Question regarding doing research in Medical School

[PreMade]

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I'm interested in several different type of research and would like to do research in med school. Availability of certain type of research at a med school would have a huge impact on where I decide to apply.

1) Would it be weird to contact faculty members or research facilities in and around the med school to ask questions regarding their research? Should I ask them if hypothetically I get accepted to medical school, would there be a research position be available.

2) Is there a search engine or some type of way I can easily find med schools or affiliated research facilities that do certain type of research. For example, if I wanted to do research in orthopedics (knee joint), how could I find what medical school faculty member, affiliated hospital, research facility is doing it. I try to look up each school or google it but I feel like I'm not getting good results.

3) Would they be wiling to take on a student who doesn't have research experience in that area? I'm currently doing research (6 months) and although I am interested, this is not the research I want to do long term. There is one area I really would like to do but I have no experience in the area and I know nobody in my area that does it.

 

[claduva94]

To be perfectly honest this'll be low yield and should not be your focus. Focus on getting accepted first. You just need to glean enough information about research at the school that is relevant to your interests so that you can put it in secondaries.

 

[mimelim]

There is nothing wrong with getting involved with research early on. And yes, there are people that would be willing to take on students with zero experience. However, the bigger issue is, "Why?" "I want to do research in orthopedics (knee joint)" is specific and yet demonstrates somewhat a lack of understanding. Biomechanics? Clinical? Prosthesis design? Surgical? Those are the things that are more important when finding someone to do research in than the field of study. If you had said, "I love biomechanics because I've taken 18 billion credits on the topic and want to explore orthopedics." It would be a different story...

All of that having been said, where you go to medical school should NOT be dependent on this in any way. Sure, all other factors being identical, it can be considered, but that simply is not a reality. There are dozens of better reasons to pick between schools.

 

[Holmwood]

Alot of schools have scholarly requirements where you can do research either throughout your 4 years, or during your electives.

I would check out MSAR. I'm in the same situation as you. : )