Likelihood of traveling after first year?

[nightowl]

I'm curious if plenty of med students decide to travel or do a non-medicine random job/internship as opposed to research....and if those med students are likely to land a good residency if they have above average step scores and gpa and recs... basically, how important is post-M1 research?

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[funkless]

Personally, I did summer research after M-1 year. But, a lot of my friends/classmates did summer "service vacations" which seemed to balance clinical experience abroad with plenty of opportunities to "soak up local color."

I don't believe that they'll be at any appreciable disadvantage. (Even the ones looking at future CT-Sx fellowships--they spent their summer scrubbing in with African CT surgeons.)

 

[noncestvrai]

I did a month of clincal observerships/volunteering (CCU 1 week and radiology ongoing), and a month of travel in South-Western Europe and Africa. Only time will tell for my success in the match, but after doing 3-4 years of research before, I wanted to have some kind of break from it.

Do what you enjoy, if you don't like research don't do it, really. Do some humanitarian stuff, it's good to give to the less fortunate, but again if you are into it. Even the super competitive areas have humanitarian medicine "chapters"...like ophthalmology for instance.

Awe, the good times of 1st year summer, now for me next summer will be the times of Mr. USMLE to kick my ass...although I'll work hard on reversing the roles.

noncestvrai

 

[DrRobert]

The summer between MS1 and MS2 will likely be the last time you have several consecutive weeks off for many years.

I highly recommend traveling.

The only situation I can foresee research being a wise choice is if you are 100% certain that you want to enter a particular specialty, especially one that is super competitive. Then you can tailor your research toward this specialty.

Honestly just having done "research", unless it is specifically in your field of interest or just of super high quality (first author in Science, NEJM, Neuroscience, etc), is virtually useless.