Busch Posted November 24, 2011 Report Share Posted November 24, 2011 I'm a first year medical student and I am interested in plastic surgery. I have done shadowing in a ton of different areas and am certain that I want to go into plastic surgery. The problem is, the university I attend does not have a plastic surgery residency program and our department of plastic surgery is so understaffed right now that no one is taking on students to do research projects. There is one other person in my class doing research in plastics for no pay and only because his dad (who is a surgeon) got him the position with a friend of his in the plastic surgery department. I'm really not sure how to go about trying to make myself competitive to match to plastics at other universities without even being able to do any related research in the field. Does anyone have any general advice on how to make yourself a competitive applicant?? I'm involved with a few student groups but I'm not sure how much this counts and I'm more than willing to do research in another area but does that just make me look like my interests lie elsewhere? I'm frustrated and not really sure what to do at this point, any advice would be greatly appreciated! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rmorelan Posted November 24, 2011 Report Share Posted November 24, 2011 I'm a first year medical student and I am interested in plastic surgery. I have done shadowing in a ton of different areas and am certain that I want to go into plastic surgery. The problem is, the university I attend does not have a plastic surgery residency program and our department of plastic surgery is so understaffed right now that no one is taking on students to do research projects. There is one other person in my class doing research in plastics for no pay and only because his dad (who is a surgeon) got him the position with a friend of his in the plastic surgery department. I'm really not sure how to go about trying to make myself competitive to match to plastics at other universities without even being able to do any related research in the field. Does anyone have any general advice on how to make yourself a competitive applicant?? I'm involved with a few student groups but I'm not sure how much this counts and I'm more than willing to do research in another area but does that just make me look like my interests lie elsewhere? I'm frustrated and not really sure what to do at this point, any advice would be greatly appreciated! This isn't a full answer - only an initial thought - but does your program have an ENT department you can do something with? The research/procedures can be quite similar, and it won't look like you are actually interested in something else. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lactic Folly Posted November 25, 2011 Report Share Posted November 25, 2011 Summer research at another university? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rmorelan Posted November 25, 2011 Report Share Posted November 25, 2011 also my understanding is that in general a lot of research is considered transportable to various fields - people understand that a) you may not know exactly what you want early one and sometimes research in an area that interests you is not possible. It is completely fine to do research anything surgical - the desire to learn and advance the surgical field will count in the end. Also the doctors in plastics may be super busy but what about the residents? Sometimes the have research projects that clerks can help out with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
failingtothrive Posted November 25, 2011 Report Share Posted November 25, 2011 sounds like you could be from my school. isn't there a city close by where you could set up a project in the summer? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NLengr Posted November 25, 2011 Report Share Posted November 25, 2011 Did you talk to the plastics guys yourself? Would they be willing to do case reports with you? Those are great for CaRMS. Also, it's really important you get some shadowing time with plastics. Without it, all the research in the world won't help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ploughboy Posted November 25, 2011 Report Share Posted November 25, 2011 Is there an orthopod at your institution who specializes in hands? That's another good overlap with plastics. Another option would be wound care/wound healing. Even pathology, if you select the right preceptor (dermatologic malignancies, breast malignancies...) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lunasly Posted December 2, 2011 Report Share Posted December 2, 2011 Just curious, but which school do you go to? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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