Now how did I get 65 publications, abstracts,
and presentations in just a few years?
Stay tuned to find out.
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What's going on, guys?
Now, before we dive in, two things.
First, why is research so important
for pre-meds and med students?
Well it's a very unique extracurricular in that
if you execute it effectively,
it can truly set yourself apart from other candidates.
It demonstrates a lot of desirable qualities
like curiosity, initiative, dedication,
and many others and when the adcomms see you
and if you're prolific, then they can assume
that you will continue publishing when you matriculate
and that's gonna make them look good.
Now the second thing is that this video
is from the all new Pre-Med
Roadmap to Medical School Acceptance course,
which I am super excited about.
Just launched, it's gonna be on sale until the end of July.
Comes with a 30 day money back guarantee
and it's pretty comprehensive.
There's 45 videos, redesigned from the ground up
and around five hours of content.
And as you will see in this video,
this course includes a lot of key tactics and strategies
that no one else is gonna tell you because
these are the tactics that only the top performers
even know about.
The course was built from not only my own expertise
but also that of dozens of insiders
at Med School Insiders.
And we distilled all of this information,
all of the experience into a single, easy to use course
so that you can replicate our successes.
In the course, I go over the exact methods that I used
to secure a 99.9th percentile MCAT score,
got 65 research items, get multiple acceptances
to top medical schools with full tuition scholarship
and I even go over some of the mistakes I made
so that you don't have to repeat them and much, much more.
Without further ado, enjoy the video.
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Simply securing a research position is only the first step.
Now, let's talk about how to make the most of it.
There are two component we're going to cover.
First, how to impress the PI and do a killer job
in the lab and second, how to most effectively
portray your research in your applications and interviews.
It's important that you work hard and show your dedication
to the lab.
The more you do, the more you will receive in return.
There are two primary outcomes that we are looking for.
First, impressing your PI and getting a strong letter
of recommendation and second, securing publications,
abstracts, or presentations.
In terms of secondary outcomes, there are multiple.
We want you to get experience in the world of research
so that you can understand whether or not it's something
you want to pursue more seriously in the future
as a physician scientist.
We want you to hone your discipline, inquisitive nature,
and comfort in reading the primary literature.
Also, conducting statistical analyses
and working with a team.
Now let's focus on the two primary outcomes.
To impress your PI and to secure
a strong letter of recommendation, it comes down
to a few key factors.
First, always be professional, even from your initial
cold emails, as you will be working for them
as part of a team.
Sometimes it'll be a paid position,
sometimes it's gonna be volunteering or for course credit,
but the dynamic and expectations will be consistent.
Second, open, honest, and respectful communication
is a must.
From the beginning, you should be clear with how much time
you're able to commit to the lab.
Never over promise and under deliver.
You wanna do the opposite.
To under promise and over deliver.
Which brings us to the third point,
initiative and commitment.
This comes down to not only the hours spent in lab,
but even your effort outside of the lab.
Are you reading papers relevant to the subject
on your own time and becoming a more valuable member
of the team?
Are you applying yourself fully in chemistry lab
and understanding the principles
of various research techniques so you can properly perform
them in the lab?
Ask not what the PI can do for you,
but what you can do for your PI.
If you really wanna be a superstar
and you're comfortable doing so, you can eventually ask
to take the lead on one of your own independent projects
under their guidance.
Fourth, hone your attention to detail.
Regardless of whether you're conducting basic science
or clinical research, research is not the place
to rush and make careless mistakes.
Attention to detail and meticulousness is a must.
This is an important trait to develop,
not only now in research, but also as a future physician.
By following these principles, your PI will be
pleasantly surprised with how much value you're adding
to the lab.
Later down the road as you prepare
your medical school application, they should be more willing
to write you a strong letter of recommendation.
And if you're on your PI's good side,
they'll also be more likely to view your favorably
in decisions about delegating individuals
to various projects.
By working hard and pulling more than your own weight,
you'll also be more likely to be a higher ranked author
on a paper, which ultimately strengthens your application.
Being first or second author, for example,
is much more impressive than being fourth or fifth.
All right, now let's focus on optimizing for publications,
abstracts, and presentations.
As we spoke about in the previous lesson,
you want to maximize the number of research items
on your application without going for too many
weaker publication types.
At the very least, you wanna be working towards
one publication in a peer reviewed journal
that's at the case-control level or higher.
These studies are far more involved, require greater levels
of critical thinking, and are much more worthwhile for you
not only in terms of strengthening your application,
but also teaching you about the process of research.
If you have the time and ambition,
go ahead and take on some other projects too.
It's fine to do book chapters or case reports,
but don't make these the bulk of your research experience.
