Research year after medical school

[RN1]

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What are some good programs where you can do a research year after medical school? The purpose would be to increase your chances of matching into a residency.

I can only find programs where you do the research year during medical school and they only seem to accept US students.

 

[michigangirl]

need more info. Taking a year off after college before applying to med school-- commonly done and with good reason. Taking a year to do research before applying to residency? big red flag and pretty much never done. what's the issue? grades? no letters? what field do you want to apply to? can't really reply without more context.

 

[bobthesun]

why don't you rock a PGY-1 instead? what are you trying to place into.

 

[bobthesun]

need more info. Taking a year off after college before applying to med school-- commonly done and with good reason. Taking a year to do research before applying to residency? big red flag and pretty much never done. what's the issue? grades? no letters? what field do you want to apply to? can't really reply without more context.

OP seems to be a FMG

 

[Raryn]

If you take a year off after medical school, the assumption from 99% of program directors (whether or not it is true) will be that you failed to match, which is a bit of a red flag. If you want to take a year off for research, defer graduation and take a LOA from medical school. Doing it afterwards is a poor choice at best.

 

[Law2Doc]

If you take a year off after medical school, the assumption from 99% of program directors (whether or not it is true) will be that you failed to match, which is a bit of a red flag. If you want to take a year off for research, defer graduation and take a LOA from medical school. Doing it afterwards is a poor choice at best.

I agree its better for US grads to defer graduation or work the research year earlier into the schedule (eg between 3rd nd 4th year). However, for those hoping for certain competitive fields that want research (eg ortho), it's actually not all that rare to do a Research year right after med school, and so for that purpose it wouldn't be as much of a red flag. If the research is valuable, I know some programs certainly aren't giving applicants a hard time about applying during a year at the NIH etc.

But I would only suggest that this is something that could help if you are a US grad who has borderline stats for something competitive. It's not really going to help an FMG as much, although I have seen a few FMGs that have made good connections during such a year that helped them get a foot in the door at a program. For an FMG I agree doing well at a good prelim might often be more beneficial.

 

[Raryn]

I agree its better for US grads to defer graduation or work the research year earlier into the schedule (eg between 3rd nd 4th year). However, for those hoping for certain competitive fields that want research (eg ortho), it's actually not all that rare to do a Research year right after med school, and so for that purpose it wouldn't be as much of a red flag. If the research is valuable, I know some programs certainly aren't giving applicants a hard time about applying during a year at the NIH etc.

But I would only suggest that this is something that could help if you are a US grad who has borderline stats for something competitive. It's not really going to help an FMG as much, although I have seen a few FMGs that have made good connections during such a year that helped them get a foot in the door at a program. For an FMG I agree doing well at a good prelim might often be more beneficial.

I'd disagree. If you graduate in May (or even April if you're one of the few schools that allows it) and start a research year, you'll have done *at most* 4-5 months of research by the time you fill out your ERAS in September. You'll almost certainly have nothing concrete to show for it at that point, and the things in the pipeline might not come until 5-6 months after you finish your research year (with the lag time it takes to publish taken into account).

You would be much, much better off taking the year off between m2 and m3 year or between m3 and m4 year. At that point, there's an adequate amount of time for you to have finished the year and gotten whatever publications/abstracts/poster presentations you could out of it. Not to mention you avoid all the PDs in your specialty of interest wondering whether the only reason you're doing research is you failed to match the previous year (2/2 your borderline credentials as you put it). The advice a number of my classmates who wanted competitive research-heavy specialties (in particular Ortho) were given was that it was an awful idea to bank on taking a year off after graduation.

 

[Law2Doc]

I'd disagree. If you graduate in May (or even April if you're one of the few schools that allows it) and start a research year, you'll have done *at most* 4-5 months of research by the time you fill out your ERAS in September. You'll almost certainly have nothing concrete to show for it at that point, and the things in the pipeline might not come until 5-6 months after you finish your research year (with the lag time it takes to publish taken into account).

You would be much, much better off taking the year off between m2 and m3 year or between m3 and m4 year. At that point, there's an adequate amount of time for you to have finished the year and gotten whatever publications/abstracts/poster presentations you could out of it. Not to mention you avoid all the PDs in your specialty of interest wondering whether the only reason you're doing research is you failed to match the previous year (2/2 your borderline credentials as you put it). The advice a number of my classmates who wanted competitive research-heavy specialties (in particular Ortho) were given was that it was an awful idea to bank on taking a year off after graduation.

I think "awful idea" is way too strong, considering I know quite a few people who did such a research year and believe it made the difference for them for the competitive fields they were borderline for. Certainly didn't hurt them, probably helped. And I know the program I'm at sometimes sees applicants who are doing organized/funded research years and it by itself doesn't generate any red flags. What you can accomplish if you start doing research during 4th year (you can have a pretty light schedule of electives in the latter half of fourth year) until the point you interview should be enough to get something accomplished if we aren't talking about bench research -- you could at least have an abstract sent out somewhere. But I agree that taking a year between 3rd and 4th year is preferable if you have the foresight.

 

[Winged Scapula]

BTW, you guys are responding to a > 2 year old thread.

 

[Shikima]

Necrothread strikes again!