Types of Biomed Research

[bhishma]

Very interested in PhD/MD (not interested in just MD). What kind of research do "they" like, if any at all? I spent a few summers working in an orthopaedic lab in a hospital; unfortunately they were mostly in highschool but I did manage to get a paper out after my freshman year of college. I wasn't the first author and there were around 9 other authors, but that's a different story.

This past summer (summer after sophomore year) I switched to an academic lab under a prof in my department (biomed engineering). He's dealing with molecular imaging. We pretty much deal completely with optics; it's all physics. My concern right now is, would this kind of research not be as effective as something more closely related to biology?

I'd have no worries if i could mention that I worked in an orthopaedic lab for 3 summers (and it WAS work) but i've also been told my the kind people on this forum that they don't care about my highschool activities. I just want to make sure that the adcoms know that I know what a PhD/MD really means.

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[QofQuimica]

Very interested in PhD/MD (not interested in just MD). What kind of research do "they" like, if any at all? I spent a few summers working in an orthopaedic lab in a hospital; unfortunately they were mostly in highschool but I did manage to get a paper out after my freshman year of college. I wasn't the first author and there were around 9 other authors, but that's a different story.

This past summer (summer after sophomore year) I switched to an academic lab under a prof in my department (biomed engineering). He's dealing with molecular imaging. We pretty much deal completely with optics; it's all physics. My concern right now is, would this kind of research not be as effective as something more closely related to biology?

I'd have no worries if i could mention that I worked in an orthopaedic lab for 3 summers (and it WAS work) but i've also been told my the kind people on this forum that they don't care about my highschool activities. I just want to make sure that the adcoms know that I know what a PhD/MD really means.

Usually, you don't put HS activities on your apps, but there are always exceptions, especially when you continued the activity in college. Your paper came out while you were in college, so I'd definitely list it as one of your AMCAS activities. That's a good way of also letting the adcoms know that you have a pub (which is pretty impressive in and of itself!).

I don't think the kind of research you're doing matters too much, as long as you can speak about it intelligently and explain why you're doing it. We need all kinds of researchers in medicine, not just biologists. BME is a biomedical field anyway in my book. Do you want to get your PhD in BME? If you do, probably you should look into which programs offer BME as a PhD option and focus on applying to those schools. I'm sure they'll appreciate someone like you with such a strong UG BME research background.

 

[mtlpremed]

Many MD/PhD programs also ask specifically for you to list all of your research activities on the secondary apps. If you are applying MD/PhD, I would include research you did in high school. My impression is that they want to see sustained interest in research, and don't particularly care what field it is in (unless it is the field you plan to do the PhD in).

 

[Hard24Get]

Many MD/PhD programs also ask specifically for you to list all of your research activities on the secondary apps. If you are applying MD/PhD, I would include research you did in high school. My impression is that they want to see sustained interest in research, and don't particularly care what field it is in (unless it is the field you plan to do the PhD in).

I started my research experience essay talking about experimenting with a kid's chemistry set my parents got me when I was like 5. No joke