Extracurricular Research

[JasonChem]

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I am a pre-med student majoring in biochemistry and I am wanting to begin extracurricular research, however my school does not have any resources available. Does anyone know how I can begin to get research experience, and what kind of research does the medical school admissions counselors find useful?

 

[baylor21]

I would strongly suggest that you look into the National Institutes of Health.

Although I am not a biochem major, I worked as a summer research intern at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke this past summer. It was a great experience and my scientific preceptor was a Nobel laureate.

The NIH is a great place, and there are medical experts working in every single field of medicine imaginable. Although my research area was in functional MRI, I was also able to get involved a little in genome mapping at Celera Genomics in Rockville MD (about 15 miles away from NIH in Bethesda MD) right before they made the announcement along with the NIH about completing most of the human genome project.

There are also other national research centers that you might look into. At first I thought that I had no chance of landing the NIH position, but I was pleasantly surprised. Although the NINDS itself is very competitive (since the vast majority of applicants to NIH pick the NINDS as their first choice), the other institutes are not as bad and in general NIH accepts about 1 in 3 applicants. So, you have better chances than you might think. I am an engineering major so I thought that worked against me as well, but it actually helped.

NIH has had more Nobel laureates in its extramural and intramural divisions than any other institute or university, so needless to say the research done there is absolutely state of the art.

My school does not have much in the way of research experience so I have had to look elsewhere. Fortunately there are many programs who favor people who come from nonresearch oriented schools since they dont have the same opportunities for research as people from, say, Harvard or Johns Hopkins.

Another good set of programs to look at is the National Science Foundation REU (Research Experiences for Undegraduates) program. They have programs both at the national labs and at universities.

Good luck in your research pursuits...



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"There is nothing more powerful on this Earth as a man who has nothing to lose. It does not take ten such men to change the world--one will do." Elijah Mohammed

 

[JasonChem]

I am somewhat familiar with those programs, and I do plan to apply for the upcoming summer programs.

Does anyone know how much weight independent research carries on the application?

 

[krazykat]

as far a research programs go, you may also want to check with some of the hospitals in your area. you may want to contact human resources to see if they have any on going research programs. where i live, one of the local hospitals actually sent representatives to our school to recruit interns for the summer.Even though the summer is over and everyone is back in school, some of the programs are still ongoing so you may want to check on this instead of waiting until next summer(if you have the time, school always comes first. Also, getting into one of the programs is a great way to get a really good letter of recommendation!LOTS OF LUCK

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[galadriel]

I am a retired biol prof/premed advisor with 40 years experience. Research counts for little in med school admissions. The key elements are grades, especially in science, MCAT, letters. Research is icing on the cake. Many students get into med school without research. You should do research only if you truly want to, not to impress admissions committees; and they can tell the difference at an interview Research need not necessarily be in the sciences. A neat application, a well-written personal statement (not entirely on why I want to be a doctor)is helpful. Research tends to carry more weight if you are applying to the big research-oriented schools, but you will need excellent grades for them as well. If you are primarily interested in practice, there lots of medical schools who will provide excellent training, and even there, faculty do research and so could you.

 

[baylor21]

I agree somewhat with the post above, although I'm still just a lowly premed.

He/she is right however, without good grades and other items listed in the previous post research will probably not help your med school application. However if you like research and plan to work very hard at it then its a great experience.

Alot depends on your preceptor and what they expect from you. I've heard stories about preceptors that just have you do readings and basic background stuff without actually letting you get involved in real experimentation.

As far as getting admitted to these programs, there are several who favor those with no research experience, but the big programs (i.e. NIH, NSF, etc) I think tend to favor previous research experience. The way most of the national programs work is that they circulate your application to the individual researchers who then select people from the stack. So alot depends on the individual researchers who look at your app. Some want people who are completely new to research, while others want a die-hard research god.

So no matter what, if you are really interested in research and spread your apps around, you should be able to land something whether or not you have any previous research experience.


Remember, a clinical doctor can touch thousands of lives in his/her lifetime, but a medical researcher has the potential to touch millions.

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"There is nothing more powerful on this Earth as a man who has nothing to lose. It does not take ten such men to change the world--one will do." Elijah Mohammed

[This message has been edited by baylor21 (edited 09-27-2000).]

 

[Mango]

Testing a theory...