How important is summer research for me?

[taeyeonlover]

I am currently a first year student. Our summer break is from end of May until end of July. Before starting medical school, I worked in a number of research labs and was lucky enough to land 7 coauthor pubs. All of them are basic science biomedical research.

I was offered to work full time in a research lab at a top 10 medical school in New York City during this summer. Living and working in New York sounds cool but as an Asian woman, I am a little bit hesitant to go due to a lot of Asian hate crimes nowadays. I heard that someone who goes to Mount Sinai got randomly attacked in the street?

In addition, maybe it's because I did so much research during my gap years but I kinda want to spend my last summer doing something else.

But then all these posts about SOAP are worrisome so I was thinking doing research during the summer would be more beneficial for residency apps.

What do you guys think? In terms of academics, I just do ok and I am also below average in my class.

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[Osteosaur]

New York is a garbage city and only getting worse. Even if there wasn't a huge surge in crime its mega stressful to live and commute to. At a glance this sounds like this is a great opportunity and you should be proud of having it but:

1) You say you'd rather do other things! Life is short. Relax. Enjoy having a real vacation. There is zero shame in that because medical school is hard.

2) What specialty do you want to go into? And can it help for a specific goal?

Only a third year and I did pretty much average. I don't know what things are going to look like with P/F step 1 but I hope to god getting a 78 in histo isn't going to force you to SOAP. Administrators love to make that out to be the case!

 

[taeyeonlover]

New York is a garbage city and only getting worse. Even if there wasn't a huge surge in crime its mega stressful to live and commute to. (And I hope post-covid, as people telecommute, it continues to rot away to nothingness). At a glance this sounds like this is a great opportunity and you should be proud of having it but:

1) You say you'd rather do other things! Life is short. Relax. Enjoy having a real vacation. There is zero shame in that because medical school is hard.

2) What specialty do you want to go into? And can it help for a specific goal?

Only a third year and I did pretty much average. I don't know what things are going to look like with P/F step 1 but I hope to god getting a 78 in histo isn't going to force you to SOAP. Administrators love to make that out to be the case!

Thanks for your reply! I actually have no idea what I want to do for specialty.

Do you happen to know how much premed research count toward residency apps especially if you have number of pubs?

 

[AzBasRad]

Yes, premed research counts for residency apps. A pub is a pub in the eyes of the selection committee. Your entire research portfolio is evaluated, not just summer research specifically.

Having said that, I would recommend shadowing some of the competitive specialities (derm, plastics, neurosurg, ortho) as they care more about speciality specific research.

 

[Banco]

You do get to list all pubs on ERAS and pre-med research “counts”. When you know your specialty interest, try to get some research in that field. For now, enjoy your summer and do what you want.

 

[Putkernerinthehall]

Unless you have something specific planned for the summer, I'd consider the NYC opportunity. Like any big city there's good and bad. NYC is an experience and a short summer stint might be fun if you think you'll enjoy the research opportunity.

 

[GoSpursGo]

Do you have something else specific that you could do if not this research gig? Hard to offer advice without knowing the opportunity cost.

bottom line, if you think you might want to do something competitive, it’s hard to “coast” over the summer. If not research, then you need to do something else to build your connections and/or resume. If on the other hand you think you’ll do IM/peds/something else that is relatively non competitive, then there is nothing wrong with having a fun summer I know you say you don’t really know for sure, but in general hopefully you have some idea whether or not you want to spend the next 3 years grinding towards something competitive.

 

[taeyeonlover]

If not research, then you need to do something else to build your connections and/or resume.

How do you build connections other than through research? Does shadowing work?

 

[GoSpursGo]

How do you build connections other than through research? Does shadowing work?

I never applied for a competitive specialty, so I’m maybe not the best to answer But I would think shadowing could work

 

[SurfingDoctor]

I doubt shadowing will do anything as a medical student. Your whole training in medical school is mostly shadowing, doing more for a summer wouldn't improve your abilities to watch others do stuff.

You need experiences to write on your application. Work/Volunteer/Research are the main categories and they all need to be relevant to medicine (ie spending your summer working at Starbucks doesn't work for you, it works against you). Is there some summer program you could volunteer at, ie some medical mission/outreach program, if you don't want to do research?

 

[Chads2]

Gee, it sounds like you’ve done your fair share of biomed research. So now you’re asking “Mr., Mr., what should I do this summer? Should I Party? Or be a Lionheart and try a new experience?” Well, Tell me your wish - what specialty are you looking to match into? You will often find that competitive specialties like ophtho or derm will have clinical research opportunities, which I think will go a longer way than more lab research or shadowing. “Clinical research” also often means doing a little grunt work in their clinic to collect your data but that also exposes you to LOR opportunities. If You Think you’re going to try for a competitive residency then I would try to look for clinical research.