I am posting this to spread the word out about my experience as the Research Fellow at the University of Cincinnati. I did not match last year and was fortunate to get accepted for this position. I applied again this year, went on 10 interviews and successfully matched. The reason I chose to do research over an intern year is that I think you get better exposed to the orthopaedic world, build connections and hopefully have some advocates by the end of the year (which turned out to be true).
My experience here has been phenomenal. In addition to learning tremendously about orthopaedics in general, I've had the opportunity to improve my research skills. I have submitted 7 manuscripts and 2 abstracts already. I am expecting to submit another 4-5 manuscripts and 1-2 abstracts by the end of the year. I have also been involved in several prospective studies that may be fruitful in the future.
Clinical responsibilities here are limited to seeing research patients in house as well as in the clinic. You are encouraged to attend conferences, grand rounds and journal clubs. You will get to go to the AAOS annual meeting (expenses covered). You do not take call, scrub in cases, and have no weekend responsibilities (even though I sometimes worked on the weekends).
You will get to know and work with well-known orthopaedic surgeons. If you are a motivated individual that works hard, this is going to be a very productive year and the faculty will go to bat for you.
Unfortunately, the position has already been filled for 2010-2011, but I thought this would be helpful for future reference.
If you have any questions, you can email me at [url=mailto]
[email protected][/url].
