Writing (non-published) course material - do PD's care about this or should I just do research?

[Gurby]

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[AsianPersuasion]

I have the opportunity to volunteer a significant amount of time to write a course-specific "mini textbook" and create other resources (faculty-approved course-specific Anki decks, etc) to help incoming M1's at my school. This would be reviewed by faculty at my med school but wouldn't be published anywhere.

If the goal is to match something competitive, am I right in assuming this would basically be a big waste of time, and that I'm better off devoting that time to research projects that will result in publication? Or is it an interesting and unique way to stand out a little bit?

This is something many students at my school are eager to do but that I don't see talked about on SDN, and I just wonder if I'm missing something.

Would appreciate any thoughts on this, thanks!

Do it in surgery and join the Vascular Squad!

 

[Gurby]

Do it in surgery and join the Vascular Squad!

Leaning heavily in that direction, spent all last week at the SVS meeting! Have a "vascular" Anki subdeck with Netters diagrams and image occluded angiograms because I'm a big nerd.

I know vascular in particular seems to care a lot about research as it's such a rapidly evolving field, which is why I feel I should probably just keep chugging along at my lab.

 

[Oso]

Hi Gurbs,

That sounds pretty cool. I think it would fit into the category of extracurricular. It reminds me of activities like serving on a curriculum review committee or working with the admissions committee. I think it could possibly give you something interesting to talk about at interviews, but I do not think it would make you more competitive, especially in the competitive fields.

You are correct in that competitive fields want research (in addition to high scores and good grades). So I would say, do it if you think it sounds interesting, but if you think you know which field you want to do (vascular, for example), then I would devote time to working on research, and then if you have extra time you could do the mini book thing.

Just my $0.02 though, I don't think there's a right answer here. Good luck!

 

[evilbooyaa]

Not equally or more useful than research IMO, would be cool to discuss as an EC as mentioned above if you already had significant research under your belt.

 

[wanderingorion]

Do it for the younglings! They need our help!

 

[Keladry]

Might be useful if you're interested in academics - I did a bunch of curricular projects in med school and it came up a lot in my interviews as evidence of my interest in teaching & my ability to contribute to the field.

 

[mimelim]

Not nearly as helpful for residency applications than research purely from an application standpoint. But, if you enjoy that kind of stuff, do it. Always ancillary benefits.

Also, why didn't we grab a drink at SVS... I probably met you and didn't even realize it -.-