Interested in neurosurgery, not fond of research

[Dash2021]

Currently in M2, taking tests and memorizing factoids. I'm doing well, not top quartile but when I put in the time I regularly beat the class avg by a stdev or so. I'm a non trad (read: old) married with kids, so I'm not putting 100% into school right now cause it'd be fantastic if I stayed married.

Question is this, assuming I do reasonably well on Step 1 (I think 240 is doable given my current performance) how big an impediment is my utter lack of research? I should have one pub coming out sometime this year from summer work (4th or so author), but other than that the ol' CV is pretty bare. I know research is a pretty standard portion of an app now, and I'm not opposed to doing the work to achieve my goals. My only question is given I'm nearly 1/2 done with M2 and have M3-4 coming up with little free time to get more research done, is it reasonable for me to try and squeeze in some research somewhere or no? Though NSG is absolutely at the top of my list right now and everything else is a distant second, the combo of having a family and already being several years older than I'd like means I'm not sure I could afford a year off to do research (as I believe is probably the best route here).

I have no aspirations of being at a med center and doing research myself, so where I train isn't overly important. Crazily I just want to earn an education and work for a living, which is apparently taboo to admit on these forums. I can jump through the hoops to get to where I'm going, not an issue there. But I have little/no experience with publishing/presenting/writing abstracts, so I'm not even sure my idea of what's expected is correct. Any advice about how much research, what kinds of research, or any other ideas concerning research would be helpful.

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[DonutShot]

Couple of things - if you are unsure of your marriage surviving medical school and staying married is a high priority for you then you should evaluate whether or not your marriage will be able to survive a surgical residency where you will need to put in 100%+ for potentially a 100+ hour week for 7 years, espeically when you're a senior/chief resident. You probably are doing your due diligence but just make sure you don't destroy your family over this. People obviously can be neurosurgeons and have families but if it is a struggle to achieve during medical school it definitely doesn't get any easier after.

You should be fine provided your grades the rest of the way are good (shoot for Honors in everything, but to focus it a bit more especially Honors in surgery and definitely Honors on your neurosurgery rotations) and Step 1 is 240+ - just make sure you start participating in ongoing projects. If you do excellent on Step 1 then research won't hold you back much aside from the most hardcore academic programs, but even then step 1 goes a long ways towards getting your application looked at and getting interviews. It doesn't have to be hardcore bench either. Do some case reports or clinical papers that will help demonstrate that you are intellectually curious and interested in contributing to literature in the field as well as provide with positive discussion points during your interviews. You have plenty of time and can do those papers alongside your rotations. You don't need to take a year off but perhaps even scheduling a short research rotation would be a good idea. There just needs to be something there since all programs have a research component in residency that you are expected to be productive in regardless of your goals to work in the community or academia.