Amount of research that would make you stand out form the rest?

[surgicel]

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Given that I am an average applicant with average grades, scores, and everything else. How much research experience/ how many publications would put me over the top in terms of having an exceptional research background with programs.

Any idea of how much pubs it would take for a PD to be like, "Wow, this kid has something going here, he seems exceptional in research?"

 

[Whisk]

The problem that I see with this idea is that research experience probably matters more to bigger name academic institutions than to smaller community or hybrid programs. And unfortunately, your application may get screened out (depending on your grades/scores) from those programs before anyone ever looks in depth at your CV and research experience.

That being said, as long as you don't have any red flags, "average" should still be able to get you into a surgery residency somewhere.

 

[mimelim]

Given that I am an average applicant with average grades, scores, and everything else. How much research experience/ how many publications would put me over the top in terms of having an exceptional research background with programs.

Any idea of how much pubs it would take for a PD to be like, "Wow, this kid has something going here, he seems exceptional in research?"

I'll just state this bluntly. You are asking the wrong questions and this stems from a fundamental lack of understanding of what research is.

Number of publications is irrelevant if you got nothing out of it. And yes, it is immediately obvious to people if you are doing research for the sake of doing research. You can stand out in the research realm by simply having one good paper. You can look like a complete idiot if you have 6-7 publications that are absolute trash and/or you clearly published for the sake of publishing without learning something/contributing. We see it all the time when interviewing people.

Different programs are looking for different kinds of applicants. This is for a reason. The programs that are looking for a solid research background are the programs that are going to expect not only that you do 2 years of research, but that you be productive during those years. Community programs or programs that don't have an emphasis on research do not care.

 

[VCorp]

I'll just state this bluntly. You are asking the wrong questions and this stems from a fundamental lack of understanding of what research is.

Number of publications is irrelevant if you got nothing out of it. And yes, it is immediately obvious to people if you are doing research for the sake of doing research. You can stand out in the research realm by simply having one good paper. You can look like a complete idiot if you have 6-7 publications that are absolute trash and/or you clearly published for the sake of publishing without learning something/contributing. We see it all the time when interviewing people.

Different programs are looking for different kinds of applicants. This is for a reason. The programs that are looking for a solid research background are the programs that are going to expect not only that you do 2 years of research, but that you be productive during those years. Community programs or programs that don't have an emphasis on research do not care.

Awesome post. Really want to get into research, going to be emailing a few professors at Emory to see if anybody is willing to take a student on during the 3rd year. I hope being an IMG won't be a red flag or what not.

If they say no, I'll be devastated. Hopefully my Step 1 scores will be competitive enough for me to get accepted into the NIH 13 month research program.