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Hello, I’m Lucy a third year medical student and I would like to apply for the role of Research director.

I have really enjoyed all the different networking opportunities and surgical skills sessions Cutting Edge has provided over the last two years. In developing the new role of research director, I would like to help provide more experiences like these for budding surgeons!

In order to do this with a research focus, my initial ideas to explore with the committee are:

- Creating a monthly newsletter to guide people towards research opportunities including:
- Nationally recognised surgical conferences: to submit extracts/posters and attend in order to learn from professionals and other students on how they present research. These experiences could also be shared with the rest society.
- Public talks or events: held by different specialties that have research opportunities or examples.
- Up and coming competitions: submit the research you have completed to competitions to potentially win a prize for your surgical portfolio.
- Medical journal updates: current surgical research papers.
- Reminders of clear dates, deadlines and information about each of the previous points. This can help organise applications and submissions to events and could be in the form of a calendar.

- A Research event - gather different professionals or university societies that can talk about the research they have carried out to give students ideas and contacts.

- Offer a talk on research skills: students can learn about the different styles of research, how to build on skills for producing their own research and tips on how to go about asking professionals to get involved in their research.

At the beginning, research can feel daunting and difficult to know where to start, but I hope to work with the Cutting Edge committee to not only support students but give members the skills and knowledge to feel confident in their ability to conduct research, so they can have confidence to approach professionals and accept research opportunities.

In my role as kit sec for medics hockey I have gained experience working within a committee and developing my organisation skills. I’ve had research experience in a QI study in paediatric surgery through the Cutting Edge mentorship scheme. This was really interesting and I realised how beneficial this was to develop my research skills. I hope to use this experience to work with the Cutting Edge committee in different events and to develop the mentorship scheme further and explore other ideas of expanding research within the society.

Thank you!
Lucy :)

Hi, I'm a second year medical student and I would like to apply for this role as I am very interested in medical research. It is something that I would like to intercalate in.
I have a few ideas that I would like to implement if I do get the role.
1. I would like to create a journal club for students interested in reading and discussing current research. The research will cover different surgical specialities, it will not be limited to just one.
2. We could also have research skills teaching sessions, where we invite speakers to talk about their journey into medical research and the different skills they had to learn to help them.
3. Another idea is to involve students directly in medical research. This could be done by reaching out for opportunities offered by doctors and academics and making them more accessible for students.

Overall, I know I will enjoy planning and carrying out events with the rest of the committee as a research director for cutting edge.