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AFRDecap

AFRDecap

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How quick do you want to be a chair? You have learned the skills to do research and need to build good clinical skills. Between medical school and PG 1 year is a poor time to step away from clinical medicine IMHO. You can find good mentorship in training and practice to build a good research track record.
 
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Drwine said:
How quick do you want to be a chair? You have learned the skills to do research and need to build good clinical skills. Between medical school and PG 1 year is a poor time to step away from clinical medicine IMHO. You can find good mentorship in training and practice to build a good research track record.
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Thanks for your reply!

To clarify, I would step away during my transition from MS2-->MS3, however due to my 3 year program, is M3-->M4 equivalent elsewhere. I would return for my final year of medical school after completing a research year. This would not be taking a research year between medical school and PGY1.

In terms of clinical leadership, I would ideally want to be in practice for possibly 5 years before looking to transition.
 
AFRDecap said:
I’m seeking advice about whether to take a research year before applying to anesthesiology residency. While I know that anesthesiology doesn’t require the same level of research output as other specialties, I still wanted to get input on my situation.

I’m currently a student at NYU as an MS2, which is a 3-year, tuition-free program. I already have a solid research background with multiple projects in urology, oncology, dermatology, orthopedic surgery, radiation oncology, and anesthesiology. I’ve worked on 20 projects leading the majority of them, including 1 publication, 2 national conference abstracts, and 10 school conference abstracts accepted. Though I understand my research portfolio is more than adequate, I’m considering taking an additional year.

The primary driver for this is my concern over STEP studying. Given that I spent only 1 year in preclinical and my shelf exam scores place me in the 30th-50th percentile, I’m not confident about my performance on STEP 1 and STEP 2. I didn’t study much during preclinical because of the pass/fail system, which adds to my concern for STEP 1. I’m considering taking a year off to focus on studying for the exams while still continuing research as I feel rushed in a 3 year program. My current manuscript submissions will likely be published after October, so I would only have submissions (not accepted publications) by the time I apply through ERAS this summer. However, if I wait a year, I could have around 8 publications.

I’m 24 and considering that I’m in a tuition-free program, I’m not accumulating any interest on any medical school debt. I’ve worked non-stop for nearly 60-70 hours per week to fund my undergraduate education due to my low-income background and feel that taking a year to recharge, study, and live my life a bit more before residency would be valuable. Given that my program is 3 years, I also don't mind taking a year time wise since I would've taken 4 years elsewhere regardless.

To summarize, my reasons for considering this year are:

  • To increase my number of accepted publications
  • To dedicate more time to studying for STEP 1 and STEP 2
  • To take a break and enjoy life before entering the intense residency schedule
I’m also hoping this year will improve my chances of matching into a top anesthesiology program, with better STEP scores and published research. I am looking to do fellowship and stay in academics in my future career with aspirations for clinical admin and additional publications could help down the road.

My main questions are:

  1. Would it be a red flag to residency programs for a research-heavy applicant to take a research year, even if I remain productive?
  2. Given my reasons, is taking this year a poor decision? Is "relaxing" and focusing on STEP preparation a bad justification?
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You’re young.

Take it from someone who wishes they were as young as you when starting residency.

Get through the training as fast as humanly possible. You never know what can happen if you waste a year not moving forward
 
The core of this post is "should I take a gap year to study for Step 1/2" to which the answer is almost universally "No" unless you are taking multiple practice exams and scoring below passing range with an imminent test coming in the next few days - and even then, just reschedule and take more time to study. A gap year is excessive and you have to consider a lot of other problems that might not be immediately obvious. As a low-income student you'd have to figure out what you're going to do during this research year, chief among them being: who's paying your bills? Living in NYC is not cheap and the amount of work you might have to do to pay for your living expenses could easily eat up the time you expected to spend studying or doing research; it might be way more hassle than it's worth.

If you're worried about your performance on exams there are dozens of time-tested, reliable methods to see improvements (and if your clinical knowledge is good then you really just need to work on test taking skills). It might be a good idea to scale back on some of the research projects and focus more on getting your scores up - getting a few extra publications on your CV will not make up for a sub-optimal Step score. Good luck.
 
WTF. I hope you’re kidding. Absolutely do not take a year off for any of that.

One red flag is that you’ve done work on so many disparate areas. Consider how you will convince programs why you’re interested in anesthesiology specifically, rather than as a backup for ortho or whatever.

Also you haven’t even done any/many rotations yet. Your mind may very well change about what field you like best.

Even if you did want to take a research year at some point, it would make most sense to do this as a superfellowship or during your first attending years (you could do 50/50 clinical/research).
 
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I had no idea there are 3-year medical schools. And they guarantee you to match at NYU for residency? That's legit. I don't understand why you would do a research year. Get through residency as soon as you can and get going with life.
 
As an aside it seems like you are heavily research focused and not so much clinical. Make sure you focus on clinical medicine just as much in your training and don't just 'get by' because you know you will be doing mainly research. I think everyone here knows of docs in research that they'd never let take care of any of their family...
 
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