Mentorship and community in medicine
For Carlos Osorno (22MD), from Land O’ Lakes, Florida, the Research Distinction Track allowed him to put his dream of becoming a neurosurgeon to the test before he committed to residency training.
“I was involved in research with the Department of Neurosurgery early on in medical school,” he says. “It was great because I could learn about this field I was interested in and ensure that it was actually something I would enjoy working in.”
He first learned about the track when he read an article about Joeseph Hudson (19MD), a former Research Distinction Track student at Iowa who was also interested in neurosurgery.
“I followed in his footsteps, and I ended up doing a project or two with Joeseph,” Osorno says.
Osorno’s research focus in medical school was developing advanced imaging protocols for brain aneurysms, as well as studying how to prevent certain complications of the brain’s blood vessels that occur after aneurysm and increase mortality. This work, conducted alongside his mentor, David Hasan, MD, who was previously the head of vascular neurosurgery at Iowa, helped him grow both as a researcher and a physician—and it also offered a built-in community of medical students pursuing research across various fields, all supporting each other’s progress.
“Now I know some of the students interested in neurosurgery in the classes below me, too," he says.
His research during medical school resulted in 16 published papers. It also gave him the opportunity to explore what it would be like to specialize in cerebrovascular surgery—treating aneurysms and other malformations of the brain’s blood vessels—which he found to be his calling in medicine.
“It tied in well to the stuff I was learning in the classroom in medical school,” Osorno says. “Dr. Hasan guided me in more intense clinical research, including advanced imaging options for aneurysms. Being able to be at an academic center that had that research, and being able to teach and mentor others, set me up for an academic position in neurosurgery someday."
The Research Distinction Track
Learn about the application process, requirements, and opportunities available through the Research Distinction Track at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine.