Summer Research Stipend

[DocToBe2018]

I just signed a contract for the summer research and am grateful to have this opportunity to work with an awesome PI on an interesting project. However, for working 40 hours a week for nine weeks, the stipend is $3900. It looks like in this medical field, until you finish a decade long med school/residency/fellowship/what-nots, you are faced with diminishing returns. That's depressing and is it only me who feels this way?

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[GottaGetThatMD]

I just signed a contract for the summer research and am grateful to have this opportunity to work with an awesome PI on an interesting project. However, for working 40 hours a week for nine weeks, the stipend is $3900. It looks like in this medical field, until you finish a decade long med school/residency/fellowship/what-nots, you are faced with diminishing returns. That's depressing and is it only me who feels this way?

Research stipends are not meant to be compensation for work that you provide. A stipend is simply a grant for living expenses. Doing research as a student usually means you are learning from the process as much as you are contributing (if not more). Besides, careers in research are not exactly lucrative most of time in general so what did you expect as someone who will likely work as a research assistant.

 

[22031 Alum]

I just signed a contract for the summer research and am grateful to have this opportunity to work with an awesome PI on an interesting project. However, for working 40 hours a week for nine weeks, the stipend is $3900. It looks like in this medical field, until you finish a decade long med school/residency/fellowship/what-nots, you are faced with diminishing returns. That's depressing and is it only me who feels this way?

Stipends for summer research are not a salary, and whoever told you to think about them that way gave you bad advice. Usually it's just to cover your traveling to and living in whatever city the program is in. If you have extra money left over, then great.

 

[NickNaylor]

$3900 seems pretty good for 9 weeks of CV-boosting work to me. You might want to reevaluate just what exactly you're bringing to the table and what you're getting out of the experience.

 

[tiedyeddog]

That is really good for a summer stipend... What did you expect to make? Your an M1, I assume, who probably doesn't know the PI very well. I am guessing you aren't an established researcher in this field, correct? Did you think someone was going to throw 10K at you just because you're a medical student wanting to do research?!

 

[sbuxaddict]

Wow, my stipend is $3,000 and I'm excited about that.

 

[NonTradJp]

I think research stipends, especially the one you are receiving is very generous.

 

[pd1112]

If this is depressing to you, you probably should've gone PA or an entirely different field.

 

[tvelocity514]

I'm getting $2,000 and I was happy to receive that (so I can actually have a little extra money this summer). Go into each summer thinking that you will be lucky to get a research position (unpaid) with an awesome PI (who publishes) and you will be more surprised in a good way than not.

 

[Postictal Raiden]

FWIW, I will be doing it for free this Summer. If my name gets on anything published, I'll be thrilled.

 

[FalconSlice]

I just signed a contract for the summer research and am grateful to have this opportunity to work with an awesome PI on an interesting project. However, for working 40 hours a week for nine weeks, the stipend is $3900. It looks like in this medical field, until you finish a decade long med school/residency/fellowship/what-nots, you are faced with diminishing returns. That's depressing and is it only me who feels this way?

No amount of funding should be scoffed at. Especially at your level.

FWIW, I will be doing it for free this Summer. If my name gets on anything published, I'll be thrilled.

Every student should know this feeling instead of having a false sense of entitlement.

 

[CherryRedDracul]

What do you bring to the table that you think you should be given a raise on your stipend?

 

[Elizabeth Woolridge]

I just signed a contract for the summer research and am grateful to have this opportunity to work with an awesome PI on an interesting project. However, for working 40 hours a week for nine weeks, the stipend is $3900. It looks like in this medical field, until you finish a decade long med school/residency/fellowship/what-nots, you are faced with diminishing returns. That's depressing and is it only me who feels this way?

I got the opportunity to be accepted into a wonderful research program for this summer. (doing research in the field of my choice! Does it get better than that?)

My stipend is $3,000 and I actually thought it was pretty good for me, an inexperienced undergrad. I believe your stipend is generous; why do you feel you need more? Be grateful you get to work with an awesome PI on an interesting project, and on top of that, get a pretty good stipend.

 

[Amba]

Wow, I didn't realize the large range of stipends at other schools. We're getting ~$4700 for 10 weeks at my school this summer.

 

[Psai]

I think a stipend of around 10 dollars an hour is respectable for publicatins but if you bring other skills to the table, should be more

 

[NickNaylor]

Wow, I didn't realize the large range of stipends at other schools. We're getting ~$4700 for 10 weeks at my school this summer.

Yeah, our summer program was just over $5k for 10 weeks. It was awesome.

 

[DocToBe2018]

I am not exactly an inexperienced undergraduate. I have done research with pubs and I will be single-handedly running this splinter project under the direct auspices of my PI. This includes setting up the lab, ordering materials, on and on. It looks like I will also have an undergraduate SURF student working with me to jump start the project. I was originally thinking about just cruising this summer and doing nothing ... rather, the summer stint I chose got bigger than I expected. And this project doesn't look like it will be ending at the end of the summer either - this might be problematic. 🙁

 

[collegestud2013]

I think some of you are missing OP's point. He is saying that there are significant opportunity costs ("diminishing returns" isn't the correct term here for what he's trying to say) to going into medicine since what is valued in the process is unfortunately not high paying and that that there are high barriers to entry in the field. Most undergrads and medical students probably wouldn't do any academic research if it were not highly valued in the medical school or residency application process due to little or no pay (even if it's try that they don't bring much to the table, but they are still forced to do it), and this was the case about 30 years ago where even those going into competitive specialties did not do research unless there were very passionate about it or were dead set into going into academic medicine. Also, stuff like volunteering and shadowing in undergrad that premeds have to do are also unpaid, while compared to other fields such as finance, where internships with financial institutions are valued as part of getting entry levels jobs but are much better paying (many undergrads can make $20-30k per summer with investment banking internships so even accounting for the long 80-100 hrs of work per week that is still much better paying per hour) and the upfront investment in both time and money is significant.

Also, the difference is stipends that people mention here probably accounted for in large part by the differences in cost of living.

 

[tiedyeddog]

I think some of you are missing OP's point. He is saying that there are significant opportunity costs ("diminishing returns" isn't the correct term here for what he's trying to say) to going into medicine since what is valued in the process is unfortunately not high paying and that that there are high barriers to entry in the field. Most undergrads and medical students probably wouldn't do any academic research if it were not highly valued in the medical school or residency application process due to little or no pay (even if it's try that they don't bring much to the table, but they are still forced to do it), and this was the case about 30 years ago where even those going into competitive specialties did not do research unless there were very passionate about it or were dead set into going into academic medicine. Also, stuff like volunteering and shadowing in undergrad that premeds have to do are also unpaid, while compared to other fields such as finance, where internships with financial institutions are valued as part of getting entry levels jobs but are much better paying (many undergrads can make $20-30k per summer with investment banking internships so even accounting for the long 80-100 hrs of work per week that is still much better paying per hour) and the upfront investment in both time and money is significant.

Also, the difference is stipends that people mention here probably accounted for in large part by the differences in cost of living.

So are you going to start paying medical students for their research summer projects or premeds for volunteering?

Doing this stuff without compensation is the cost of doing business.