research during aways

[echod]

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I am wondering how often do people do an extra research month when they do an away rotation (ie. one month clinical and one month research). When people have done that, were you able to get a journal publication out of that month in time for interview season? Do you think it's a good idea to do an extra month of research at an away rotation if the place is known for research?

 

[Totem]

I am wondering how often do people do an extra research month when they do an away rotation (ie. one month clinical and one month research). When people have done that, were you able to get a journal publication out of that month in time for interview season? Do you think it's a good idea to do an extra month of research at an away rotation if the place is known for research?

I agree with Wagy27.

I think if you want to get research done to improve your application, it's probably best to do it at your home institution given all the logistics involved.
Even if you want to do research at an institution to get noticed and develop relationships with attendings in order to match at a program, I would still favor doing a standard rotation. A typical rotation allows you to work with a number of attendings and gives you the chance to give the all important "talk" at the end of the rotation.
I've seen a couple of students kind of stuck in a corner for a month while doing research, so I'm not sure that their experiences were as useful as a typical rotation.
This isn't to say that a research rotation has no value--if my only option was a research rotation vs no exposure at one of my top programs, I would for sure do the research rotation.

 

[echod]

I agree with Wagy27.

I think if you want to get research done to improve your application, it's probably best to do it at your home institution given all the logistics involved.
Even if you want to do research at an institution to get noticed and develop relationships with attendings in order to match at a program, I would still favor doing a standard rotation. A typical rotation allows you to work with a number of attendings and gives you the chance to give the all important "talk" at the end of the rotation.
I've seen a couple of students kind of stuck in a corner for a month while doing research, so I'm not sure that their experiences were as useful as a typical rotation.
This isn't to say that a research rotation has no value--if my only option was a research rotation vs no exposure at one of my top programs, I would for sure do the research rotation.

How often do students do two months at an away--one month clinical and another month research? Is this fairly rare?

 

[Seldon1985]

I can't speak for places like MDACC, MGH, or MSKCC, but typically the students I saw do a research block and a clinical block were local students who could then finish up research afterwards by coming in on weekends, etc. I think doing this as an away would be more difficult but certainly not impossible.

I'm at one of the above 3 institutions, and I see several students spending multiple months with us. 1 month is typically a clinical rotation, with at least another month spent doing research in one of the many labs here. I've been pretty impressed with how productive these students can be...