Research Question

[Wiingy]

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Hi, I'm interested in an MD/PhD program (preferably MSTP) and have a fair amount of research experience. The problem is that most of it (in terms of time anyway, more papers in clinical) was in microbial ecology - completely unrelated to medicine! However, a lot of this is due to the fact that my undergrad was small and only had this sort of microbio lab, and I used this experience to get a position in a foreign microbial ecology lab. Does the type of research matter, or are they more looking for the fact that you know what research is and how it is done? If anything, all of my eco work has convinced me that I don't want to do the ecological research for the rest of my life - I like the applications of my clinical research a lot more, as they gave some real direction to the research! Thanks for the help!

 

[tiamat360]

Most of my undergraduate research experience was also in a microbial ecology laboratory. Having been on a number of interviews now, I can say that the type of research you've done doesn't matter as long as:

1) You can explain it, answer questions about it, and demonstrate why it's significant, and

2) You can explain why, despite having done research outside of a medically-related field, you want to work on topics relating to human health and biology.

This is in addition to showing success in your lab work, by a strong letter of recommendation and/or publications.

 

[Neuronix]

Don't sweat that part. It's close enough to biomedical research that you can make a fine argument for it. As you stated, they are "more looking for the fact that you know what research is and how it is done"

A few other things from your post though.

MD/PhD programs are geared to produce basic science researchers by training you in basic science research. You will want to spin yourself as a future microbiology or immunology researcher at your interviews. You'll also be expected to spend ~4 years in lab doing that type of research, regardless of what you do with your career. If your interests are in clinical research, that's not what most MD/PhD programs are setup to produce. Maybe that's not what you meant, I'm not sure. You just have to be careful how you throw the words around with adcoms.

Basic science research with clinical relevance = golden
Clinical research = rejection

The only caveat there is if you are a well qualified applicant who has done epidemiology or other clinically related research applying to certain schools that take an occasional clinical research student.