I'll preface this by saying I am in a MD/PhD program in Biophysics, working on MR, and I'm going into Radiology. Hopefully I can help steer you in the right direction...
i am not really interested in physics. some medical physics m.s. programs require a gre physics test(upenn), and i dont think i could hack it. i am more interested in bioengineering aspect of this degree.
I'm not really sure what you're getting at here. If you want to work in medical imaging, you'll learn some amount of physics, some amount of bioengineering, and some amounts of other things. You might not be getting the classwork to back each of these up, depending on exactly what focus your program has, but you're going to be applying it to do research in it.
That being said, I think it's silly to say "i am not really interested in physics." You want to work in medical imaging? Get interested. If you have the opportunity to take those physics courses that will enrich and/or lessen your future graduate work in imaging, that's a good thing. That being said, your average Radiologist has very little concept of the physics aspect of what they're doing. To many, it's scary how little they know about the basis for what they're doing. The MD teaches you to apply science, even in residency you tend to learn very little about the actual science behind it. Sure, maybe you have to learn some physics for the Radiology physics exam and boards, but in practice it rarely/never seems to get used except for sub-subspecialists (as I call them... the Cardiothoracic CT/MR imaging specialist, for example). So what I'm saying is, do research because you're interested in research. Don't do it because you think it will help you get a Radiology spot down the line.
Yes, i also thought about taking a year off to do research. And i wonder how it compares with M.S. program? in m.s. program i would probably do research on something related to imaging equipment. And i would participate in seminars and all that.
In a year off to do research, depending where you do it, you'll still get access to seminars and probably to a few classes as well depending on how you structure it. The major difference is that in a MS you come out with a MS degree so you have to write something up (not particularly important, it's your pubs/abstracts/presentations that are important) and an MS is going to be two years, at least if you're not paying for it. That being said, many labs don't just want "year out" studentss--they want two year out students. That is, if you're getting paid.
As i said, i dont know if i have interest in radiology, but in case i did, it would certainly give me a head start once i started med school.
Not as much as you might think. There is very little Radiology involved in medical school. The only real thing this would do is set you up to get involved in more Radiology research down the line, say time off you take to do it or during fourth year. What you do before med school is very underweighted by residency program directors.
So i dont understand why that wouldnt be more useful for med school admissions than some generic SMP program or just taking time off?
I wouldn't argue that any of your paths are necessarily more or less useful. It just depends what you want to do. I'll get more into this later.
In case i decide to just take a year off and look for a research assistant job, i wonder how easy it would be to find a paid job working on some publishable project? Would it be easy to get hired if i just wrote to any professors in biological depts at schools like Vanderbilt(it has hot ugrads, that's why) or some other good research schools like Columbia,etc? I heard most of the research jobs are reserved for ugrad or grad students, unless the person applying for the job actually has good experience and is not just someone who needs to be taught the lab procedures. Why do you think that someone would get better research experience as a research assistant in a random lab than as a m.s. student with thesis and possibly a RAship?
It's hard to say how easy it will be to find a paid job. I would start writing e-mails to people of interest and see if they're looking for research techs. I'm not going to tell you who I work for, because I think that would be unfair to those who aren't writing here on SDN, but I can say that around our department we do hire one year out students from time to time.
That being said, you'll probably get to do more research than a master's student because you'll probably spend more time doing research. Master's students spend much of their first year teaching and taking classes. That being said, they are learning valuable information.
So you need to decide what you want to do. Do you want to take 2 years out? Do you want to get some theoretical basis behind what you're doing? That's not a bad thing. Do you want to take 1 year out and try to apply next year? Make up your mind now, then the decision will be easier. I will say that you're going to have a very hard time applying MD/PhD if you only have that 1 year of research. You need to get involved in research ASAP if you're serious about this. Otherwise you can apply MD (and I guess an SMP would be fine for this also) and still get involved in Radiology. I mean, how many MD/PhDs who got their PhDs in some imaging related thing apply every year? It's not many. On another forum (
www.auntminnie.com) one applicant estimated only about a half dozen a year. Just because you're interested in Radiology doesn't mean you need a PhD in it, there are very few MD/PhDs doing the basic science/clinical medicine split in Radiology, you can always do research with an MD if you want to, AND you're likely to change your mind about Radiology anyways. I thought I wanted to be a surgeon when I started.
As for mdapps, i agree, their stats are not exactly the same as in msar. but there is still a lot of good info. Let's pick a borderline applicant, say 3.4gpa and 39mcat. On mdapps you can see that EC's and research can make a great difference. With those stats you can either get waitlisted at albany medical college or get accepted into vanderbilt...
Do you have a 3.4 gpa? Improve it in your remaining schooling. It's not THAT bad. Be sure to focus on rocking the MCAT when it comes around.
Also, sorry for offtopic, but besides taking a year off for MS or to do random research at some university lab, i am considering other alternatives(both of these are of course reserved for after i take mcat, fail to gain admissions to med schools and am forced into taking time off, though i kind of wish to take time off school):
1) be an actuary. i think i could pass exams1&2 on the fly and get a job, possibly somewhere in midwest. reasoning behind it is that i would actually make some money and so live independently from my parents without being bugged down by hw. i would have a 9-5 job, and could try investing money in stocks, travelling, and spending more time with girls. i know that i won't have much time for any of this once i start med school, and i'll be old when i'm done. and i've had a hard time academically throughout college, so i'm really stressed out now and i still havent graduated. the con is that it means that i wouldnt do anything to improve my med school application. i'm afraid that i might become satisfied with my financial situation and might no longer wish to go through 4yrs of medschool(loans+homework).
2) enlist in natl guard as a pararescueman: i would have to go through 2yrs of active duty training, during which i would make some money and have a lot of fun, and also get experience as a paramedic. then if i started med school after those 2yrs, i would only have the commitments of a guardsman(part-time). but obviously then i'd have 0 research experience. and even if i got into a more competitive medschool, i'd still be academically clueless. but on another hand, i'm afraid that if i suffer through academics now instead of exploring my life, i'll regret it later. and yet by considering m.s. degree medical physics as an alternative, i am considering md/ph.d. also. that is because if i enjoy my m.s. degree, i probably wouldnt feel the need to take time off the way i do now in ugrad.
Look, this is again where I'm saying, make up your mind what you want to do. Set a goal and stick with it. If you want to go to medical school, you will get into medical school. If you want to get into MD/PhD, you'll get there. Figure out what you want, let us know what you want, and we'll help you with the best plan to get there. You keep saying "I'm a junior, it's too late for me." No. It isn't. You have at least a year to get involved in research. You have at least a year to improve your GPA. From there, do a MS, SMP, or get involved in research because you want to. Depending on your MCAT and the rest of your app, you might even want to apply to med school as a senior.
Let me know your thoughts.
to you.
