Grants Funded

Abstract

Project Summary: Favorable match outcomes are observed in students taking the opportunities for early exposure through summer research programs. Opportunities of this sort elude students from disadvantaged background and students at institutions without home programs for plastic surgery. Workshop, guest speakers, and mentorship will be directly addressed through adjunct sessions during the 8 weeks, with the goal of providing tangible measures of access to the field of plastic surgery and knowledge previously unavailable to applicants with limited resources. The presence of a home program provides unlimited access to suture skills, mentors in plastic surgery, as well as research opportunities within short reach. Students at medial schools without these home programs would use these resources in addition to the mentorship database to guide them once they return to their medical school. Public speaking, clinical research skills, and suturing skills will be accessible through digital recordings to serve students without home programs. Finally, there will be an interactive platform created for participating summer students to discuss current updates about equity and diversity in the field of plastic surgery. This project not only aims to address increasing representations for students, but also serve as a future template to be incorporated across multiple institutions.

Impact Statement: Our summer research program entails academic and technical opportunities for early exposure in plastic surgery including research publications, grand round presentations, and suture workshops. From the success of the current infrastructure, there is great promise and potential in creating a multifacet summer experience for medical students that incorporates a longitudinal infrastructure for accessible resources. Specifically, an especially tangible impact lies in targeting students from minoritized populations and disadvantaged positions. We anticipate an increase the likelihood for success in plastic and reconstructive surgery for minoritized students early in their medical education, and ultimately encourage further efforts to propel this success into a further in their academic training.

Biography
Dr. David Tran is a General Surgery resident at Montefiore Medical Center/Albert Einstein College of Medicine who is taking two years for dedicated research at the New York University Langone Health, Hansjorg Wyss Department of Plastic Surgery under immediate guidance of Dr. Eduardo Rodriguez. His clinical background provides important insight toward the care of both acute and chronic wounds that are critical to understanding how FLIR can be applied in day-to-day patient care. Additionally, he will have the support and resources provided through the department for statistical analysis, creation of machine learning models, and mentorship faculty with extensive experience in wound management.