I was going to quote a bunch of posts in here, but I think it is better if I just say things in one shot rather than breaking it up.
#1 Why be productive in research while in medical school? I assume that the primary reason is to make yourself more attractive as an applicant for residency. Also, given that the main residencies that value research heavily are the academic programs at bigger places, I assume that the purpose of doing the research is specifically because you have an interest in ending up at one of those residencies.
I am at a big name academic program in a competitive field. Research is probably more important to us than all but maybe 1 or 2 programs in our specialty in the US. We interviewed last week and have another interview day coming up, so I am in the thick of reviewing applications, so...
#2 Some of you have low expectations. There are a fair number of applicants that have strong research credentials. This season we had 2-3 with 20+ publications. Certainly not the norm, but not totally crazy. But, what was obvious was that none of them were paper chasing. They aren't looking for ways to get their name on something. It was obvious that they had their 4-5 projects over 5+ years and then while being in a big department helped with things here and there and ended up on a bunch of other people's work, which is completely normal. Nobody is impressed by the raw number of publications.
#3 Outliers get looked at closely. We are hunting for outliers because ultimately they tend to be the diamonds in the sea of gems that are our applicant pool. If you want to come off as a research superstar, it better hold up on examination. You bet your ass we look at where you published. If you are publishing in obvious paper mills, people do wonder. Economy of effort matters, a lot. Wasting time dumping papers out that could only end up in ****ty journals is a mark of pretty poor decision making.
#4 IF you are going for the research superstar label, you better be able to pull it off in person. You better know the ins and outs of the papers that you write. That is part of the problem with putting out ****. You tend to not really care about the topic or the content as much because it is simply another paper on the list. But, you are going to get asked about things in interviews. If you don't think experts in a field can smell bull****, you are in for a rude awakening. 3 applicants at our last interview day absolutely torpedoed their chances of matching with us because of this. More than knowing about your research, you also need to be able to demonstrate that you understand the paper in the context of the field. It is normal to after talking about your research to get asked, "Okay, so you've studied carotid stenosis and published on it, how should we deal with this pathology?" Fair or not, you better actually give an opinion, not some, "Well, our paper really just said that more study is needed." The assumption is that if you have published on a topic that you are current on your literature since presumably you have done your homework while publishing. If you shortcut in that process, you will get absolutely crucified in interviews. I know, because I've been cringing this season from secondary embarrassment.
#5 A total of ~8-10 people review every single application to our program. Sure, not everyone is going to pick up on a lot of this crap. But, you have to be out of your mind to think that everyone will miss these things. That is a lot of eyes and frankly, some of us are pretty smart and many have been doing this for decades.
And I guess most importantly.
#6 Research is a large part of our program. We select for it because of how much we expect our future residents to do. You are the sum total of your current skills and your ability to gain new ones. THAT is your value. Demonstrating that is the tricky part. While a handful of superstars will publish actually important research as a medical student, for the vast majority it is about developing skills that will allow them to do good future work, or just as importantly, efficient, future work. Common things, know how the IRB works, understand the process, understand the writing styles, understand how to make a very slow system work for you. Learn basic biostats and more importantly how to use at least one of the statistical software. Probably the most important part of that is knowing your limitations. It is staggering how many students, residents and attendings are "find the p-value and base all conclusions based on that". Lastly, learn how to read papers effectively. That means journal clubs and reading a lot. There are plenty of models/algorithms out there on how to read articles.
