If a person is second author out of 2 authors and the PI would that still look impressive or they looking at first authorship.
@Goro @mimelim .. Also Does the impact factor of the journal matter ? The one I was in is 1.794 and I wonder if that would be a problem ..
Most pre-meds do research. Most do not have publications of any sort. Thus, any type of publication is worth noting, regardless of authorship.
Regarding authorship, all someone knows about a paper is the following: (some exceptions, depends on lab/journal, but for the most part...)
#1 The first author is the person overall responsible for the project. They aren't the most senior, but it is "their project". Theoretically, they are the one that shepherded the project to get published. In many things, they were involved from start to finish. But, sometimes they are simply the one that picked up an orphaned project or a stalled project and took it over the finish line.
#2 The last author is the senior author, head of lab, or ideally who is mentoring the project. It is generally understood that they may have had a lot of day to day impact on the project, but they are equally likely to have simply provided the guidance and mentorship that allowed the project to go to completion.
Outside of those two, you really have no idea what the others did. A second of three authors could have been the random pre-med student that contributed 3% of total contribution, or it could be the co-resident/grad student that put in 30+% of the work. There is just no way of knowing. Still valuable on an application, but it is simply not the same as first authorship.
Regarding impact factor, name recognition helps. When you say Nature, Science, Cell for basic science or Lancet, NEJM, JAMA for clinical, people notice. But, again, more relevant for the other authors than the student middle authors.
