Medical and Graduate Student Opportunities
Visiting Acting Internship
The visiting acting-internship program in the Department of Neurosurgery at CU Anschutz is a four-week rotation for fourth year medical school students interested in applying for neurosurgery residency. Our program is flexible to accommodate your schedule.
Our acting-internship program provides students with a comprehensive experience. Acting interns spend:
- Two weeks at the University of Colorado Anschutz Hospital for exposure to the full gamut of academic neurosurgery
- One week at Denver Health Hospital working one-on-one with a neurosurgery resident and attendings on a busy trauma service
- One week at Children’s Hospital Colorado, one of the top 5 children’s hospital in the nation
Acting interns spend most of their time in the operating room and in neurosurgical clinics. Acting interns are expected to take an active role in morning rounds and weekly didactic sessions.
Visiting Acting-Internship Requirements
Students interested in applying to our visiting sub-internship program must be in their fourth year of medical school.
How to Apply
We utilize the Visiting Student Learning Opportunity (VSLO) platform. We encourage applicants to reach out to our program before applying so we can accommodate your schedule. Please contact us by emailing Jennifer Hasenbalg at jennifer.hasenbalg@cuanschutz.edu.
Medical Student and Graduate Research Opportunities
The faculty in our department welcome medical or graduate student involvement in their clinical research projects. These projects range from clinical research, such as chart reviews, to longer term projects involving clinical or basic science data analysis and experiments.
These projects require a time commitment, usually of two to six months or more. Please review the time commitments and skillsets needed below before contacting the faculty listed.
Are you interested in spending a research year with us? First, familiarize yourself with our faculty members and their current research and clinical interests. Next, we ask that you contact the faculty member whose clinical and research interests most closely align with your goals. Please include your current CV, research year goals and any other pertinent experience you have. Research years may either be unfunded or funded (depending on the type of research being conducted). Individuals completing a full year of research with our department will receive a certificate of completion.
Current Projects
| Project Title/Type | Contact | Skillset/pre-requisites/time commitment |
| Craniofacial Distractors Research | Charles.Wilkinson@childrenscolorado.org |
Time Commitment: 6+ months |
| Craniosynostosis and Cephalhematomas project | Charles.Wilkinson@childrenscolorado.org |
Time commitment: 6+ months |
| Secondary Craniosynostosis after Surgery for Single Suture Craniosynostosis | Charles.Wilkinson@childrenscolorado.org | |
| Pediatric craniopharyngioma research | todd.hankinson@childrenscolorado.org |
Time Commitment: 4-6 months |
| Neuro-biomedical engineering | cristin.welle@cuanschutz.edu |
Time Commitment: 6+ months |
| Brain tumor imaging | David.Ormond@cuanschutz.edu |
Time Commitment: 2-4 months |
| Brain Tumor Research; Exosome studies; Tissue Bank studies | Michael.Graner@cuanschutz.edu |
Time Commitment: 6+ months |
| Brain Tumor Research; Blood Biomarkers for Glioblastoma and Meningioma | Xiaoli.Yu@cuanschutz.edu |
Time Commitment: 6+ months |
| Human neural signal analysis: Neuralengineering lab studying the neural signals associated with sensory processing and movement in surgical patients. | Daniel.Kramer@cuanschutz.edu |
Time commitment: 2-6 months |
| Evaluation of ultra-early biomarkers in acute ischemic stroke | robert.2.kowalski@cuanschutz.edu |
Time commitment: 4 – 12 months |
| University of Colorado Neuro-ICU Coma Study | robert.2.kowalski@cuanschutz.edu |
Time commitment: 4 – 12 months |
| Skull base patient database | Jennifer.Maitlen@cuanschutz.edu |
Time commitment: 6 – 12 months |
| Vestibular schwannoma program clinical outcomes analysis | Jennifer.Maitlen@cuanschutz.edu |
Time commitment: 6 – 12 months |
| Neurosurgical Neuro-Oncology Research | Timothy.Ung@CUAnschutz.edu |
Time commitment: 6 – 12 months |
| Recurrence patterns of high grade glioma analyzed through a multi parametric models | Timothy.Ung@CUAnschutz.edu |
Time commitment: 2 months |
| Determinants of glioma recurrence - developing models to assess tumor progression versus radiation induced necrosis | Timothy.Ung@CUAnschutz.edu |
Time commitment: 2 months |
| Analyzing predictive determinants of pituitary apoplexy | Timothy.Ung@CUAnschutz.edu |
Time commitment: 2 months |
| Improving surgical outcomes to achieve surgical cure in function pituitary tumors | Timothy.Ung@CUAnschutz.edu |
Time commitment: 2 months |
| CNS (Brain, Skull Base, Spinal) Tumor Research |
Time commitment: 4-6months | |
| Exosome studies | Michael.Graner@cuanschutz.edu |
Time commitment: 4-6 months |
| Cell Stress studies | Michael.Graner@cuanschutz.edu |
Time commitment: 4-6months |
| Tissue Bank studies | Michael.Graner@cuanschutz.edu |
Time commitment: 4-6 months |
*UCHealth and CHCO EPIC and facility access is provided via the department. Once you have selected a project and/or faculty member to work with, please reach out to either Jen Maitlen (adult research) or Susan Staulcup (pediatric research). They will facilitate your EPIC and facility access.
- Jennifer.Maitlen@cuanschutz.edu (adult research)
- Susan.Staulcup@cuanschutz.edu (pediatric research)
Prerequisites & Helpful Links:
- Human Subjects Training
- Conflict of Interest Disclosure
- UCHealth EPIC access*
- CHCO EPIC access*
- Redcap
(Facility access)*