  Under the assumption that a quark-gluon plasma droplet is produced and its
evolution can be described by hydrodynamics in p + A collisions,
$\gamma$-triggered hadron spectra are studied within a next-to-leading-order
perturbative QCD parton model with the medium-modified parton fragmentation
functions. The initial conditions and space-time evolution of the small QGP
droplet are provided by the superSONIC hydrodynamic model simulations and
parton energy loss in such a medium is described by the high-twist (HT)
approach. The scaled jet transport coefficient $\hat{q}/T^3$ in this HT
approach is extracted from single hadron suppression in central A + A
collisions at the same colliding energy. Numerical results for this scenario
show that $\gamma$-hadron spectra at $p_{\rm T}^\gamma=12-40$ GeV/$c$ are
suppressed by 5\% $\sim$ 10\% in the most central 0 - 10\% p + Pb collisions at
$\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}=5.02$ TeV. The suppression becomes weaker at higher
transverse momentum of the $\gamma$ trigger. As a comparison, $\gamma$-hadron
suppression in Pb + Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}=2.76$ and 5.02 TeV is
also predicted.
