What are reasons why someone may do a research year?

[SillyGenius]

Just wondering about research years and what it is used to accomplish. Are research years only for people who want to do competitive specialties or are they also done by people planning on FM, IM, psych, etc?

How many publications does someone need to get for the research year to be productive? And, when do people usually do research years (before 3rd year or can they be done at any point)?

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[Dantes]

At my med school, boosting your CV for a competitive specialty was the biggest reason. Others included not feeling comfortable with picking a specialty to apply to, and taking more time to figure it out (and boost your CV), and physical/mental health/family reasons, or some mix of the above. I know people in ortho, plastics etc. take an additional year, but also know people who did it and ended up in peds, psych, and IM. Just know you're delaying a year of attending salary this way.

They are usually between 3rd and 4th year but can technically be taken anytime. The goal is to accomplish as much as you can, but different specialties have different expectations on what's productive.

 

[Goro]

Boosting your CV for a competitive specialty.

 

[NotAProgDirector]

Also syncing timelines with a partner, so you can match together. Not common but it happens.

 

[operaman]

Agree with everyone above - lots of reasons people do them.

Would add that it’s hard to quantify what’s effective in terms of sheer numbers of pubs. Sometimes it’s more about connections than the pubs themselves. I’ve seen ranges of 3-15 pubs from people I can recall offhand. Probably averages around 5-10. Depends how productive your PI is honestly, and how hard and fast you hustle to make things happen.

Much depends on when you take your year too. Taken between M3 and M4 is ideal because you have your app basically set so you know if you’re otherwise competitive. If you are, then you have the whole year plus some of M4 to get things published before ERAS is due. Those who do a research year after not matching really only have from match time to September (5-6 months) to get things done in time to go on their ERAS app. You really have to start projects before graduating in those cases just to get IRBs and whatnot done before you arrive for your year.