Will any of these medical school "tracks" help us come residency app time?

[Stellaartwa]

I know my med school, and many others, offer logitudinal "tracks" sort of like minors. Common ones I have seen are research, clinical educator, public health, rural medicine, humanities in medicine etc. Some of these can get pretty involved over the four years, involving a capstone project and a huge time investment. I'm wondering if doing them will offer any leg up on our residency app or if this is more like a "only do it if you're interested" type thing. At my school it goes in your MSPE and you get recognized at graduation but that's it. Any insight on the value?

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[751866]

It's probably good at some schools, but it wasn't at mine. If you put a lot of effort into a project, it may look good, but it would look good regardless of the concentration/track.

 

[GoSpursGo]

They mean it when they say "only do it if you're interested."

Research may be the most commonly followed track that I've seen, and it makes sense if you're applying to a more competitive specialty where it'll be tough to get substantive research done "on the side"--some amount of protected time, while still not enough to likely complete a "real" project, will at least let you make a significant contribution to a project.

The others I think are helpful of setting up your future career if you're actually interested in any of those things. For example, if you want to do medical education, doing some sort of training in how to do that will probably be beneficial compared to a bunch of people who just kind of do it because nobody else in their department wants to do it. Rural medicine will give you some idea of what you'll need to consider when setting up a practice in a rural setting. Etc. What you learn by doing them may be helpful to you long-term, and on some level the experience will give you something worth talking about in a residency interview setting which will make you more interesting than a generic applicant, but by themselves are just a bunch of words.

 

[MEN2C]

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