MD Obligated to Pursue a Specialty

[TurkDorian]

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Hi everybody,

I had a question regarding research and residency. I have the opportunity to do a research project this summer in a competitive field (one of the ROADs specialties) and if I accept the project, I'll have to work on it during the summer of my M1 and M2. However, I am not certain that I would like to pursue this specialty but since it is a competitive field and I am slightly interested in it, I don't want to let this opportunity go to waste.

My question is, if I accept this research project, will this make it more difficult for me to pursue another specialty if I change my mind later on?

 

[bananafish94]

Obviously, for more competitive specialties, research within that specialty is preferred. But research in any specialty is still good -- you'll never be penalized for it. The research project you do between M1 and M2 will have a negligible impact on your specialty choice. Even for the super competitive, research-forward specialties, one project will not be the difference.

 

[TurkDorian]

Obviously, for more competitive specialties, research within that specialty is preferred. But research in any specialty is still good -- you'll never be penalized for it. The research project you do between M1 and M2 will have a negligible impact on your specialty choice. Even for the super competitive, research-forward specialties, one project will not be the difference.

Thanks for the response. That makes sense and I think I will stick with the project.

I guess my main worry was that this project is 2 summers. So, If I decided to apply to another specialty, I'm not sure if I would have had time to work on a research project for it

 

[mistafab]

Disclaimer - M2 here

I think it would only “hurt” if you end up being interested in specialties where “demonstrated interest in specialty” is a huge factor for residency. From my limited knowledge pool, this seems to mean EM and urology, but maybe others are on this list as well. Ophtho maybe?

Otherwise, doing research in med school of any kind looks good to academic programs in any specialty that care about research. A good excuse for this same situation I am going, that I will use in interviews M4, is “I was involved in that research because I really clicked with that mentor. I would have been happy to help with any project they were working on, and I had a great experience, even though I was never interested in X. I am happy I was involved on that project... etc.”

Any other opinions? hopefully from more qualified respondents than I...

 

[bananafish94]

Thanks for the response. That makes sense and I think I will stick with the project.

I guess my main worry was that this project is 2 summers. So, If I decided to apply to another specialty, I'm not sure if I would have had time to work on a research project for it

The way I see it, for the overwhelming majority of specialties it's a complete non-issue. As in, from what I've heard, outside of the most competitive specialties your research experiences are pretty transferable. Of course it's always better to have research in that field, but it's not a big thing if you don't. For the specialties where it's really important to have extensive research in that specific field (say, neurosurgery for example) then one research isn't going to be the difference between matching and not matching. The research requirements are so extensive that if you have to do a research year or something like that one project isn't going to be the difference.

At the end of the day, most people don't know what they want to go into. I sure don't. So I think you just have to take a plunge into something that sounds interesting!

 

[operaman]

What matters is your productivity. If you do this but have nothing to show for it, then yes it may be a net negative.

Specialty specific research is super easy to get. There are tons of opportunities to write something up or do a little chart review or something. I remember one away rotator banged one out over a weekend about a case he saw on a Friday! For some fields, people even take a year off between third and fourth year to do research and strengthen their app.

You also don’t need to have everything actually published by ERAS time. There are places to put articles you have in review at the time of application and they list on your app right next to published stuff. Many people will push out a couple extra papers and abstracts before eras is due.

 

[ortnakas]

My question is, if I accept this research project, will this make it more difficult for me to pursue another specialty if I change my mind later on?

It won’t.

Worst case scenario is that it doesn’t help, but it won’t hurt. People change their mind or are undecided about specialty early on more often than not.

 

[Keladry]

I did research in a competitive specialty over my MS1-2 summer, ended up going for a completely different specialty, hasn't been an issue during interview season. Some interviewers brought it up as a positive ("oh it looks like you did some interesting research"), one or two wanted to know if I had switched fields (and I was honest - I'm applying EM, and I did an away rotation, so obviousl I'm committed to the specialty I'm actually applying for, but had been undecided earlier), and most never mentioned it. At the time I figured I'd rather have the research and not need it than need it and not have it, and it seems to have worked out.

 

[Spica]

No one expects you to know what specialty you want to pursue in the beginning of med school. Doing research in a more competitive field and then switching to a less competitive one certainly won't hurt you. If you end up switching to another equally competitive field, you can always pick up a research project in that field and say in your interviews you've discovered your passion for your chosen specialty after completing the initial project and now you're working on something within your desired field. The most important thing here is to be enthusiastic, work hard, get a poster and preferably a paper out of your project and leave it to 3rd year to figure out whatcha gonna do for residency.

 

[TypeADissection]

Research in the field is great, but more importantly, just doing research shows initiative. It demonstrates that you understand the IRB process, how to design studies, limitations, etc. and that translates to topics of interest later on. But just because you start a project looking at anal condylomas and decide to do something else isn't that big of a deal. You're better off than me. I spent the summer between M1-2 as my last vacation and got my golf score down a few strokes, worked on my tan, looked homeless and watched a lot Red Sox. So I like your initiative already. Onward and forward to fulgurations! Cheers.

And seriously, what kind of impactful project can we crank out in 8 weeks? So no, it doesn't really matter.

 

[mvenus929]

I'm going into endocrine and have a case report in process that's related to ENT and Oncology. It's the process that matters more than the actual project, though having research in the field you're going into certainly helps.

 

[TurkDorian]

Thanks for the responses everybody. I'm going to go ahead with the project!