My experiences with the RCR Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF)

Written by Ineesh Kundu (5th year medical student)

I am Ineesh Kundu, currently a final year medical student at the University of Manchester. I am the President of the Preston Oncology Society. Over the summer I was a recipient of the SURF - Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship. I have been asked by BONUS to write about my own personal experience from undertaking this project.

What is SURF and how do you apply?

SURF is a funding award by the Royal College of Radiologists (RCR) every year to 10 undergraduate medical students who are not in their first or final year. The award is intended to support students doing research over an 8 week period during their summer vacation.

The money awarded is approximately £180 a week for 8 weeks and is intended to cover the cost of personal expenses during that project. There is also a separate pot of money that can be accessed to cover additional costs directly attributed to the research - for instance to pay for ticket and transportation costs associated with going to conferences.

At the end of the project you will need to send off a form containing a project summary, you and your supervisor will each have to do one. It is likely, such in my case, you will continue on working with your supervisor afterwards with the aim of bringing it to publication.

The application form for SURF typically opens in March and closes around May. In order to apply for it, you must already have a project and supervisor arranged, the RCR will not do this for you. You can find a supervisor by speaking to oncology consultants at your local hospital, emailing or messaging consultants on LinkedIn, or asking colleagues for their own contacts.

What project did I undertake with SURF?

My SURF research project was to conduct an audit into survival outcomes from the use of 131-mIBG in metastatic high risk neuroblastoma. This involved looking through University College London Hospital, UCLH’s patient records over the past 20 years to determine various parameters including survival outcomes. In total there were over 100 patients studied. This cohort included the vast majority of patients in the UK who had neuroblastoma treated with 131-mIBG. The project has led to a poster presentation at a national conference and I am currently in the process of working to get it published. My supervisor for this project was Professor Mark Gaze, a Consultant Paediatric Clinical Oncologist and the project was undertaken in the UCLH paediatric radiotherapy department.

What were my reasons for doing SURF?

Experience doing clinical research.

●      All my prior experience in research had been doing projects that were very pre-clinical in nature. I did this project because I wanted to do research on actual patients that would directly link back to patient care.

Change of environment

●      I had already spent nearly 3 months during 3rd year doing various bits and pieces around the Christie so wanted to gain experience of oncology somewhere different.

Close to my house

●      My parents lived an hour from UCLH where I undertook my project and wanted to spend some quality time with family when not doing my research.

Helping me figure out what I wanted to do

●      Doing SURF was a chance to gain exposure to the paediatric subspecialism of clinical oncology, an area which I had minimal exposure to - particularly in a clinical setting.

What did my average day look like when I was doing my SURF project?

Typically I would aim to reach the office between 8:30 and 9 and leave between 5:30 and 6:30. My hours were very flexible and were entirely determined by what I wanted to do and the amount of work that needed to be done. As it was also considered a part of my elective placement, I would also be invited to clinical opportunities- such as radiotherapy treatment review, MDTs, clinics etc. My supervisor was very flexible with me, so if there was something interesting I wanted to see - such as a paediatric brachytherapy case - then I was free to attend it. As my supervisor and I worked in the same office, meetings were done on an ad hoc basis.

A brief mention of the RCR Elective Bursary

For those who have their electives in 3rd or 4th year, I recommend also applying for an RCR elective bursary. Each year the RCR will fund a handful of bursaries (up to £300) to fund an elective. Priority is given for bursaries related to radiotherapy. In order to apply for this, you need to fill out an application form and your elective supervisor needs to write you a letter talking about what you will learn and experience. There is a lot of overlap in the applications for both and therefore applying for one lays the groundwork for the other, so if you are also applying for SURF this is something I definitely recommend. It is worth mentioning that your reasons and outcomes should be different for each of these. The RCR SURF project is primarily for gaining research skills, and whilst you may have clinical exposure that is not a key aim of this and may want to apply for the RCR bursary. It is also worth noting that the RCR will ask you to submit a written reflection on your elective.

What did I gain by doing SURF?

My research had led me to doing a presentation at a national conference.

●      In October I presented my work to the Autumn 2025 meeting of the British Nuclear Medicine Society.

●      Points are awarded for presentations in the IMT application process so this is definitely a handy thing to have.

It looks good on your CV.

●      Doing SURF shows a clear initiative to doctors you may approach in the future about your dedication and passion for doing research and towards the oncology speciality. This will make it much easier to successfully apply for and obtain future opportunities.

●      Whilst targeted towards students interested in oncology, even if you change your mind on which speciality you choose, people will still be impressed by you receiving and completing an RCR SURF award.

