Hi all,

I’m an M1 interested in neurosurgery, and trying to decide between two labs to do research in this upcoming summer.  One of them is related to neurosurgery, but I’m only feeling so-so about it (due to the lab, PI, specific project, etc.).  The other lab is cardiovascular, but the project is really cool and the PI is great and seems to care a lot about students.

I’ve been involved in clinical writing in the neurosurgery department already and hope to have a few clinical papers out by the time I apply for residency.  If I have that to demonstrate my interest in neurosurgery, would it still be a bad idea to take the cardiovascular project over the neurosurgery one?

Thanks!

If you’re going to take a year off to work in a NS lab, I’d pick the better project.  If not, and if you think you can get to know the NS PI, I’d work in the NS lab.  A good solid letter from a NS faculty member who actually knows you is gold.  (One of the programs I interviewed at let us see our files.  My best letter was from my research (admittedly, a year) PI.  The others were very positive, but nonspecific and brief.)

Also consider basic neuroscience projects with non-neurosurgeons, which competitive academic neurosurgery programs will identify with, and won’t be too far removed like cardiovascular.

A couple questions to ask yourself:
- What will be my level of involvement with the project?
- How much time can I dedicate to the project?
- Is the project established within the laboratory? (if it’s not, it would be more challenging to do basic science for only one summer)
- Am I interested in it? (people match without much, if any, “basic science” research or any research for that matter; although your number of publications looks good if you intend on posting your stats on UH.)

pick a lab where 1) you like your primary mentor (which may or may not be the PI of the lab),
2) you’ll spend a solid block of continuous time,
3) has a track record of medical students (so they know how to plug you in to the projects effectively)
and 4) has a solid chance to resulting in a paper, poster or talk based on your work while in the lab.

The last criterion is the key, because you want to show that you can be ‘productive’ and build your CV at the same time.

I’ve seen a lot of medical students rotate through labs for short periods of time and waste their time and the people training them. it takes a lot of energy to train someone in a lab, so PI’s often relegate the students to their post-docs, grad students, research scientists.

Come to the lab w/ an idea of what the projects are, and choose one specific aspect of a project to delve into. In that way, you can help free up the post-doc/research scientist/PI from that aspect and you therefore become an asset to the lab (instead of a liability).