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Hello everyone!
I'm looking for some advice on a situation that I have been going back and forth on the last few days.
I am a 29 year old D.O. student interested in orthopedic surgery. My medical school offers an anatomy fellowship program where, in between your 2nd and 3rd year of medical school, you take a year to conduct research, teach, and make connections with surgeons from around the area who use the anatomy lab. Some of the surgeons/residents are from a nearby residency program that has a connection with our school. As of now, I do not have any research and I know with the merger research will be playing a larger role in the selection process. The main reasons that I would want to do the fellowship is for the research and connections (not so much the teaching aspect). They do this program every year and the fellows that work on research end up publishing and some end up presenting their work at conferences. Here are my pros/cons:
Pros:
- make connections with residents/surgeons from the residency program I am interested in
- gain research experience and hopefully publish work
- gain teaching experience
- gain surgical skills by working with general/orthopedic surgeons as they run through procedures with us
- compensation package 1-year of tuition (47k) + 28k stipend
Cons:
- haven't taken boards yet, so if I don't make competitive board scores, I won't really need the fellowship because I won't be applying orthopedics and I will be stuck in it.
- loss of a year of attending salary
- already 29 years old, so I would be delayed ANOTHER year
- loans accruing interest another year
Our school also has an orthopedic honors track which I was accepted to. The track will allow me to have more rotations in orthopedics and hopefully more opportunities during my 3/4 clinical rotations. The only reason I bring this up is because if I didn't do the fellowship, I could POSSIBLY get some research during my 3/4 years of medical school, but the research most likely won't be as good due to lack of time.
Anyone have any suggestions?
I'm looking for some advice on a situation that I have been going back and forth on the last few days.
I am a 29 year old D.O. student interested in orthopedic surgery. My medical school offers an anatomy fellowship program where, in between your 2nd and 3rd year of medical school, you take a year to conduct research, teach, and make connections with surgeons from around the area who use the anatomy lab. Some of the surgeons/residents are from a nearby residency program that has a connection with our school. As of now, I do not have any research and I know with the merger research will be playing a larger role in the selection process. The main reasons that I would want to do the fellowship is for the research and connections (not so much the teaching aspect). They do this program every year and the fellows that work on research end up publishing and some end up presenting their work at conferences. Here are my pros/cons:
Pros:
- make connections with residents/surgeons from the residency program I am interested in
- gain research experience and hopefully publish work
- gain teaching experience
- gain surgical skills by working with general/orthopedic surgeons as they run through procedures with us
- compensation package 1-year of tuition (47k) + 28k stipend
Cons:
- haven't taken boards yet, so if I don't make competitive board scores, I won't really need the fellowship because I won't be applying orthopedics and I will be stuck in it.
- loss of a year of attending salary
- already 29 years old, so I would be delayed ANOTHER year
- loans accruing interest another year
Our school also has an orthopedic honors track which I was accepted to. The track will allow me to have more rotations in orthopedics and hopefully more opportunities during my 3/4 clinical rotations. The only reason I bring this up is because if I didn't do the fellowship, I could POSSIBLY get some research during my 3/4 years of medical school, but the research most likely won't be as good due to lack of time.
Anyone have any suggestions?