Do I Need More/Real Research?

[UWIdahoan]

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So I recently met with my school's OB/GYN advisor and specifically asked if she could help me find some research opportunities. My school requires us to do a research project between 1st and 2nd year, but about half of us do this kind of half ass "community" research where we come up with a community health project idea (we don't even actually do the project). So I did this, but I have no other research. My advisor said I shouldn't do any research because it will just get in the way of my rotations and OBGYN residencies don't really care about research. What? This feels untrue and I seriously feel like I need some real research.

On another note, I literally have no idea how to find anyone to work with on research. I've never done any kind of research. That's why I asked her for help, but she was obviously no help. What do I do? Help.

 

[Dr G Oogle]

She’s right, for better or worse obgyn residencies don’t really care about research, except for maybe the really top tier ones and even those are just to discern one applicant from another. Conversely fellowships, especially the surgical fellowships really care about research and we don’t even offer interviews to people without at least a 2nd author publication, there probably a handful of FPMRS programs that will not have a strong research requirement, but I doubt many REI or onc programs would. Having worked with a lot of medical students on research, I will tell you it is difficult to have you do anything g meaningful even chart reviews are hard when you guys don’t get any exposure to Urogynecology procedures, disorders, or testing. I’ve usually have had students assist me with consenting patients for surgical trials, calling patients for follow ups and occasional data entry. Which at best lands you a middle author spot. But we’ve done some audits of student entered data and resident/fellow entered data and there are great discrepancies, so we’ve actually stopped having students do data entry or chart reviews.

So I would follow your advisors recommendation and not focus on research, do some community outreach things, and if you want to do a fellowship find a mentor right out of the gate and come up with a project to do in residency.

 

[UWIdahoan]

Thank you so much. This explanation actually made me feel a lot better about it. And it’s good to know about research importance in fellowship. I’m undecided there, but don’t want to accidentally rule it out by morning knowing what’s important.

 

[residencycoord]

If you want to go into a community program, then you won't need research. If you are planning on going to a large academic institution, then you will need research. Also, I have to disagree that research is used to discern one applicant from another. We discussed one applicant that we interviewed who had incredible research and I believe a grant, and one of our gyn onc attendings was already picturing her in their lab.

 

[Dr G Oogle]

If you want to go into a community program, then you won't need research. If you are planning on going to a large academic institution, then you will need research. Also, I have to disagree that research is used to discern one applicant from another. We discussed one applicant that we interviewed who had incredible research and I believe a grant, and one of our gyn onc attendings was already picturing her in their lab.

While there will always be people with strong research in any field, i am at a big academic residency and while I certainly would love to see strong research it is just not something the vast majority of obgyn residencies value (much to my chagrin) I personally would love to see more strong research fro. candidates, but the reality is unless you did something between Med school and residency or between undergrad and Med school or are an md/PhD applicants are not going to have amazing research portfolios and fewer than 25% have anything beyond a poster presentation at a conference. Out of the 20 people I interviewed this week only 1 had any kind of cogent research ideas or previous research experience.

Out of all the applicants you interviewed this year how many had the credentials the applicant you mentioned had?

My point is that students shouldn’t break their backs trying to do amazing research in school because 1) it’s often not possible to do anything meaningful as a Med student due to lack of experience 2)it’s not the most important thing compared LORs and academic performance

 

[fldoctorgirl]

While there will always be people with strong research in any field, i am at a big academic residency and while I certainly would love to see strong research it is just not something the vast majority of obgyn residencies value (much to my chagrin) I personally would love to see more strong research fro. candidates, but the reality is unless you did something between Med school and residency or between undergrad and Med school or are an md/PhD applicants are not going to have amazing research portfolios and fewer than 25% have anything beyond a poster presentation at a conference. Out of the 20 people I interviewed this week only 1 had any kind of cogent research ideas or previous research experience.

Out of all the applicants you interviewed this year how many had the credentials the applicant you mentioned had?

My point is that students shouldn’t break their backs trying to do amazing research in school because 1) it’s often not possible to do anything meaningful as a Med student due to lack of experience 2)it’s not the most important thing compared LORs and academic performance

I came to the ob/gyn subforum looking for an answer to this exact question, so this is really helpful-- I'm not the original poster, but thank you. I'm an M1 who is interested in ob/gyn at the moment and was on the fence about how hard I should be looking for a research position for this summer, and this alleviated a lot of my anxieties. People make it seem like you have to research or you're out, so it's nice to hear a different perspective.