Background: I have research all over the place. 2.5 years of undergrad research (about 700 hours) in a biological field not related to medicine. 150 hours of clinic research spread over a year. Currently full-time employed in a medically relevant basic sciences lab, 1400 hours so far and expect 2000 more.
I would like to do research in medical school and include research in my career, though not MD-PhD and likely not a PI running a lab. Teaching and mentorship are also big parts of my application, though that might be another discussion (academic medicine??). I plan to discuss my desire to continue research in secondaries/interviews, especially to answer questions like "Where do you see yourself after medical education/in 10 years?" or "Why our school?"
My perceived problems:
1.) I don't know what field I want to dedicate my time to. I'm afraid mentioning such grand plans to do research will seem very short-sighted without knowing which field I intend to commit to.
2.) I feel like I am still in an "exploring" phase, meanwhile these questions give me the impression that I am supposed to be long past that phase. Although I don't have a chosen field, I have a few areas of interest that seem far apart:
I am interested in basic science or translational research regarding some conditions I currently have in mind, but likely not the work in my current lab. I might also be interested in clinical research, but topics to be discovered. Finally, I am very interested doing research studying the patient population of my own ethnic group. I grew up in an immigrant household and this is a huge part of my identity. I also volunteered another 2.5 years at a clinic working with under-served individuals from this group, which involved extensive patient contact along with some advocacy work. I am pretty inspired to do some work with this population, even if not research.
3.) If I do talk about my preliminary interests in those areas of research, I am concerned that it will again seem short-sighted if I have no research experiences in those research types or specific topic. Most of my research experience is in basic sciences, I have limited clinical research experience, and I have not worked with my own ethnic group in a research capacity, only in a clinical setting.
Given those thoughts, does anyone have advice for me on how to go about discussing research on my secondaries/interviews?
