How helpful is summer research?

[taeyeonlover]

M1 here. I was offered to work in a research lab at a top 5 med in a big city during the summer between M1 and M2 year. I will not be a part of any summer fellowship program, so the PI will be paying me with his own money. I haven't discussed yet how much he will be paying me.

I was also thinking about going back to my home country and just relaxing there during the summer.


I am just wondering how useful doing research during summer between M1 and M2 year is. Does working in a basic science lab during the summer really boost your residency apps?

Before starting medical school, I worked in a number of research labs and was fortunate to have about 5 pubs with 2 more coming soon this year (mostly 3rd author or so and no 1st author). Are these helpful even though they were done before medical school?

I want to use this summer wisely since during the school year since I do not have much time for extracurricular activities especially research. At the same time, I want to relax and recharge since M2 year is I am sure harder than M1 year.


Would love to hear some advice!

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[AzBasRad]

Do you have a speciality in mind? Certain ultra competitive ones like neurosurgery, plastics, derm etc expect field specific research, so I recommend joining a productive clinical research lab and making connections with faculty/PI.

Since you have > 5 pubs, you already fulfill the research checkbox for specialities that may not care about specific research.

 

[taeyeonlover]

Do you have a speciality in mind? Certain ultra competitive ones like neurosurgery, plastics, derm etc expect field specific research, so I recommend joining a productive clinical research lab and making connections with faculty/PI.

Since you have > 5 pubs, you already fulfill the research checkbox for specialities that may not care about specific research.

Would making connections at my medical school instead of doing a brief summer research at another institution be much more useful?

 

[AzBasRad]

Absolutely. In terms of research, productivity is the most important factor, as it can potentially lead to both publications and a strong letter of rec.

 

[SurfingDoctor]

Doing research during medical school is a better residency application builder than working at Starbucks (...unless they have some new Starbucks medical internship I'm unaware of).

 

[The Last Ankibender]

Doing research during medical school is a better residency application builder than working at Starbucks (...unless they have some new Starbucks medical internship I'm unaware of).

you didn’t hear? Starbuck has a medical students applying botox. In their new pumpkin spice botox offers

 

[SurfingDoctor]

you didn’t hear? Starbuck has a medical students applying botox. In their new pumpkin spice botox offers

Wait till Amazon starts expanding its healthcare services... then we’ll all be eating our words.