How much research are you supposed to churn out in your year off?

[PremedSurvivor]

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So I'm getting kind of nervous, because some friends working with powerful mentors are churning out a ton of research. I have essentially 12 months; however, we also had to take Step 1, Step 2 and our medicine subinternship during this time (our school is different) which ate up about 4 months total.

So for 8 months of pure research, is 1 case report, 2 review articles, 2 conferences and a 3 month global health project sufficient? The major issue is that my mentors are pretty slow to get back to me, and I'm doing 99.9% of the work myself, vs my friends have a lot more in terms of collaboration. I'm just concerned that I will be told that was not enough for a year off.

Thoughts?

 

[Anti-PD1]

I'm not sure about what's enough. In my year off, I also took Step 1. I was able to get 5 pubs. As you say, it's all PI dependant. You'd also be amazed how much time gets wasted with waiting for co-authors to edit, approve, with reviewal and revision time etc.

Couple of rules of the game if quantity is your concern (obvi clinical research)

1) Don't invite co-authors because it's cute. Yeah, getting the biggest name in X specialty to co-author with you is great, I've been there, but not sure it was worth it. They tend to be old and slow. I.e. getting them to edit your paper will take 2 months. So take that into consideration. Quality>quantity, but at the end, it's an interviewer looking at how many entries you have on your ERAS research section.

2) Do everything you possibly can yourself. From study design, to data collection, implementation, writing, and submitting. Make yourself corresponding author whenever possible. It sucks when a journal sends back a review to your PI and he forwards it to you 2 weeks later. That's 2 weeks wasted. Do everything you can and do it definitively. It should look polished af.

3) Run MULTIPLE projects at once. I was handling 10 different papers at once, and 5 came to fruition so far. Point is, this is no time for a pistol. Shotgun is the name of the game. There are multiple directions in a research topic, avoid salami science, but still, it's physically and mentally feasible to deal with 10+ lines of inquiry at the same time.

4) Databases and statistics. NSQIP, SEER, Medicare whatever your interest. Mine these databases with a research question in mind, do the stats, write the paper.

Again, I hate to make research seem like the dispassionate publish or perish BS it has become among medical students at least. But that's basically it. Pursue projects you actually care about, makes it all a lot easier, and demand the best from yourself, don't take shortcuts.

 

[Donald Juan]

Are you done with your year off? Because the point is sort of moot now. I think at least 1 original research paper (even if it was database mined or retrospective) would have been nice. But overall I wouldn't worry about it. Sounds like you will have a nice research section on ERAS.

 

[itisallrelative]

So I'm getting kind of nervous, because some friends working with powerful mentors are churning out a ton of research. I have essentially 12 months; however, we also had to take Step 1, Step 2 and our medicine subinternship during this time (our school is different) which ate up about 4 months total.

So for 8 months of pure research, is 1 case report, 2 review articles, 2 conferences and a 3 month global health project sufficient? The major issue is that my mentors are pretty slow to get back to me, and I'm doing 99.9% of the work myself, vs my friends have a lot more in terms of collaboration. I'm just concerned that I will be told that was not enough for a year off.

Thoughts?

A good way to approach this, imo. Look at the pertinent, officially published statistics regarding that in what you are interested in matching in. Do you meet the average? Yes? As always, matching depends on (many) other things, but if you meet the average, I'd say you're alright.

 

[Osteoth]

So I'm getting kind of nervous, because some friends working with powerful mentors are churning out a ton of research. I have essentially 12 months; however, we also had to take Step 1, Step 2 and our medicine subinternship during this time (our school is different) which ate up about 4 months total.

So for 8 months of pure research, is 1 case report, 2 review articles, 2 conferences and a 3 month global health project sufficient? The major issue is that my mentors are pretty slow to get back to me, and I'm doing 99.9% of the work myself, vs my friends have a lot more in terms of collaboration. I'm just concerned that I will be told that was not enough for a year off.

So you'll have 3 pubs for the year. How many do you have total?

I'm not sure about what's enough. In my year off, I also took Step 1. I was able to get 5 pubs. As you say, it's all PI dependant. You'd also be amazed how much time gets wasted with waiting for co-authors to edit, approve, with reviewal and revision time etc.

Couple of rules of the game if quantity is your concern (obvi clinical research)

1) Don't invite co-authors because it's cute. Yeah, getting the biggest name in X specialty to co-author with you is great, I've been there, but not sure it was worth it. They tend to be old and slow. I.e. getting them to edit your paper will take 2 months. So take that into consideration. Quality>quantity, but at the end, it's an interviewer looking at how many entries you have on your ERAS research section.

