doing research and might be able to hook you up.