How to demonstrate interest as a first-year DO student?

[Doctoscope]

I'm a first-year DO student at an established program in the East Coast. I'm very interested in pursuing neurology, and I would like to know what I can do at this point to show interest in the field outside of research (school doesn't have any). My class rank after the first semester is right in the middle. I've applied to join the AAN for any news on conferences/research. I've heard that school club membership is kind of pointless in the eyes of PDs.

Additionally, how important is research to match neurology? I've been looking and it's kind of a PITA, not to mention I do not enjoy research at all. Is neurology something I can match with 0 research?

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[s5260205]

Neurology is not competitive, meaning that you will be able to match assuming you have the basic requirements (i.e., passed all exams and decent LORs) and be a "normal" person on interviews. However, it's always a great idea to establish some relationship with local neurologist as you will need at least 1, ideally 2, neurology letters for residency application.

I would suggest beginning in your first year to look into some shadowing opportunity with neurologist (probably outpatient so you can have more one to one contact with the attending). Research is not absolutely required but definitely a talking point for interview purposes, so also look into research opportunity (e.g., case report, case series, retrospective chart review) in another nearby academic medical center. You can easily submit the results as a poster to neurology conferences which is really what you need for "research". There are established summer research programs for medical students, but I would instead suggest cold emailing neurologists to see if any of them have case reports/series they want written up which is really the most realistic for summer duration. I personally dislike school club so did not dabble in SIGN or something similar as a student.