No research first 2 years

[yungspleen]

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How bad does no research during the first 2 years look? Especially for the more competitive specialties? What if you do well on step 1 and rotations and realize you're interested in a more competitive specialty? Would a year off for research make up for this?

 

[boogaaloo]

What's the specialty? Spill it.

 

[Lya]

Yup, taking a research year will help.

I would talk to your home program director and ask if your app is competitive.

 

[operaman]

It all depends on how productive you are in the next two years. Really the next one year.

Churn out 3-5 good papers over the next year and half and nobody will care or even notice that you didn’t have anything at first. Many projects that get started in the preclinical years don’t reach a presentable or publishable level until later so many will assume these were ongoing projects. I knew a guy in med school who came to a Tough field later in the year around January and managed to have 5 pubs by September. Obviously he worked his butt off to do this.

They key is do something. Anything. Have something to put on your CV. Nobody cares when you did it so long as it got done.

 

[DokterMom]

For some smaller competitive specialties (ENT, Plastics, Derm, IR), it is understandable and entirely believable that you "came late to the field" and therefore have minimal research in the specialty. For general surgery, that's not so plausible. In those cases, a research year would fully make up for a lack of earlier research, and if you can crank out a project or two in the next year and do well in your away rotations, that might be enough to get you a spot even without much research -- assuming your STEPs are strong, of course.

 

[CharlieBillings]

.

 

[naijacardriodoc]

Or anesthesiology?


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