MPH degree or Research Year?

[spicysoup55]

I'm a medical student and have a strong interest in going into academic medicine. Recently, I've been thinking about doing an MPH degree or a research year in between 3rd and 4th year and wanted some advice from you all.

1) How would you compare a 1 year MPH degree vs a research year? I'm interested in the MPH degree because it seems to offer formal training in research methods like biostatistics, epidemiology, etc. However, a research year would offer more actual research experience, and I would also be earning a salary instead of paying tuition for an MPH degree.

2) Would doing either one be advantageous for residency applications? What about further down the road for fellowships? I'm currently interested in GI but also keeping an open mind going forward.

Thanks!

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[CatFactorial]

Is a fifth year necessary? You can get an MPH if you were to do a general medicine fellowship (and in such a scenario it would be much more relevant than doing it a priori). Do you have GI (or any) research lined up? Would you be in charge of your own project? Would you have funding? If you can do something akin to HHMI or NIH, that would be the most impressive boost to your resume and would put you in good position to do ABIM and then GI (or whatever).

I ended up doing an MBA in between 3rd and 4th year and found it very useful, but primarily I did it for couple's matching reasons. If you have other lifestyle considerations anything in which you spend your time productively (MPH included) would look good.