So let us assume that you're a traditional student without a Masters or a PhD, so you don't really have any publications when you enter medical school.
What are the rules on research years? Are they mandatory for entering any specialty? For only the top specialties? Are they basically mandatory for certain specialties (meaning that you won't match into a certain specialty without having significant amounts of research)?
If you have to do a research year, do you do it after MS3?
Information about specific specialties (the ones that place a greater importance on research) would be great too. Thanks 🙂
I was in the same boat with having few pubs entering med school. I have just finished my MS3 and after I take CK/CS, I will be starting a research year. The rules vary from school to school. Some places have formal programs where you are "enrolled" at the school without tuition so that you can get financial aid to fund living expenses if you don't have grants, other places may just put you on a leave of absence, some places will let you get a masters in -something- for research, etc. You should speak to whatever administrator at your school about that.
No research year is "mandatory" for any specialty. For some specialties you will have a very difficult time matching without significant research. Ones that come to mind are neurosurgery, integrated thoracic, integrated plastics, ENT, maybe derm, etc. Granted you
can match into these specialties without research but it is a more uphill battle. Sure you might be AOA and 250+ on steps, but so are the majority of people applying and they have research and you don't. As a PD, who are you going to take?
Also even for "less competitive" specialties at top programs, you are going to need research. Sure, it isn't too hard to match a community general surgery or internal medicine program. But if you want to do surgery or medicine at MGH, Hopkins, Penn, etc. you are going to need to have some decent research.
Keep in mind that you don't have to do a research year to get quite a few publications. Plenty of people are able to get quite a bit of production out of time during the M1 summer, golden weekends during M2, holiday breaks, and research electives during M3 and M4. Much of this is dependent on your mentor, though and how flexible they're willing to be and how much they're willing to involve you.
A big reason I am going into this year is to get experience running projects (supervised) from IRB to publication, and improve my stats skills. I want to go into academic medicine and ultimately want to use this to really improve my skills on that front. If you are just doing this to get publications and nothing else, beware. If you don't find a great mentor/lab, you could be stuck having a miserable year or worse, an unproductive one.
Feel free to PM me if you have any more specific questions.
