Do I need a research year For Ortho?

[@#Frogthejam#@]

Hey, y'all. I'm a third-year student at a mid- to low-tier MD School interested in Orthopedic Surgery. I made my decision a bit late to be all in for Orthopedics, so I have zero mentors in the field and no Orthopedic-Specific research at the moment. I think I have a decent amount of research, but it's all basic science, with a decent amount of it related to bone.

So far, I have four publications, 12 Poster presentations, and a few abstracts, but none of them are Ortho specific.

I've just started my third-year rotations and won't be getting my elective until later in the spring, past the time most people start applying for their away rotations. If possible, I plan to do an Orthopedic elective. My surgery rotation is in December.

I'm at least in the top 10% of my class and was just nominated for AOA.

I'm considering taking a research year to get clinical Ortho Publications and to meet some mentors to vouch on my behalf.

Is this necessary to be competitive in the match?? I don't necessarily care about matching at a super academic program. Vibes are more important to me more than prestige.

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[Lost in Translation]

Ortho continues to get more and more competitive year after year. Even just 5 years ago you probably could have gotten away with non-ortho research but these days all the competitive applicants have ortho-specific research.

Does that mean there’s zero chance you match this cycle? No. But if you don’t match this cycle, even if you do a research year it’s still a pretty significant blemish on your application that you’ll have to talk about at basically every interview. If I were in your shoes I would rather defer applying now to take a research year at a well-known institution known for putting out strong research and apply with the 3+ ortho pubs I would expect to put out during that year plus get strong LORs from Ortho attendings. The only trade off is since it’s a research year your letters won’t get to talk about your clinical acumen; to fix that you should absolutely ask if you can help with rounds (and they may even invite you into the OR but that shouldn’t be your focus if you’re trying to put out pubs).

 

[GoSpursGo]

I think we would need a little more information about what your basic science publications are (how high impact the journals were) and what your contributions were (i.e. do you have any first-author pubs). In broad terms, I would think it could be spun that "bone" research is "ortho-related." There are legit surgeon-scientists out there who do basic science research.

My advice is to reach out NOW to the PD at your home program (if you have one) and get advice on how to proceed. You still have 12 months to find a mentor and get plugged into a few projects, so it isn't impossible that you could pump out a couple of posters and maybe a pub by next year. I'd do your best over the next 3-6 months and then take stock of whether you need to do a research year based on how productive you've been and the feedback you get from your home department.