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Hey everyone,
So I had the opportunity to rotate through the neurosurgery department at the tail end of my M3 year and fell in love with it. I came into medical school considering psychiatry or neurology and was strongly leaning towards neurology till my neurology preceptor encouraged me to checkout neurosurgery.
So far, i have done well in all my classes and rotations (P/F only), received glowing evals which would be included in my MSPE per my dean, have leadership, volunteerism and ECs. I recently got my step 1 score (27x) and now I am fully set on pursuing this specialty.
Problem is I have 0 publications so far but I do have a handful of posters and presentations in biochemistry/oncologocy projects which i worked on during medical school because they interested me.
Do y'all think a gap year is absolutely necessary to match if I can get 2 publications by ERAS submission?
Also, for those who took gap years, how did you go about finding these positions? a google search for neurosurgery gap year yields nothing while i see a lot of spots for other specialties such as ortho, ent, plastics, etc.
I am just worried because my whole CV is filled with projects and positions that I did because I loved and didn't craft a neurosurgery CV with only ~6 months to go.
Yes, I would do it. It’s not that you won’t match, it’s that the 1-year you spend doing research will more than pay for itself in the long run. You can grind in residency and do a fellowship that will make up for a mediocre residency, but that’s 7 years of grinding when you could’ve spent 1 year doing research and then had 7 years of higher quality training. Unless you’re 100% set on PP in a less than ideal location, it’s worth it imho. Other ppl may feel differently
This is a long path to begin with. 1-year is nothing in the long run if it sets you up to pick the type of residency you want
I agree with above poster. People will talk a lot about opportunity cost but, depending on what you want to do in the long run, it can definitely have its benefits to invest that one year up front and come out as a top applicant compared to barely making it in, although these benefits are less palpable.
What you basically need to do is to email a bunch of people that have taken medical students for research. It’s not straight forward to find these but doable. You could start with those that offer HHI fellowships to med students. Most will take students from their own medical school, because there’s already a relationship there, but you can do it. You can either directly ask about a year with them, or ask about projects and then try to deliver like a maniac.
In the meantime, if you’re well connected in neurology/psychiatry, look for options to publish easy clinical papers with them. It’s, unfortunately, a numbers game
Do it! It’s not just about the papers. You’ll get a better sense of what you want from your career.
what about the folks who started in NS research as MS1? Won't they be at a disadvantage? How is this fair?
(02-03-2022, 03:00 PM)Guest Wrote: what about the folks who started in NS research as MS1? Won't they be at a disadvantage? How is this fair?
very ignorant take on this.
So you either think he will not list the gap year in his CV, or residency stakeholders are dumb enough to understand that more time for research means more output?
A gap year can hurt you as much as it can help you. Everybody will know you had a full year to produce research and will judge your output with that understanding. Nobody will compare a gap year med student, on the research front, with someone who did research through medical school only.
I would suggest you do a research year if you have high ambitions (top 20 academic programs). There are always people, with good scores and a good record, that match with less than 5 pubs. Just not at the Harvards and UCSFs
(02-03-2022, 03:22 PM)Guest Wrote: (02-03-2022, 03:00 PM)Guest Wrote: what about the folks who started in NS research as MS1? Won't they be at a disadvantage? How is this fair?
very ignorant take on this.
So you either think he will not list the gap year in his CV, or residency stakeholders are dumb enough to understand that more time for research means more output?
A gap year can hurt you as much as it can help you. Everybody will know you had a full year to produce research and will judge your output with that understanding. Nobody will compare a gap year med student, on the research front, with someone who did research through medical school only.
I would suggest you do a research year if you have high ambitions (top 20 academic programs). There are always people, with good scores and a good record, that match with less than 5 pubs. Just not at the Harvards and UCSFs
If a student does a gap year and only publishes <10 papers, that's a red flag.
Exactly what I was saying, people know how to appropriately assess gap year students. No reason to feel threatened as a traditional med student.
And while there's a difference between the work being done (bench vs clinical), I agree that 10 pubs are a solid threshold. I often hear of people say they should not do bench work during gap years, or justify bench work with why they only have a few pubs, but I disagree with both. You're working with a neurosurgeon, at a neurosurgery department. There should be the opportunity to get on plenty of clinical projects, even if employed for bench work full time.
I know several attendings who just count publications. So someone with lost of pre-med publications gets a huge advantage over someone without. Also, people who churn out publications in pay-to-publish places do so because it is beneficial. Especially nowadays with no Step scores, PIs are so inundated that they don't both to differentiate between good and bad research.
(02-03-2022, 05:02 PM)Guest Wrote: I know several attendings who just count publications. So someone with lost of pre-med publications gets a huge advantage over someone without. Also, people who churn out publications in pay-to-publish places do so because it is beneficial. Especially nowadays with no Step scores, PIs are so inundated that they don't both to differentiate between good and bad research.
Correct. Most places just count, but we know what's garbage and what's quality. If you're a PhD or have multiple bench years of experience we expect good science accordingly. If you're a med student with 40 systematic reviews, yea the quality is less but we recognize the effort that went into that as well.
Just do research. Publish as much as you can in the allotted time available. And get on with your life
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