2) Do everything you possibly can yourself. From study design, to data collection, implementation, writing, and submitting. Make yourself corresponding author whenever possible. It sucks when a journal sends back a review to your PI and he forwards it to you 2 weeks later. That's 2 weeks wasted. Do everything you can and do it definitively. It should look polished af.

4) Databases and statistics. NSQIP, SEER, Medicare whatever your interest. Mine these databases with a research question in mind, do the stats, write the paper.

Unless you're publishing in Nature or the equivalent in your field, do you really feel like Quality > Quantity? Seems like unless you're rocking out quantity is more important.

Are you done with your year off? Because the point is sort of moot now. I think at least 1 original research paper (even if it was database mined or retrospective) would have been nice. But overall I wouldn't worry about it. Sounds like you will have a nice research section on ERAS.

Depends on what they're trying to go into. 3 pubs would be far below average for a lot of competitive specialties.

A good way to approach this, imo. Look at the pertinent, officially published statistics regarding that in what you are interested in matching in. Do you meet the average? Yes? As always, matching depends on (many) other things, but if you meet the average, I'd say you're alright.

This.

 

[PremedSurvivor]

Thanks guys! Perhaps I should have been doing more simultaneously, because you're right in that a lot of time was wasted in waiting for people to get back to me. I'll definitely take a gander at the stats though. Thanks again for your input, guys!

 

[Frogger27]

@Osteoth I'm not sure if 3 pubs is necessarily "far below the average for competitive specialties." NRMP reports research as # of abstracts, presentations and publications. Assuming these projects also yielded an abstract/poster and possibly an oral presentation, that would be add to the number

 

[Donald Juan]

@Osteoth I'm not sure if 3 pubs is necessarily "far below the average for competitive specialties." NRMP reports research as # of abstracts, presentations and publications. Assuming these projects also yielded an abstract/poster and possibly an oral presentation, that would be add to the number

This. I don't know if there is a definitive way to establish how many meaningful publications are required for any specialty the way ERAS and charting outcomes reports things. I also think it is likely OP has things from prior, and may get a few more research items to add to the "abstracts, presentations, and publications" section before they apply. For my personal experience, I applied to a competitive specialty with 3 actual publications (1 from undergrad, 2 from med school), but about 10 items under the total which made me in line with my specialty.

 

[pbrocks15]

This. I don't know if there is a definitive way to establish how many meaningful publications are required for any specialty the way ERAS and charting outcomes reports things. I also think it is likely OP has things from prior, and may get a few more research items to add to the "abstracts, presentations, and publications" section before they apply. For my personal experience, I applied to a competitive specialty with 3 actual publications (1 from undergrad, 2 from med school), but about 10 items under the total which made me in line with my specialty.

Do they care that much though about the "10" in that criteria compared to the three publications. For example, what if someone has 6 publications that are moderate impact, versus 2 publications that were presented twice each to fulfill "6" in that same criteria. How would those two compare?

 

[Osteoth]

@Osteoth I'm not sure if 3 pubs is necessarily "far below the average for competitive specialties." NRMP reports research as # of abstracts, presentations and publications. Assuming these projects also yielded an abstract/poster and possibly an oral presentation, that would be add to the number

This. I don't know if there is a definitive way to establish how many meaningful publications are required for any specialty the way ERAS and charting outcomes reports things. I also think it is likely OP has things from prior, and may get a few more research items to add to the "abstracts, presentations, and publications" section before they apply. For my personal experience, I applied to a competitive specialty with 3 actual publications (1 from undergrad, 2 from med school), but about 10 items under the total which made me in line with my specialty.

You guys are totally right I never realized that presentations/posters counted toward that total. Makes it much more manageable.

 

[Donald Juan]

Do they care that much though about the "10" in that criteria compared to the three publications. For example, what if someone has 6 publications that are moderate impact, versus 2 publications that were presented twice each to fulfill "6" in that same criteria. How would those two compare?

Of course 6 actual publications would be better than 2 publications that were also presented multiple times, but I can't imagine someone who would have 6 actual publications and never once presented them in any other capacity. There is no criteria or baseline needed, I'm just making the point that you can't look at specialty X which has average of 10 "pubs, posters, abstracts" and think that means everyone is publishing 10 top quality original research papers.