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Burrell College of Osteopathic Medicine
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stickflip723 said:
Hey y'all,

I'm but a lowly MS0 matriculating next year who's hoping to hit the ground running and churn out four years of productive research. I'm someone who want's to keep all their options open. I fully realize that I may decide later on to pursue a specialty that is not terribly competitive, or just want to match somewhere close to the fam that also won't require a killer resumé.

However, as it currently stands, I'd like to pursue a career in academic medicine, and am gravitating towards more competitive specialties like neurosurgery, for example. If I want to snag a spot at a top tier residency, will I be shooting myself in the foot if I concentrate my research in something like policy and/or healthcare economics? Do those top spots favor more bench/clinical oriented research?

I'm just trying to keep every door open to me (and realize there's a lot more that goes into residency match than just what type of research one does). Any advice at all is greatly appreciated. Thanks y'all.
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I mean, its not a binary answer.

If you want to be competitive for the very "top" residencies in the most competitive fields, it behooves you to be as competitive an applicant as possible. As far as research goes, that means the MOST competitive applicants will have research related to the competitive field to which they are applying.

That being said, research in an unrelated field is better than no research (and is essentially required for the "top tier" places in competitive fields). It doesn't mean that you cannot match to a top tier place with non field-specific research, but as I said, the MOST competitive people will have field-specific research.

My suggestion: find research projects in the most competitive field you think you are interested in. If that ends up being the field to which you apply, great. If not, you can still get a higher volume of research/pubs than people who didn't start til later if you start early, and you can always try to find more "last-minute" field-related stuff in third year once you really know what you want to do (or earlier).
 
aprilfools said:
I mean, its not a binary answer.

If you want to be competitive for the very "top" residencies in the most competitive fields, it behooves you to be as competitive an applicant as possible. As far as research goes, that means the MOST competitive applicants will have research related to the competitive field to which they are applying.

That being said, research in an unrelated field is better than no research (and is essentially required for the "top tier" places in competitive fields). It doesn't mean that you cannot match to a top tier place with non field-specific research, but as I said, the MOST competitive people will have field-specific research.

My suggestion: find research projects in the most competitive field you think you are interested in. If that ends up being the field to which you apply, great. If not, you can still get a higher volume of research/pubs than people who didn't start til later if you start early, and you can always try to find more "last-minute" field-related stuff in third year once you really know what you want to do (or earlier).
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I appreciate the insight. I'm meeting with some faculty in the near future and maybe I'll have a clearer picture then.

7331poas said:
triggered
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lol
 
It's never bad to engage research, interest groups, extracurricular stuff early.... And excellent to have a plan -
That said, the best thing you can do through this journey is to know yourself. If you find the pace of classes too intense early on, pump the breaks on the other stuff and get realigned. The research and stuff won't matter much with poor clinical performance and a low Step.
Success is medical school comes with having a plan, and being adaptable.
Good luck!
 
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