T20 student: Quality vs. quantity in research productivity when applying to competitive residencies

[deleted854547]

This past week, at a specialty panel, one of the attending physicians said that the number and bulk of publications is more important than the actual quality of the papers. He explained that residency programs just can't sift through all of the individual papers and publications, and instead will "weigh" the applicant's file.

My first question is: is this a common method of reviewing applications, especially in the uber-competitive specialties like plastics, ortho, and ENT? I go to an institution where there are options to have multiple "lower impact" publications where I might be 2nd/3rd author, but also have the option to pursue more involved research, which would require more time and result in a lighter file come residency application time.

Should I aim to just get my name on as many pubs as possible and have a couple first author case reports/longer manuscripts, or focus my efforts on longitudinal projects that will take longer to execute and publish?

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[NickNaylor]

The reality is that, depending on the size and specialty of the program, the program staff is going to be bombarded with hundreds if not thousands of applications on the first day that you are able to submit your application. At our program (psychiatry at a regionally well-known academic center), we typically receive ~1000 applications on the first day that applications are submitted. There is no possible way to review all of those applications in detail - not with 5 faculty that are in leadership positions within the residency program. Even if you spend 5 minutes on each application, 200 applications/person x 5 minutes/application = ~17 hours reviewing applications. Since speed is important for the purposes of scheduling interviews, that just simply isn't possible to do. What will be noticed is if you have nothing to report as far as research activities. What won't be noticed is that your article is published in a journal with an impact factor of 1.2 vs. 3.6. There's just no time to look at things that closely.

Generally, I would agree with the advice that was given to you, at least when it comes to applying to residency. This isn't really the case later on in your career - where the quality of manuscripts matters significantly - but for the purposes of getting into a residency program, quantity is generally going to be better than quality. That shouldn't be interpreted to mean that you should just submit a bunch of garbage manuscripts to garbage journals just to get a publication - that kind of thing can hurt you. But as a medical student, I would focus far more on achieving "tangibles" than investing a bunch of time and resources into a project that might appear in a very well-known journal someday.

 

[deleted854547]

The reality is that, depending on the size and specialty of the program, the program staff is going to be bombarded with hundreds if not thousands of applications on the first day that you are able to submit your application. At our program (psychiatry at a regionally well-known academic center), we typically receive ~1000 applications on the first day that applications are submitted. There is no possible way to review all of those applications in detail - not with 5 faculty that are in leadership positions within the residency program. Even if you spend 5 minutes on each application, 200 applications/person x 5 minutes/application = ~17 hours reviewing applications. Since speed is important for the purposes of scheduling interviews, that just simply isn't possible to do. What will be noticed is if you have nothing to report as far as research activities. What won't be noticed is that your article is published in a journal with an impact factor of 1.2 vs. 3.6. There's just no time to look at things that closely.

Generally, I would agree with the advice that was given to you, at least when it comes to applying to residency. This isn't really the case later on in your career - where the quality of manuscripts matters significantly - but for the purposes of getting into a residency program, quantity is generally going to be better than quality. That shouldn't be interpreted to mean that you should just submit a bunch of garbage manuscripts to garbage journals just to get a publication - that kind of thing can hurt you. But as a medical student, I would focus far more on achieving "tangibles" than investing a bunch of time and resources into a project that might appear in a very well-known journal someday.

Thank you for this detailed response. So it sounds I should be focusing on quantity. How does 1st vs. 2nd/3rd/etc. author play into this review? Will you be dinged for having majority non-1st author publications or is this dependent on each residency program?

 

[Dave1980]

this isn't rocket science...,more papers are better...first author is better...other authors are also good

 

[7331poas]

this isn't rocket science...,more papers are better...first author is better...other authors are also good

I believe the point of the post was whether "more papers" is better than "first author" or a Nature publication.

 

[TwoHighways]

I feel like this is a huge problem in the realm of research. If the research being conducted doesn’t have the ability to profoundly affect the lives of thousands upon thousands of people, why it it being researched to begin with? The goal should be meaningful research, not just publishing something for the sake of publishing something.

 

[Dave1980]

For med school, residency, fellowship, and academic Attendings more of low quality is much better than a few high quality.

No one has the time to actually read your papers and assess how good they are. Also you are much more likely to succeed in getting published with lower tier journals (although still not easy).

 

[deleted915325]

I feel like this is a huge problem in the realm of research. If the research being conducted doesn’t have the ability to profoundly affect the lives of thousands upon thousands of people, why it it being researched to begin with? The goal should be meaningful research, not just publishing something for the sake of publishing something.

So research into rare diseases is pointless in your opinion?

