Research and Residency Question

[Dr.CCM]

So, I was looking at the NRMP match data and for the most competitive specialties--dermatology, integrated plastics, radonc, etc. I believe the MEAN number of "Abstracts, Presentations, and Publications" was around 8 from the 2009 data!

How do med students have the time to get 8 publications in 4 years! Maybe it's because I'm an MS1, but that seems virtually impossible with such limited time unless you take a year off during school and commit exclusively to research.

Do most interested in these specialties with these incredible research requirements take a year off for lab work? Is it kind of a formality? If not, how do you acquire that many publications.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

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[DoctwoB]

So, I was looking at the NRMP match data and for the most competitive specialties--dermatology, integrated plastics, radonc, etc. I believe the MEAN number of "Abstracts, Presentations, and Publications" was around 8 from the 2009 data!

How do med students have the time to get 8 publications in 4 years! Maybe it's because I'm an MS1, but that seems virtually impossible with such limited time unless you take a year off during school and commit exclusively to research.

Do most interested in these specialties with these incredible research requirements take a year off for lab work? Is it kind of a formality? If not, how do you acquire that many publications.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

8 Abstracts, presentations, and publications is not the same as 8 basic-science nature papers. Oftentimes, people will do a retrospective chart review, that may take a month and give a publication or two. From this project, you may submit a couple abstracts to conferences that get accepted depending on the quality of your work and more importantly, the connections of your PI. There you just got 3 "publications."

That being said, the people that do apply radonc are usually research focused and many take research years.

 

[Dr.CCM]

8 Abstracts, presentations, and publications is not the same as 8 basic-science nature papers. Oftentimes, people will do a retrospective chart review, that may take a month and give a publication or two. From this project, you may submit a couple abstracts to conferences that get accepted depending on the quality of your work and more importantly, the connections of your PI. There you just got 3 "publications."

That being said, the people that do apply radonc are usually research focused and many take research years.

Okay, that makes considerably more sense and seems feasible. I was thinking more along the lines of basic science, but what you said makes it more realistic--still a ton of work though.

I had heard the radonc guys are research oriented but not as much from the integrated plastics/derm folk, which is why I was curious.

Thanks for the help.

 

[NightSwim]

So, I was looking at the NRMP match data and for the most competitive specialties--dermatology, integrated plastics, radonc, etc. I believe the MEAN number of "Abstracts, Presentations, and Publications" was around 8 from the 2009 data!

How do med students have the time to get 8 publications in 4 years! Maybe it's because I'm an MS1, but that seems virtually impossible with such limited time unless you take a year off during school and commit exclusively to research.

Do most interested in these specialties with these incredible research requirements take a year off for lab work? Is it kind of a formality? If not, how do you acquire that many publications.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Easy: med students had lives before med school! Getting a paper published as a research assistant during your pre-med school days counts for the same amount. However, I bet top research-oriented residency programs want to see that you continued research during med school, to prove your commitment to academia. Additionally, abstracts can sometimes be published at multiple conferences (regional, national, school), and the term "presentations" is flexible. One study could very well result in 2 presentations, 1 abstract, and 1 paper. With that, you're already half-way to 8!

Many applicants to those competitive specialties probably worked as an RA at some point, whether it was before med school, or during a year off. Plus, I'm sure some people scew the mean.

What are the means for less competitive specialties? I bet they're A LOT lower.