Four undergraduates spent their summer shadowing surgeons, drafting research protocols and discovering what a career in medicine really looks like.
For most college students, summer means a break from the demands of academic life. For the four undergraduates in the Department of Neurological Surgery's Summer Student Program, it meant early mornings in the operating room, afternoons in clinic and evenings spent developing their own research proposals.
The program, organized by Chair and Neurosurgeon-in-Chief Dr. J Mocco and Clinical Research Program Manager Cynthia Nguyen, reflects Weill Cornell Medicine’s core mission to care, discover and teach by giving aspiring physicians first-hand exposure to academic medicine at every level. Over the course of the summer, students rotated through clinics, observed procedures in the operating room and spent time at locations across the institution, including Spiral in Hudson Yards.
Meet the Students
Kayla Liu, a neuroscience and computer science major at MIT, commutes in each day from Long Island. Her connection to the department runs deep: she first worked with Dr. Mocco as a high school student, conducting research and shadowing in the OR. Now preparing for the MCAT ahead of a planned gap year and medical school, she says the program has broadened her view of the field. "It's been a great way to explore specialized areas of medicine and get real-world, first-hand experience," she says. "It’s a chance to apply the things we've learned in undergrad into clinical contexts."
Alexander Hamrick, a rising senior at Brown University from Chatham, Illinois, describes the summer as his first real immersion in research — and a masterclass in observation. "Getting to see some of the best doctors in the country in their surgical field, in their research and in clinic has really allowed us to see all the different skills surgeons need to use on a daily basis, and to be able to apply them when we get into our own practice," he says. He credits Dr. Mocco and Dr. Mark Souweidane as standout mentors. "Dr. Souweidane allowed us to shadow him in the surgical room, pulling us in and teaching us while he's going about his work."
Mason Meek Howington, a biology major at the University of Georgia from Savannah, Georgia, arrived with a research background in Alzheimer's disease and found the program's blend of observation and independent work especially valuable. "Whether it's shadowing in clinic or in the OR, and then working on research proposals — beginning to apply what we've seen and heard from the doctors to our own research has been a really unique experience," she says. Her first shadowing experience was with Dr. Souweidane, who "was very hands-on and made sure to explain to us what was going on."
Connor O'Donnell, a rising junior studying biology at Brown University and a native of Racine, Wisconsin, says the summer changed his sense of what's possible. "Before this program, I would have never seen myself going into neurosurgery," he says. "Actually being in the OR, shadowing these doctors in their day-to-day job — it has really opened the door. It's something I feel like I could do." Among the highlights: observing Dr. Souweidane perform a craniotomy on his very first day in the OR. He and his fellow students are now developing a research protocol on peptides, studying vasospasm following subarachnoid hemorrhage.
Learning by Doing
While students observe rather than scrub in, the access is remarkable — standing in the operating room, watching the scopes and hearing surgeons narrate their work in real time. Just as valuable is the mentorship that happens between cases, where faculty take time to answer questions and connect what students see in the OR to the science behind it.
All four students plan to apply to medical school, most after a gap year spent building research experience. Whatever specialty they ultimately choose, they'll carry what they learned this summer with them.
Find out more about opportunities to train in the department of neurological surgery: https://neurosurgery.weill.cornell.edu/