 

[slowthai]

I feel like this is a huge problem in the realm of research. If the research being conducted doesn’t have the ability to profoundly affect the lives of thousands upon thousands of people, why it it being researched to begin with? The goal should be meaningful research, not just publishing something for the sake of publishing something.

It's all part of the game. Gotta play it or lose.

 

[deleted854547]

this isn't rocket science...,more papers are better...first author is better...other authors are also good

For med school, residency, fellowship, and academic Attendings more of low quality is much better than a few high quality.

No one has the time to actually read your papers and assess how good they are. Also you are much more likely to succeed in getting published with lower tier journals (although still not easy).

Thank you. This is what I wanted/needed to concretely read. Unfortunately, with how competitive matching certain specialties is nowadays, research productivity is another metric used to sift through applications.

 

[TwoHighways]

So research into rare diseases is pointless in your opinion?

No, but it shouldn’t be receiving a disproportionate amount of funding compared to other areas unless it’s being funded privately.

 

[OnePunchBiopsy]

All research has a purpose. Not every paper is a multi-center, prospective double-blind randomized controlled trial.

I vote quantity over quality when it comes to getting a residency. Quality matters more when you try for professorship.

 

[operaman]

This is a common question. The answer for competitive fields is you need all of it. You need enough lines in the sections of your app that it has nice curb appeal and passes an initial screening. You also want something substantial there once people look closer. You will definitely want some first author papers in there.

You can do this by going after a variety of projects. Maybe you’ve got some small stuff that you’re first author on and a couple of bigger projects where you’re 2Nd or 3rd. The idea is to show you can be academically productive with your time, so show this however you can. The first author papers are critical for top programs because they show you can get a project from A to Z and won’t need to be coddled through the process as a resident.

Just triage your time well and you will be fine. Get enough stripes that it looks nice at a distance and make sure a few of those stripes say something meaningful about your abilities to do research.

 

[Dr G Oogle]

Unfortunately quantity over quality is the answer if the goal is matching. But I would say 1-2 first author publications is better than more pubs but lower on totem pole once you get into interview stage of application and people have more time to look through your application. The quality of journal also mentions. I would say that the majority of faculty including faculty who do research will be “impressed” with number of publications.
But not all and if quality is poor it may in some rare cases hurt you.


I am pretty interested in research quality and the issue of lack of replication and credibility in clinical research and so take this stuff a little more seriously than I would say 95% of people involved in residency interviews and I look at research part pretty closely. If I see that you have 15 publications and all of them are in open access journals or it’s all case reports , irrespective of what author you are, your stock has already fallen very low in my eyes, I don’t even care to look at the rest of the application to be honest because it tells me you’re just interested in CV padding and I expect to find evidence of the same in the rest of the app.

conversely if you describe a research experience either during the interview or on your application eloquently and appear engaged in it, I’ll count that highly even if you have no publications. I once had someone on an interview hand me an abstract printed on very nice paper, I read it and it was a decent paper, then I asked them questions about it and they could not answer even the most basic question of why do you think this is an important question to study. Needless to say I argued very strongly not to rank this person highly.

So it’s a confusing answer especially with more emphasis being placed on research now during the residency project. But short answer it volume of publications probably matters more for screening but once you get past that stage you better have some substance to the research and deep knowledge of every paper and abstract you’ve been a part of

 

[NickNaylor]

Thank you for this detailed response. So it sounds I should be focusing on quantity. How does 1st vs. 2nd/3rd/etc. author play into this review? Will you be dinged for having majority non-1st author publications or is this dependent on each residency program?

Any tangible research experience is positive when it comes to residency applications. Obviously it's going to be impressive if you are listed as a first author on an actual paper, but you aren't "dinged." It's not as if the expectation is that you will have been first author on a paper and anything short of that is a "weakness." All research is a strength, but the strength of that strength depends on the details.

 

[deleted854547]

Any tangible research experience is positive when it comes to residency applications. Obviously it's going to be impressive if you are listed as a first author on an actual paper, but you aren't "dinged." It's not as if the expectation is that you will have been first author on a paper and anything short of that is a "weakness." All research is a strength, but the strength of that strength depends on the details.

Thank you for understanding me and addressing my neurotic questions lol.

 

[DameJulie]

If you look at charting outcomes, they display the number of publications of matched applicants. It's really hard to assess the quality of publications, especially given the large volume of apps.

Don't let that scare you though...remember many of those pubs might come from previous educations (i.e. advanced degrees). If you like research, just focus on what you like doing and don't worry too much about publishing x amount of papers.

 

[aafisahar]

program directors can count but they can't read