What are the best spine fellowships out there? I know it varies dramatically based upon what subspecialty (ie MIS vs deformity ect) but what are the considered the best ones out there for academics. It seems everyone has a spine fellowship program, but plenty of them are certainly not highly sought after.

I will be a M1 this fall at a top 10 medical school program. The general consensus in Reddit and SDN is that I shouldn't think about medical school at all and just "enjoy my summer". However, as a non-traditional and an older medical student-to-be with family, I do not think that is really a practical option for me.

Browsing through multiple forums and the cached pages of Uncle Harvey, it seems pretty straightforward. For my M1 year, I am getting the impression that I just need to do well in school, slowly prepare for the USMLE, and start research (please correct me if I am wrong). However, there are a few questions that I'd like to ask:

1. My undergraduate publications and research interests were mainly in cancer research. I would like to do basic cancer research in medical school as well since I am comfortable with it. Would doing basic research be disadvantageous compared to clinical research with respect to publication volume?
   
2. Does membership in honors societies matter at all?
   
3. I have started going through Pathoma and annotating the book with some things that Dr. Sattar says verbally so that I wouldn't have to waste time during medical school doing this (I do this because it has helped me a lot in undergraduate school). My goal is to finish this before medical school starts. I have also started doing Brosencephalon's Anki deck regularly for the chapters related to Pathoma. What USMLE related things should I be doing during my M1 year? I read online that people suggest only studying during the dedicated period, but I am wondering if that is not the case.
   
4. I am moving to my medical school area with my family. This may sound like a silly question, but is it necessary to socialize too much with other students? I do not plan on being the guy who never talks with others, but I am thinking that I would like to devote most of my time to my family and my studies.
   
5. Do you guys have any other advice for someone about to start his M1 year in a few months?
   

Just two days after Valentine's Day the Mayfield Clinic and the University of Cincinnati breakup.

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/ne...c-end.html

Does anyone have any personal tips on shunts and freehand EVDs? I'd really appreciate some general do's an dont's, as well as any specific troubleshooting points.

Hey, anyone care to comment on their Stanford SubI experience?

Thanks.

I have been hearing about all those crazy salaries of 600K to 1 Million in the trail and just thought of calculating taxes. So if your starting salary is 600K in NYC or CA (which is impossible to earn in academics as a starting salary), you pay 51% in taxes in NYC and slightly higher in CA...Seriously WTF!

Stanford
Brigham
Cleveland Clinic
Case Western
NIH
UVA - 2 years
Northwestern
Michigan
Buffalo - 2 years
Hopkins - 2 years
LIJ - 1 year research 1 year electives

Nice assassination attempt at Johnny Delshaw http://projects.seattletimes.com/2017/qu...are/talia/

What do you think is the best neurosurgery sub specialty and why?

How early should you apply to VSAS? Should your app be in the first day, or does delaying 2 weeks not make a difference?

Also, I can't find this anywhere, are our Step scores automatically uploaded to VSAS or do we have to request them from the NBME?