Thesis Requirements in Med School

[blazer123]

---

Members don't see this ad.

Some med schools have this option of doing their honor thesis programs. Im just wondering what the point of these are? Are they just for your own interest in research or does it help for residency?

 

[Naijaba]

I'll speak on behalf of Yale - the only school to require a thesis of all its students (except for maybe also Stanford, not sure if a Scholarly Concentration requires a thesis). At Yale you can do your thesis on basically anything, but many students do choose to focus on their intended specialty, especially if it is highly competitive (derm, plastics, radonc, etc). In addition, Yale provides a fully-funded research 5th year which many (30-50%) of students take advantage. It's a good amount of time to conduct substantial research while working on your thesis.