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To preface this, I am starting at a US MD medical school next year. I hear that if you want to do a competitive specialty you need to have a ton of research since your first year. However, I do not know if I want to do a competitive specialty or if I will even have a competitive STEP score for it. Hence, I wanted to ask the following questions: Should I do research during the first two years?
It's a tough question because first I hear that you should be doing research in the competitive specialty since day 1. However, I don't even know if I will receive a STEP score that is competitive enough for those specialties and I haven't even spent any time learning about those specialties yet so I don't even know if I want to do a competitive specialty.
My plan at the moment is: Spend the first two years adjusting to medical school. Learning the material well and then try my best at STEP. If I discover that I scored a competitive STEP score for certain competitive specialties then I would shadow some physicians and learn more about whether those specialties were a good fit for me and then spend the next two years doing research in those fields.
What I like about this plan is that it allows me the proper time to adjust to medical school and ensure that I know the material well. What I don't like is that I don't know how I am going to fit in research during 3rd and 4th year. 3rd year will be all clerkships and 4th year would give me only a few months to do research before residency applications open.
Personally, I doubt I need to do research day 1 for competitive specialties but I want to see what others think.
Note: I probably sound very naiive to a lot of you guys but I have just recently been admitted to medical school and I am just trying to figure out what is the best path for me moving forward into medical school. During my freshman year of college, I overcommitted to research and ECs freshman year which made the start of my college career a little bumpy. I don't want to make the same mistakes so please try to be nice about my misunderstandings of certain things
Tl;dr I want to spend the first two years of med school making sure I adjust well to med school and to learn the material well and do well on STEP 1. However, it seems that if I don't commit to a competitive specialty day 1 of medical school by doing research then it will put me at a serious disadvantage when applying to those residencies.
EDIT: Also if anyone has any good books or posts about great advice for going into medical school. Such posts or book recommendations would be appreciated!
It's a tough question because first I hear that you should be doing research in the competitive specialty since day 1. However, I don't even know if I will receive a STEP score that is competitive enough for those specialties and I haven't even spent any time learning about those specialties yet so I don't even know if I want to do a competitive specialty.
My plan at the moment is: Spend the first two years adjusting to medical school. Learning the material well and then try my best at STEP. If I discover that I scored a competitive STEP score for certain competitive specialties then I would shadow some physicians and learn more about whether those specialties were a good fit for me and then spend the next two years doing research in those fields.
What I like about this plan is that it allows me the proper time to adjust to medical school and ensure that I know the material well. What I don't like is that I don't know how I am going to fit in research during 3rd and 4th year. 3rd year will be all clerkships and 4th year would give me only a few months to do research before residency applications open.
Personally, I doubt I need to do research day 1 for competitive specialties but I want to see what others think.
Note: I probably sound very naiive to a lot of you guys but I have just recently been admitted to medical school and I am just trying to figure out what is the best path for me moving forward into medical school. During my freshman year of college, I overcommitted to research and ECs freshman year which made the start of my college career a little bumpy. I don't want to make the same mistakes so please try to be nice about my misunderstandings of certain things
Tl;dr I want to spend the first two years of med school making sure I adjust well to med school and to learn the material well and do well on STEP 1. However, it seems that if I don't commit to a competitive specialty day 1 of medical school by doing research then it will put me at a serious disadvantage when applying to those residencies.
EDIT: Also if anyone has any good books or posts about great advice for going into medical school. Such posts or book recommendations would be appreciated!