Research at home institution vs. outside institution

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Lucca

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So the applications for 2016 summer research programs are opening up and I would appreciate some more experienced advice.

I have the option of staying at my home institution in the lab I work in regularly with people and methods I know very well. I've been in this lab for a bit over a year including a full time summer. I'm working on something independently as well as collaborating on another project.

But here's the thing: I'm interested in doing one of the programs at NYU, Yale or UCSF where I can work with MD/PhD mentors. I would like to see and learn from someone living the proverbial "dream" since even though I have had plenty of exposure to research and physicians I have not had much exposure to physician scientists. I would also like to live in and see another part of the country for a while and explore disciplines like neurobiology, immunology or other forms of translational research in order to broaden my horizons past the basic physics and chemistry I work on here. I am applying next summer so there won't exactly be plenty of time to earn a letter of rec from whoever I work for next summer if they are not at my undergrad but I feel the experience of working under an MD/PhD or research MD would be beneficial anyways.

Is there a significant downside to putting off ongoing projects and a familiar lab just for the sake of seeing something new and different? Obviously my productivity would suffer but from an admissions perspective does anybody care?

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I did a program at a different institution last summer -here are a couple of thoughts, but basically I think it was a really good experience.

I think doing some other research at a different institution was very helpful since my home institution did not have a medical school attached so the research is quite basic.

Since you are applying to a program, you get to be involved with the administration as well as the other students in the program.

I was still able to get in a recommendation from my PI before turning in my secondaries.

- Let me know if you have other questions, but then again, I am still in the application process so I can't tell you how successful or useful this was.
 
So the applications for 2016 summer research programs are opening up and I would appreciate some more experienced advice.

I have the option of staying at my home institution in the lab I work in regularly with people and methods I know very well. I've been in this lab for a bit over a year including a full time summer. I'm working on something independently as well as collaborating on another project.

But here's the thing: I'm interested in doing one of the programs at NYU, Yale or UCSF where I can work with MD/PhD mentors. I would like to see and learn from someone living the proverbial "dream" since even though I have had plenty of exposure to research and physicians I have not had much exposure to physician scientists. I would also like to live in and see another part of the country for a while and explore disciplines like neurobiology, immunology or other forms of translational research in order to broaden my horizons past the basic physics and chemistry I work on here. I am applying next summer so there won't exactly be plenty of time to earn a letter of rec from whoever I work for next summer if they are not at my undergrad but I feel the experience of working under an MD/PhD or research MD would be beneficial anyways.

Is there a significant downside to putting off ongoing projects and a familiar lab just for the sake of seeing something new and different? Obviously my productivity would suffer but from an admissions perspective does anybody care?
This is an excellent question. My gut reaction to this question was, if you're being productive, why the heck would you ever want to change that? At the end of the day, programs want tangible evidence that you will be a good physician-scientist. There is no substitution for a high GPA, MCAT, rec letters, and your ability to communicate your research in an essay and interview format, but productivity evidenced by tangible things like papers/patents > talks > posters are really what set candidates apart. Changing labs makes this difficult.

But, I look back at my own experiences pre-medical school and see that transition was the most valuable thing I could have ever done. I started off in a behavioral/psychology-y lab with no notion of the MD/PhD track. My PI was young and incredibly productive, so we pushed out a paper in less than a year. I realized how awesome research was here, but I wanted something more translational and something that used my background, so I joined a different lab. That PI was not quite as productive but had truly novel ideas. I believed in his methods so much that I delayed going to medical school. It took a while, but I put out a paper, a talk, and a patent in tenure there. I made the incredibly difficult decision to leave and am now in a completely different lab in a completely different part of the country, but now with two years of medical school under my belt. I now know exactly what I want to do clinically and have hit the ground running in my new lab.

So my advice to you is: transition is almost always a good thing, but be prepared to spend time to be productive. If 1) you are early in your undergrad career, 2) have great scores, and 3) can secure good letters, without any reservations go ahead and make the transition. A different perspective in research is always a valuable thing to have, even if your experience with a new PI is a malignant one (you learn about academia by working with different people). However, if you are on the cusp of applying to medical school, have so-so scores, and can't secure a good letter just yet, it may be in your benefit to stay in your current lab - even if the work doesn't excite you as much. That way you can be as productive as possible in your current projects with the aim of pushing out a paper. Programs will wait for you.
 
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