I much agree with your previous post, 1Path.
And to clarify, Im not from a so-called top school. That said, there isnt a great deal of variation in quality across Canadian med schools (there are what, 16 of them compared to the US schools).
I also echo what Andy says pathology residency does not require research, although it certainly helped my non-B.Sc./non-Masters/non-PhD ERAS application.
Residency is your union ticket to a job. Research is not. Research you do because you want to. My research project was at one point being run out of three Iron Mountain boxes and an Access database file. But it
got done, which was all we cared about.
Im not even going to go near the whole basic science issue, because it is not my sphere of operations. But basic science research is not the only kind of research out there, and you dont have to be from a top school to do decent work.
The reason a place is top is because there are other places making up the middle and the bottom. And the designations are only relative to one another. Research doesnt take place exclusively at the top.
We can debate NIH funding in dollars, number of publications, prestige etc. But these are all just isolated ways of coming to a bottomline, which is what does not vary as much amongst reputable instutions is the expectation of faculty to be actively engaged academically, and to be creative and productive.
Im a pragmatist. I believe in moderation and balance. Its not the most popular theme. But when you dont have a need to be the Next Big Thing In Science, or talk in big names, I think its enough. I dont plan to earn my living from research Im doing it for the mental exercise. I never planned on doing high-power research because of peer pressure, perceived or otherwise.
Because of the M.D., I will be able to do diagnostics which I like, and can afford to not get stuck on the grant treadmill.
Again, this is not a criticism of other work-styles out there, this is a continuation of the what is possible theme.
Find someone whose job you want and find out how they got it.
In that vein, I would define good mentor as someone you want to become.
At my stage of training I am only doing one project at a time, although I can certainly see future spin-offs. But the guy I work with has med student/resident projects, fellow projects, and collaborates with clinicians and mice people too
Im also heavily influenced by the fact that in the research world outside of North America and Europe and maybe Japan, most countries cant afford $1000 antibodies. The work is important, its advancing the known boundaries of human knowledge, it will change lives but mention the detailing of random kinases and I am bored to tears. Whoever named a complex certainly wasnt kidding.
As one Internal Medicine IMG resident said to me, Sure I could take on this pancreatic islet cell transplantation project and doubtless learn a great deal, but what good is it going to do me when I return home?
I dont want to leave the rest of the world behind, literally or figuratively. To my mind, current chasms in understanding (and I dont just mean in medicine) are already wide enough. If people who shop at Walmart can understand why what I am working on is important, thats enough for me.
Which is not to say that basic science research is necessarily isolationist, although I can see how it might be.
At one of my residency interviews I was lucky enough to be introduced to the concept of Big-R versus little-r research. My argument is that there is a role for medium-R research it is interesting, still important, and compatible with life.
As for the subject of women in academic medicine the Economist ran an article in July about women in business (
The Conundrum of the Glass Ceiling). It is an interesting read there is a lot that we have in common.
