Hello,
Let me start by saying that I read the FAQs, and I've read several old threads on research, however, I still have a few questions.
I'm a M2 at a middle-of-the-road MD program (my school has a radonc department, but no residency), I'm in the top 1/4 of my class, and I've done quite a bit of radonc shadowing. I am planning on applying for fellowship years (HHMI, DD, NIH) next fall, and I want to make sure I'm approaching all of this correctly.
I did research in college and after college for a few years, and in total, I earned 5 pubs (4 basic, 1 clinical; 2 first authorships), and so far in med school, I have 1 first authored publication in public health (thus, 6 total, 3 of which are first authorships). However, none of these papers are in radiation oncology/cancer. I have also been working on a clinical research project for the past year, however, the research is with hematologic malignancies, not solids. So, my first question is whether my publications--particularly my malignant hematology project--will be looked upon favorably given that they are not in radiation oncology/solid cancer research?
Having read through the ASTRO abstracts, the vast majority of papers are clinical, but there are occasional basic papers, too. Since I do not have any radiation oncology research, for fellowship year programs, is it better to do clinical research in radiation oncology than basic cancer research with a PI who may or may not be a radiation oncologist? Below, I pasted one of the posts (by the Dos Equis guy) from the FAQ, but in several of the threads, Neuronix has highly recommended clinical rad onc research over basic cancer research (I'm assuming this is partially due to the obvious fact that with only a year, it's easier to be productive in clinical than in basic research). Therefore, I'm curious what all of you think: it is better to do clinical research in a fellowship year, or is basic research equally as helpful? The reason why I am asking so early is that I would rather do the HHMI-scholars program over DD or NIH-CRTP, which means over the next few months, I need to start stalking and asking around about potential PIs
Thanks!
"Ideally, the research should be in Radiation Oncology but the exception is if you are doing a PhD or HHMI/DD. In those cases, basic research applicable to cancer is fine. If you do research in an area completely unrelated to cancer it may not help you very much . . . mainly because most Rad Onc attendings on admissions committess are not sophisticated enough to figure out what you actually did."
Let me start by saying that I read the FAQs, and I've read several old threads on research, however, I still have a few questions.
I'm a M2 at a middle-of-the-road MD program (my school has a radonc department, but no residency), I'm in the top 1/4 of my class, and I've done quite a bit of radonc shadowing. I am planning on applying for fellowship years (HHMI, DD, NIH) next fall, and I want to make sure I'm approaching all of this correctly.
I did research in college and after college for a few years, and in total, I earned 5 pubs (4 basic, 1 clinical; 2 first authorships), and so far in med school, I have 1 first authored publication in public health (thus, 6 total, 3 of which are first authorships). However, none of these papers are in radiation oncology/cancer. I have also been working on a clinical research project for the past year, however, the research is with hematologic malignancies, not solids. So, my first question is whether my publications--particularly my malignant hematology project--will be looked upon favorably given that they are not in radiation oncology/solid cancer research?
Having read through the ASTRO abstracts, the vast majority of papers are clinical, but there are occasional basic papers, too. Since I do not have any radiation oncology research, for fellowship year programs, is it better to do clinical research in radiation oncology than basic cancer research with a PI who may or may not be a radiation oncologist? Below, I pasted one of the posts (by the Dos Equis guy) from the FAQ, but in several of the threads, Neuronix has highly recommended clinical rad onc research over basic cancer research (I'm assuming this is partially due to the obvious fact that with only a year, it's easier to be productive in clinical than in basic research). Therefore, I'm curious what all of you think: it is better to do clinical research in a fellowship year, or is basic research equally as helpful? The reason why I am asking so early is that I would rather do the HHMI-scholars program over DD or NIH-CRTP, which means over the next few months, I need to start stalking and asking around about potential PIs
Thanks!
"Ideally, the research should be in Radiation Oncology but the exception is if you are doing a PhD or HHMI/DD. In those cases, basic research applicable to cancer is fine. If you do research in an area completely unrelated to cancer it may not help you very much . . . mainly because most Rad Onc attendings on admissions committess are not sophisticated enough to figure out what you actually did."
