Hi all! Longtime lurker with a throwaway account here. This community has always been full of amazing resources (and memes), so I was hoping to get some advice!
I'm a US IMG in my third year at a med school in the EU, and I'm hoping to match into neurosurgery upon graduation. I realize how unlikely that is and I should probably be trying to cure cancer, but right now I'm trying to build my application by looking for summer research.
I have a potential spot in a lab at a US institution that has a top 10 nsgy residency program. I'd be doing preclinical work for 8 weeks over the summer with little possibility for continuation, as they do not allow remote work. I have no idea if only 8 weeks would get me a publication or what their approach to authorship in general is, but I know how important networking/connections are in a field as small as neurosurgery.
My other option is that a resident in the nsgy department in the hospital affiliated with my uni (probably the closest thing I could get to a home program) reached out to me recently and offered for me to do a project w him as first author. It would be a quick retrospective case series, but I would have to be in person to go through charts. Assuming I stayed over the summer, I could probably get at least one other project done at the hospital if I utilized my time well, as I have connections with another attending.
TL;DR of my dilemma: "guaranteed" first author publication OR not-necessarily-guaranteed publication (maybe low authorship) but possibility of a LOR from a neurosurgeon in the US?
Feeling very conflicted as I don't know which would help my application more for either sub-Is or the Match and I've only got one systematic review in the works so far – I'm sensing a post-grad research year in my future lol.
Thanks in advance and sorry for the wall of text! Y'all are amazing!