Do Early Year Medical Students With An Interest In Surgery Want To Do Vascular Surgery Research?
Bharath Peddibhotla, James Dittman, Michael Amendola, MD.
VA Medical Center/VCU Health System, Richmond, VA, USA.
OBJECTIVE:Research experience, including presentations and publications, is a key component of a strong application to vascular residency programs. We set forth to survey all first-year medical students at our institution regarding their research background, interests, and goals to better understand the needs of medical students open to pursuing vascular surgery research. METHODS:A research interest survey was developed utilizing Likert 10-point agreement scale and affirmative/negative questions in August 2021. A survey link was published on the social media page for all first-year medical students at our institution. Responses were collected for two weeks. Surgical and medical cohorts were defined by self-described student research interest and compared using Fisher’s exact* and unpaired t-test**. RESULTS: 28 (16%) of 180 students in the class of 2025 responded. The majority of respondents (75%) expressed medical research interest versus surgical research (25%) with similar research attitudes. A higher proportion of surgical respondents had led a prior research project (43% vs 28%) or co-authored on a medical manuscript (71% vs 24%), however less had conference presentation experience (0% vs 23%). Of surgical respondents, 57% were open to conducting vascular research with 14.3% selecting vascular research as their top choice. Other top choices were ENT and orthopedic surgery (28% respectively). 57% of surgical respondents expressed a goal of achieving >7 presentations during medical school versus 0% of medical respondents. The majority (57%) of surgical respondents desired to meet monthly with their research mentors, most (71%) preferring an in-person as opposed to remote research modality. No survey respondents could identify a specific faculty mentor by name to approach for a research project and 73% were completely unaware of available institutional research resources. CONCLUSIONS:In our survey of first-year medical students, we found that students interested in surgery are significantly more likely to view research as an integral part of matching into a top residency program and set the highest publication goals. While vascular surgery remains a viable first choice among surgical students, all students surveyed needed guidance regarding mentorship and resources. These data should assist faculty hoping to engage early medical student learners in vascular research. 
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