published?

[tennis23]

This is sort of a vague question, but how important/valuable do you think having a publication is to getting into med school? And how much better is it to be the 1st author, rather than the 3rd or 4th? Thanks for your help!

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[jlee9531]

1st author of course looks better than 3rd or 4th.

being published is nice, but in my opinion i dont think its a gamebreaker. (for all your EA Steet fans)

 

[drlexygoat]

I know tons and tons of people who get in without publications. They add to your application, but won't make up for a crappy GPA or MCAT unless you found a cure for cancer or the common cold. Go for 1st author if you can, it's just another feather in your cap.

 

[honsano]

I guess I would agree that the publication itself would not be a gamebreaker. But from years of experience (NBA STREET I and II) I have noticed that taunting your opponents will help in the process. So, maybe if you go around with your publication in a frame and take it to all your classes, maybe, and only maybe, will you be lucky enough to get a gamebreaker. Also try bouncing a ball off your opponent's.....I mean peer's head, some call it 'off da heazy'. That not only gets your opponent, dang I mean peer, but also will better your chance of getting the gamebreaker. Good Luck.

 

[dentate_gyrus]

i had multiple pubs. wound up talking about them more than undergrad. not everyone who applies to med school, or even gets into med school can be a successfull contributor to basic science & academic medicine. demonstrating this ability early can be a huge selling point. it most definitely set me apart with my abysmal gpa. this seems to be especially important at your top tier schools. i think as a result this experience has been waaaaaaaaaayyyyyy more lucrative for me than i anticipated.
that being said it can't ENTIRELY make up for bad gpa/mcat. but it can mollify an exclusionary ADCOM wanting more from your application. of course you will be expected to sound like a miniature expert on your publication(s) and the implications of the work. at one school the interviewer asked me the MW of some protein that was involved in a broader signalling pathway we had explored. 24KD baby, yeah.
from conversations at the UCs they can tell when you are a toadie and when you are not. first-author is the best but it does not matter that much-some schools give extra emphasis to this, but it is mostly to impress your interviewer.

read about this in my next Nature paper "Publication-mediated Admission to Medical School in an Slacker Cohort"

 

[No Egrets]

i was published AFTER my AMCAS and most secondaries went out, so i used the publication as part of a "letter of interest" type correspondence with some schools i hadn't heard from... it didn't get me interviews at all of them, and at the ones who did decide to interview me, no one mentioned them directly during my interviews. so in summary, there is no demonstrable significance to the publication in my case (i was buried in the middle of the author list... but it was a top 5 journal ).

 

[Pinkertinkle]

Publishing definitely is good, but it is only one of the EC's. It would be unwise to sacrifice MCAT and GPA in order to produce publications.

 

[ATPase]

Originally posted by dentate_gyrus
my next Nature paper "Publication-mediated Admission to Medical School in a Slacker Cohort"

 

[Blade28]

Definitely helps to boost your app, but as above posters have said, it's not necessary. Won't make up for lousy grades/MCAT scores, that's for sure.

On the other hand, it will be something you could talk freely about during the interview.

 

[relentless11]

Being published is just icing on the cake, just like 90% of all other EC's. It obviously won't count against you if you have been published. EC's merely show that you're a well rounded, dedicated person, or at least one should strive to be that way.

In regards to being 1st, 2nd, 3rd author..etc. Being first author definately says something. The way it should be, is the person who contributes the most to the research and the paper (ie: did most of the handiwork in getting data, as well as writing the paper) should be 1st author. Second author can go either way, second author's usually would have contributed a lot but it might just be that the first author's name was there because they would attract more attention to the paper. 3rd+ authors usually are those that have provided assistance to the paper/research. This is usually where undergrad's fall into.

Of course, thats how papers should work....but I do know that there are professors out there who don't have strict standards to who gets to be what author so it may vary depending on who you're with. I'm sure adcoms know about that too, so they'd take one's publications like a grain of salt...more or less.

Other things to consider, what kind of paper was it, what journal was it published in. Or was it published in a book?

Back to the topic if being published helps or not....it may benefit you more if you're applying to an MD/PhD program. Shows that you've done well on the PhD side of things. Which would make sense since grad school likes to see if you've had good exposure to research. However at the end of the day, published or not, there are significant numbers of people who've done either/or, and have been either rejected and accepted to medical school. So do what floats your boat and be happy. Enjoy life.

 

[Andrew_Doan]

Originally posted by drlexygoat
I know tons and tons of people who get in without publications. They add to your application, but won't make up for a crappy GPA or MCAT unless you found a cure for cancer or the common cold. Go for 1st author if you can, it's just another feather in your cap.

I completely agree with this. Publications are icing on the cake. Good luck!