Type of Research to Get into Residency?

You will probably get better answers to these questions in the MSTP forum, where a number of other MD/PhDs are/have been in your shoes.

SuperSlacker said:

When I chose my PhD mentor...they told me not to worry about my future specialty (especially because I had no clue back then) and just to pick based on interest and the potential of learning good science.

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Our program tells students this too. For me it was bad advice, and I think it continues to be bad advice.

I hear from a lot of classmates that in order to be competitive for certain specialties (e.g. ortho, opthal, radiology), you have to do specialty-specific research.

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You don't have to, but an unrelated PhD is nothing at all important to competitive subspecialties. You don't need more research experience, but the rest of your app better be competitive for big name programs in those specialties. Unlike your MD classmates, you can't apply to community programs, so you won't have them to fall back on.

Will my PhD (neuroscience, with a pretty well-known PhD as PI) still help me in applying for residency, or will directors simply not care unless I'm applying to neurology/psychiatry?

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It may help somewhat, but it's not nearly as important as a PhD in that specialty. Do you know what specialty you want yet? This is the biggest problem. You probably won't know until you're through 3rd and even into 4th year. If this is your case, you can't and shouldn't stress on this point.

If you need specialty specific research, you can get it as a 3rd/4th year before the match (I hope! Many schedules don't permit this though...). In any case, you need to perform well enough to obtain the specialty without a PhD.

I'm considering finding a MD mentor soon to help me prepare for the match process, but I don't think it's feasible for me to take on a clinical research opportunity while doing my PhD. Rather, I'm trying to integrate certain aspects of other medical specialties into my study design (e.g. fMRI).

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What is an MD mentor going to tell you? In general you should not expect match process information from them. First, it's premature because you're a third year. At your stage, you can shadow them to see what it's like to be them and they can give you advice for their specialty. It's a good idea if you have a specialty in mind and especially if you can find a MD/PhD mentor. But be careful. The second issue is that MDs who are not admissions committee members often give badly out of date or wrong advice. Many faculty members still remember the days when one applied to single digit numbers of programs and step 1 scores didn't matter. Unfortunately adcoms and program directors didn't want to talk to me about matching until I was in or had completed their electives and I was almost ready to apply! It has been very difficult to meet with faculty advisors, and important info about match competition didn't come until I was almost finished. Maybe your school is better in this regard.

As for incorporating other medical specialties, that's okay if your research lends itself to it. If your PI and your lab are okay with you doing those experiments, that's great. For radiology, it's going to do the most good if you publish a fMRI paper rather than just having dabbled in it. I hope though this means you've decided on or are leaning heavily towards radiology. It would be insane to try to incorporate optho, ortho, and rads research into one PhD!

Also, my M1-M2 grades are pretty bad. I had to take a year off (I was about 4 weeks away from finishing first year when I had to take a leave of absence - came back the next year to start at the point where I left) for personal reasons that were causing me problems in school. My dean already told me they will mention this in my letter, so I have to be able to field questions about it. I scored decently on Step 1 (254), so hopefully that helps a little bit. What else can I do now to boost my resume and prove that I am competent?

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This leave of absence could be a serious issue when you apply for residency. "Personal reasons" will be assumed to be mental illness unless you specify otherwise. Any time you use that phrase, you will be assumed to be mentally ill and unfit to be a resident by many. Don't use it. Is there a reason other than "personal reasons"? If there is a good reason and you can spin it right, this year of absence won't be a problem.

Your step 1 score is more than decent, so that is great. Your grades in school the first two years don't matter unless you end up with some Fs on your transcript. The grades in clerkships will matter a great deal, so get as many honors there as you can.

SuperSlacker said:

Neuronix - the official reason is depression (so I guess I fall under mentally ill), but even my psychiatrist says that's private and I should tell residency directors (if they ask) that I just had to rethink my career options.

However, my dean is insisting she has the right and duty to report this information...so I have no clue what I'm going to do.

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Your dean likely just has to report you took a personal leave of absence. Typically they don't say why. In this case I'm not exactly sure how best to proceed when it comes time to apply or what this does for your application to competitive specialties. For this, a discussion with a program director may be in order. This sort of issue comes up often on SDN.

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=596332

You can search the confidential consult and mentor forums for more questions like this.