I gained valuable research experience in the process of conducting an audit.

●      It is highly likely that you will need to do some form of research, if not during your degree at some point during your medical training.

●      The experience you gain through the SURF programme will make any subsequent projects far more easy to undertake.

Learn about novel cancer therapies

●      mIBG, the treatment I was researching, is one of the few cancer treatments not offered by the Christie. Conducting my RCR SURF project at UCLH gave me the opportunity to further understand and learn about this cancer treatment.

●      Chemotherapy and radiotherapy regimes aren’t covered in much depth during the medicine degree. Doing an RCR SURF is an excellent way to learn more about oncology treatments and further help you decide if oncology is the speciality for you.

Finally doing my SURF project reinforced to me that Clinical Oncology was a speciality I wanted to get more involved in, and make a career from.

Networking benefits

I feel that the opportunities to build positive working relationships are so great that it warrants its own entire section.

Due to the inherent demands of a SURF project I wound up spending a lot of time with my project supervisor. This naturally enables me to build much closer working relationships. As a direct result of my experience with SURF, I had the chance to meet a number of my supervisors colleagues which included radiographers, radiologists and paediatric oncologists. I was directed to additional opportunities including applying for an essay competition run by the BNMS. The nature of SURF lends itself to building these working relationships in a way that is far more difficult with other projects.

Things to be aware off when applying for SURF

●      SURF is likely to use up most of your summer break, after which you need to start studying your medicine degree again. So make sure to take regular breaks and make time for a vacation at some point during your summer - you do not want to burn out.

●      Make sure you are working on something you are interested in. Whilst SURF is immensely rewarding, it will take up a lot of your time and energy. So make sure you actually enjoy your area of research.

●      Make sure you fully plan out the project ahead of time. Whilst you will have your supervisor helping you, you also need to make sure to set deadlines and understand the amount of work you are expected to do.

●      The application is quite lengthy on its own so make sure you allow plenty of time for it.

●      SURF is very competitive, so don’t be disheartened if you don’t get it.

○      When I applied for SURF, my supervisor had already agreed that regardless of whether or not I won an award, we would still go ahead with the project. If this is something you can afford to do, I highly recommend it as you will still get many of the same benefits as if you did that same project via the SURF initiative.

Tips for applying for SURF

Be persistent - getting rejection emails, or being ignored is not uncommon.

●      When I applied for a separate 3rd year placement at the Christie, I had to email over 20 different consultants before I found one who was willing to have me onboard. Whilst this is a different experience from SURF, the experience of reaching out to consultants and getting rejected is common across the board. So when it does happen, just keep trying and eventually you will make it.

Apply ahead of time - Supervising these projects is a significant demand on a consultant's time.

●      When doing the SURF project, a consultant will need to invest a significant amount of time planning and doing the project with you.

●      I approached my supervisor for an RCR SURF project and elective in October 2024. This was over 6 months before I submitted my application.

●      You will likely need access to patient records and the paperwork for that permission and access to patient records. Your supervisor will also need to obtain ethical approval. This can be more time consuming than the application itself.

Personalise your emails. Consultants receive hundreds of requests so make yours stand out.

●      When I first met with my project supervisor he informed me that received requests to work on many projects. The reason he wanted to work with me was because I showed a clear understanding of what he did and had clearly specified the outcomes that I was aiming to achieve.

●      Simply go into the SURF having a clear personal aim for what you want out of the project. Mine was because I had never done an audit before and wanted to learn more about his interest in molecular radiotherapy.

●      Look up your supervisor, their department/special interests. This is very quick and easy to do and already distinguishes you from most candidates.

●      Your emails don’t have to be long - mine was barely 150 words. It just needs to have a bit of thought put into it.

Keep doing things to show your interest in the speciality

●      Doing things like attending conferences, joining or founding your universities oncology committee, organising fundraisers for oncology charities. These are all things you can do to show an interest in the speciality.

●      As previously mentioned, some of these activities can help you network with oncologists and find out about new opportunities.

●      When reaching out to people for opportunities, doing these things demonstrate an interest in the speciality making it far more likely for someone to want to work with you.

●      These will all reflect very well when you write up your SURF application.

Conclusion

I highly recommend applying and doing the SURF project. It looks great on a CV and it’s a great way to gain additional research experience, a paper for publication and for networking with other consultants. It was at times quite difficult but was a very rewarding experience that I think anyone interested in oncology or research should pursue.

-- Ineesh Kundu