Feel like im just working 8am-5pm every day and no time to get away to go meet up with docs to do research. Anyone have any tips or ideas on how I can make some time in the day for research third year?
Wait a few months before you really try to make a go at it, assuming you're just starting 3rd year. Spend this time getting to know how clerkships work, the daily ins and outs, and what peoples' expectations of you are. Learn the basic skills a third year should have (performing a comprehensive physical exam, writing an H&P, writing a good SOAP note, presenting patients efficiently on rounds, etc). If you're fortunate enough to have "lighter" rotations during the middle/end of third year, this is great as it will allow you to finally spend some time trying to work some research in.
One thing you will learn as third year goes on is how much you can "get away with" as far as ducking out. For instance, at my school there were several ways to get afternoons off (sometimes even entire days off). A few examples were:
1. Pediatrics - during our 3 weeks of outpatient peds, we spent mornings in a continuity clinic (that required our attendance), but afternoons were subspecialty clinics where the preceptors never actually realized ahead of time that a med student was going to be showing up, and there was no accountability and no reporting back to the clerkship director. Hence, you could just not show up for most of the afternoons during those 3 weeks, without any real repercussions.
2. Neurology - we spent 4 weeks on inpatient services, and every week we had one afternoon assigned to us individually where we were supposed to go "shadow" in a neuro subspecialty clinic (sleep medicine, movement disorders, etc). Again, the docs generally didn't realize we were showing up, and were often a little annoyed to have students slow them down, so I usually just spent that afternoon heading over to the derm clinic to work with the derm people who would eventually be writing my LORs.
3. Surgery - 3 of our 12 weeks were spent on "elective" services (again, mostly subspecialties . . . notice a pattern here?) like ortho, ENT, anesthesiology, etc. In anesthesiology you basically went in for a couple hours in the morning and they dismissed you home. So, afternoons off all week. Similar deal with most of the other ones. None of those weeks counted towards our evals/grades, so once people realized that it was easy to get time off to do whatever (research, study for the shelf, etc).
4. Family Medicine - I lucked out in that my preceptor was in the community and only worked 3 1/2 days per week. So I had 1 1/2 days off each week, plus weekends. One of my classmates who worked with that same doc later in the year used to make up "conferences" that he had to attend to get out of even more clinic time.
You get the idea. Basically, you have to figure out as third year goes along just how far you're willing to push the envelope.