What exactly does "Number of Research Experiences" mean on the residency app?

[UAAWolf]

For example, it said the average student who matched into Derm had 5 research experiences...

Most other specialties were like 2-3...


This blows my mind...as we have 1 summer "off" to do research. How could anyone possibly do 5 different research experiences in med school. Is there a chance to do research during rotations or something? Cause that makes absolutely no sense how the avg could be 2-3 considering I know plenty of people with 0...

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[cpants]

First of all, they aren't all necessarily in medical school. Some medical students come into med school with a few research experiences from summer and undergraduate work. That can go on your application. People who find the time to do 2-3 experiences during medical school are doing it on their own time, not during the summer. Write a case report on something you saw during your surgery rotation, that's an experience. Work with the derm chair on a couple of clinical projects during fourth year summer, that's an experience. Bench work after MS1 for 2 months, that's an experience.

 

[alwaysaangel]

Also, remember derm is a competitive specialty so a lot of students take a year off to do research and become more competitive.

 

[cpants]

Number of experiences is also much less important than number of publications. 1 experience with 2-3 pubs beats 2-3 experiences with 1 pub every time.

 

[ArcGurren]

Publishing in Derm is a joke. At my school if you decide to match into derm, the snooty old dermatologist who runs the residency program, if he likes you, will give you fake away rotations to make it look like you're working, give you a joke of a clinical research project, and by the end you'll have five abstracts lined up. And then he'll call his buddies in the other dermatology programs and tell them to interview you.

So... yeah people can have umpteen research projects in derm. It's really not that tough because the field is a joke academically. You don't even need to take the year off.