How useful are Publications for your application?

[catzzz88]

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I am just wondering how useful it is to have publications and published abstracts when applying to medical school. For example, here is what I have published:

Nature -- 2011 (7th author out of like 50 authors, 1st author was my boss)
Epigenetics -- 2009 (one of 7 equally contrib. authors, including PI as last name)
Acta Chiropterologica -- 2008 (2nd/4 authors, I designed the experiment)
Plus 3 other published abstracts in Developmental Biology (2008), and Virginia Journal of Science (2008, 2004)

As you can probably tell, I been really heavy in research (3 years full time, 3 years 10hr/week in undergrad, stints of REUs here and there in summers and before college). This leaves the inevitable question of "why medical school?" ...a little hard to hold up ... on top of that, all of my work in research (working 10-15 hour days to get that Nature paper published, for example) left me very little time to get clinical experience while trying to stay sane. I probably have around 100 hours of clinical experience total over my entire life (all of it disjunct, all of it in a variety of locations including probably one third of it in Europe). GPA: 3.65, Bryn Mawr College, bio with honors, magna cum laude, MCAT 33. Thats just background for the people who will probably ask.



I guess I am just asking a few general questions though, not really specific to me:

How does it look for us lucky few with some nice publications?
Are there specific schools that like to see more research?
If so, how do I find and distinguish them from other schools?
Does the name of the journal really matter?


Are there specific schools that wouldn't dream of touching a student without extensive clinical exposure?
I have heard of some schools having a cutoff of like 400 hours clinical...
Are there any schools that don't require much clinical, relatively?


Is or was anyone else in a similar kind of position? If so, please do tell me what kinds of conclusions you have drawn.


😛 thanks!

 

[k2on3hru]

ahh dude im in the same situation as you (no nature papers though..thats beast! congrats) Really interested to see what people say.

 

[1TB4RKSB4CK]

For a journal like Nature, that pretty darn big.

 

[catzzz88]

Yeah, I hope that people reply as well. I can't seem to figure this out with google so I secede to gut feeling of the respectable SDN population. 🙂

bump.

 

[Nymphicus]

Eh. Publications are a dime a dozen. Also first author or bust.
























Just kidding.
OP, you are probably competitive at any school you apply to if you get more clinical exposure (doesn't have to be 400 hours). Non-USA clinical experience doesn't really count. Although your GPA and MCAT are not super high, your research background will make your application more attractive to "top 25" schools if you indicate continued interest in research.

 

[kpcrew]

it looks good but i would try to get some clinical experience if i were you

 

[ipoo]

Good job on the publications!

Definitely try to get some more clinical/volunteer experience (I had a similar number of pubs+a patent application and very good MCAT/GPA, but few and late clinic/volunteer hours--~100 of each--and got slayed at a couple schools). Most of my volunteering,etc came late in my senior year.

Good luck

 

[catzzz88]

Thanks guys... I didn't know this stuff was quite so important. I don't really understand this concept much. There is always an element of luck when it comes to publishing...

If I had done the exact same research for the same amount of time, but had no publications at all, I would truly be that much less competitive?

It seems a bit silly to me... Especially considering the fact that where I am as a scientist in both my skill set and thought process has literally nothing to do with where my name is on a piece of paper. On the other hand, the research embodied by the Nature paper was truly on a different level that that of the other research I have done (much harder and longer hours spent making darn sure that it would be impossible to scoop our finding)!

I don't know... Anyone else have thoughts about what I am getting at here?

-C

 

[pkwraith]

Thanks guys... I didn't know this stuff was quite so important. I don't really understand this concept much. There is always an element of luck when it comes to publishing...

If I had done the exact same research for the same amount of time, but had no publications at all, I would truly be that much less competitive?

It seems a bit silly to me... Especially considering the fact that where I am as a scientist in both my skill set and thought process has literally nothing to do with where my name is on a piece of paper. On the other hand, the research embodied by the Nature paper was truly on a different level that that of the other research I have done (much harder and longer hours spent making darn sure that it would be impossible to scoop our finding)!

I don't know... Anyone else have thoughts about what I am getting at here?

-C

Results matter and speaks for itself. In academia as well as in all avenues of life. It's really that simple.

 

[catzzz88]

Results matter and speaks for itself. In academia as well as in all avenues of life. It's really that simple.

I agree with this, but it seems that there should be more emphasis on the personal development results (which is purportedly what matters to med schools). For example, I worked my tooshie off for that Nature publication, but I bet that there are some people who have worked harder than me and learned more but simply don't have a publication.

I suppose that, as usual, this stuff is all relative to quantifiable data. Two people saying that they worked really hard, one having a publication and one having none (all else being equal), we certainly must discriminate! But, even so, why the big focus on the "high impact" journals? Results are results, right?

 

[TX515]

Publications are very very good.

 

[Moebius]

I agree with this, but it seems that there should be more emphasis on the personal development results (which is purportedly what matters to med schools). For example, I worked my tooshie off for that Nature publication, but I bet that there are some people who have worked harder than me and learned more but simply don't have a publication.

I suppose that, as usual, this stuff is all relative to quantifiable data. Two people saying that they worked really hard, one having a publication and one having none (all else being equal), we certainly must discriminate! But, even so, why the big focus on the "high impact" journals? Results are results, right?

Bull ****. Nature helps a lot. 7th out of 50 authors is a huge deal. It doesn't matter if you don't have any 1st author papers. I hope your PI is supportive of you. You might be too old for MD/PhD programs, but if you were 23. 🙂

 

[varsityblue]

Non-USA clinical experience doesn't really count.

Non-USA/Canadian clinical experience doesn't count.

 

[Poisson]

How does it look for us lucky few with some nice publications?
Are there specific schools that like to see more research? Yes, I have typically seen more heavy research institutions, i.e. upper tier programs as well as medical science training programs to put more weight on publications. On the flip side some DO schools have told me they are not into research much.
If so, how do I find and distinguish them from other schools? I would ask around a lot, as well as do some searching.
Does the name of the journal really matter? Yes it does. In general, having a publication, especially first author is going to help any application. When you have a top journal like Nature on there, that is going to help out significantly. There are many top faculty with no publications in Nature or the New England Journal of Medicine. When you are associated with top institutes and universities, they typically publish in these top journals all the time. If you notice even some of the slimball doctors that made it big on television have some publications with some of the most world renowned people in the field, typically because that has to do with the institution. I have a publication in a journal very good for the field, but on the global sense, is not like Nature. The thing about that journal though, as well as Science, they just don't publish some types of medical work. I have done countless searchers to identify that many types of work, that people spend their whole lives in, and are surgeons, is not represented in the big journals.