How do I boost my residency application over year off

[kecmd]

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Hello everyone,

You may or may not have seen my previous post but I am an FMG with mediocre step scores (including one failed step 2CK) as well as a low step 3 score. I have been unable to match into a peds residency the last two seasons as it has become very competitive. I do plan to apply again for the 2014 season to peds and will be adding FM, psych, and surgery prelims but I need something to do over the next year to boost my application. Everyone keeps saying do research but no one seems to have any idea how to get started in it. I have no research experience and short of applying to research assistant position I do not know either. Does anyone here know how/where to start or have any other ideas on what I could be doing to better myself?

Some additional info: I will be completing an MBA with a concentration in Healthcare Administration in December but need something remotely clinical. I have been told that observerships are not really adequate but I think I need to do some if I'll be applying to FM, psych etc. and all my letters of rec come from pediatricians.

 

[Powel6016]

There is so many different types of research. Do you want to do bench work (basic science) doing pcr, cell culture, running gels or clinical research where you spend time analyzing retrospectively charts, filling in excel databases and maybe seeing patients but as an observer if your lucky enough?

Case studies, presentations, doing surveys are also options. Find a topic you are truly interested in and want to learn more about.

Pubmed, the best online resource for papers. Find out how you can access articles through your school b/c a lot of them you have to pay to get access to.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/

Look up doctor's names you find in the abstracts/papers. Find out where, which institution/department and who is the main professor doing research. Hint: the guy all the way to the right is usually the professor. Go through your network of doctor friends to find out who is doing research and what types of journals to read.

In the paper there is usually a way to contact the people who wrote the paper.

Just doing research won't help you. What counts is getting your name on abstracts, case studies, posters, editorials, presentations and publications etc.....

Good luck👍

 

[futuredo32]

I had to sit out a year in the past. I volunteered at a clinic for the indigent- they let me see patients under the supervision of an attending which kept my clinical skills fresh and got me current letters of recommendation. I contacted my med school's psychiatry dep't and asked if they had any research projects at all that needed an unpaid assistant which also added a new letter of recommendation when I reapplied the following year.

Good luck to you🙂

 

[kecmd]

Thanks to both of you for the advice. I am going to contact one of my old med school preceptors (a pulmonologist) who does a lot of research to see if he or any of his colleagues are in need of an assistant as well as if he knows any indigent care clinics I could do some work in.

 

[Target2]

What I did is blast email every department at every med school in my area. Out of the 15 or more emails I sent out, I got about 3 responses expressing interest.