Research Experience

[deleted92121]

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Im sorry if this has been asked, but I hear everyone talking about research and I want to know why it seems that if I do not have any research experience, I will not get accpeted to an MD program (not sure about DO).

I had no intention about doing research. I was going to shadow some Physicians and work as an EMT, possibly an ER Tech. Gain some real clinical experience. So should I pursue some research or just go with my clinical expericne plan?

Dxu

 

[LizzyM]

Whether you should get involved in research depends on what you what to accomplish. If you wish to be admitted to one of the top research-university affiliated medical schools (Johns Hopkins, Harvard, Emory, Washington University, Stamford, et al.) you are going to almost certainly going to need to have some research experience (at least 1 summer, 2 summers & an academic year is even better). Students going to these schools are often the future leaders of medical schools (careers usually combining three areas of academic medicine: research/patient care/teaching).

If you want to be a doc and take care of patients, then perhaps you don't need to attend one of the top medical schools. While research is intellectually stimulating and helps you grow as a scholar, it is not essential for admission to medical school as many successful applicants will attest.

 

[George_Clooney]

Whether you should get involved in research depends on what you what to accomplish. If you wish to be admitted to one of the top research-university affiliated medical schools (Johns Hopkins, Harvard, Emory, Washington University, Stamford, et al.) you are going to almost certainly going to need to have some research experience (at least 1 summer, 2 summers & an academic year is even better). Students going to these schools are often the future leaders of medical schools (careers usually combining three areas of academic medicine: research/patient care/teaching).

If you want to be a doc and take care of patients, then perhaps you don't need to attend one of the top medical schools. While research is intellectually stimulating and helps you grow as a scholar, it is not essential for admission to medical school as many successful applicants will attest.

True, lots of people get in with out research. But if you only want to do patient care and have dismissed the importance of research in medicine/health care, you better have a really solid reason you aren't considering nursing or becoming a physician's assistant. Science is a major factor that separates medicine from the other allied health professions.

Secondly, down the road there will be new developments in treatments, medications, etc and being able to keep up with the new advances in medicine will be important to you as a clinician. Plus, some patients are really well-read on their conditions (there is a lot of info on the internet, etc.), and doctors, hopefully, will be more informed than they are on the latest developments. I have worked with MS patients and some of them actually go onto pubmed and read journal articles about new therapies that are in the pipeline (this might be an unusual example, but it clearly happens). Getting some research experience will give you practice in reading the literature and understanding research, even if is not something you plan to do as a career.

Like others have said, it is definitely not a requirement, but shouldn't be trivialized either. Good luck.