Research as 3rd/4th year MS

[fatpigeon2010]

Like many I found Ophtho later in 3rd year of medical school. I was just wondering for those who got involved in research as medical students at this point (I'm assuming stuff like case reports?) Did you do a dedicated rotation in research in ophthalmology or did you just work on stuff while in a regular clinical ophthalmology rotation? Just wondering because my school doesn't have anything specifically set up for a research rotation. Should I be trying to schedule some sort of research away or something? If it makes any difference my step score is 260s and all A's throughout 1st-3rd so far, AOA just no research . Just aiming for a decent clinical program. I will also be doing a rotation with a retina doc that is very active in clinical trials and has his own "research center", but I'm not positive on how involved I could be with that, the coordinator said I could sort of tailor my rotation. Any advice?

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[ophthope]

Like many I found Ophtho later in 3rd year of medical school. I was just wondering for those who got involved in research as medical students at this point (I'm assuming stuff like case reports?) Did you do a dedicated rotation in research in ophthalmology or did you just work on stuff while in a regular clinical ophthalmology rotation? Just wondering because my school doesn't have anything specifically set up for a research rotation. Should I be trying to schedule some sort of research away or something? If it makes any difference my step score is 260s and all A's throughout 1st-3rd so far, AOA just no research . Just aiming for a decent clinical program. I will also be doing a rotation with a retina doc that is very active in clinical trials and has his own "research center", but I'm not positive on how involved I could be with that, the coordinator said I could sort of tailor my rotation. Any advice?

Your stats are very high. Try to get in on some case reports, journal articles, textbook editing, small clinical studies, or other projects - the kind where someone else has come up with most of it they just need you to do some writing or calculation grunt work. If you have an ophtho department try to present at grand rounds. There's no time for big projects and you probably won't have time to finish anything large - in fact even if you get in on some case reports they're probably going to still be 'being submitted' by the time you're done interviewing. That's fine, that's how a lot of us are. Just get involved somehow, put that stuff on your application, and make sure you can talk about what the projects entailed during interviews.. You should be fine.