But don't spread yourself too thin.
It's better to do a kick-ass job on one project
and impress your PI than it is to do a mediocre job
on several projects.
When first starting out, you'll be doing simple grunt work
assigned to you by your PI.
But as you learn the ropes and become more
of an independent thinker,
you can begin adding value to the team in other ways.
For example, you can consider side projects based off
of your current project to test derivative hypotheses.
If you want to really be hardcore, like I was
in medical school, you can even create
your own study from scratch.
This is much easier to do with something
like clinical research built from databases
rather than doing bench work.
Now, keep in mind this is a much more advanced technique,
but I'll give you a brief rundown right now.
First, you decide what database you have access to
and what types of questions you can ask.
Then go on PubMed and Google Scholar
and scour the literature to see if anyone
has already conducted a study similar
to what you have in mind.
At this point, you may have come across similar studies
that cause you to revise your hypothesis
or you want to test.
Now next, you need to read extensively.
You wanna read dozens of papers to deeply understand
the area that you're focusing on.
You don't need to be the world expert on the topic,
but you need to understand it deeply
if you want to write a paper about it.
Now, as I'm reading the papers, I use a reference manager
to keep track of where each fact is coming from.
I use either Mendeley, which is free
or End Note, which is paid but you can often get it for free
from your university.
Now I take extensive notes from the papers.
And these notes, which have citations on each bullet point
are now the basis from which I begin
drafting the introduction to my paper.
In terms of actually crunching the numbers,
I used SPSS, which was very easy to learn,
although you should take a biostatistics class
or do extensive reading online to make sure
you don't make these common statistical mistakes.
There are also other programs you can consider,
depending on what you have access to,
such as R, Stata, and others.
Now after doing all this, you're gonna write out
your methods, results, and discussion sections.
You now have a rough draft of a paper.
Now the funny thing is, I wouldn't even tell people
I was doing this.
I would just walk in one day and say,
"Hey, I had an idea for a study so I crunched some numbers
"and I drafted this.
"Would you be able to take a look?
"And if you like it, I'd love to have you as a PI
"on the study."
Now, the attending physician would generally be
pleasantly surprised, maybe even a little confused
but they would get back to me shortly thereafter
and be very impressed.
They loved it.
They got a free paper where they didn't even have
to do any work and now they have their name as a PI.
Congrats, you just got yourself positioned
as first author as well.
And the icing on the cake is that you impressed
the hell out of them and they're much more likely
to go to bat for you when it's application time.
Again, this is a more advanced technique and you don't have
to do this.
I only began doing this in medical school,
not as a pre-med, but I'm including it here for those
who really want to be rock stars in the research game.
Now let's go back to how to maximize your publications.
Anytime you work on a paper, you should be able
to submit it as a paper in a peer reviewed journal,
but also submit it for presentation at a conference.
The general guideline is that you should only present
a single research paper at one national conference
and one local or regional conference.
It's frowned upon and often explicitly forbidden
to present the same research
at multiple national conferences.
But you'll have to read the details
for your specific conference to be sure.
To optimize your CV, you actually don't want to use
the same title for your paper and for your presentations.
If you're able to use slightly different titles,
it makes it seem like you have more projects
under your belt.
You're not lying and you should definitely never lie
on your application.
And you can explain that it's the same project
if they do ever ask you on the interview.
But that rarely ever happens.
Similarly, if you had multiple findings from the paper,
you can also split it up into multiple smaller abstracts
or presentations to again, increase the number
of research items on your app.
As admissions committees are going through
hundreds of applications, they're often simply glancing
over the CV and getting a gestalt.
Trust me, as someone who has reviewed hundreds
of applications myself, we simply don't have the time
to investigate every single research project.
Now some of you may be uncomfortable about this part.
Again, I'm just keeping it real with you
and I refuse to dumb it down.
These are the strategies used by top applicants
and you can use them to optimize your application as well.
This is an aspect of the application that usually
requires additional finesse and nuance for each individual.
We've provided high yield foundations here
but if you do need additional help,
as this is a highly nuanced area that requires
different approaches for each student,
you can always schedule a free 15 minute consult
on MedSchoolInsiders.com.
After optimizing for these two primary outcomes,
again, impressing your PI and optimizing publications,
abstracts, and presentations, you'll notice
multiple beneficial secondary outcomes as well.
If it's tough and uncomfortable at first, that's normal.
Push through and you may even be surprised
at what you're able to accomplish.
All right, I hope you found that video useful.
Again, if you're interested in the full course
and want to learn all these tactics that no one else
is gonna tell you, visit MedSchoolInsiders.com
to sign up.
Again, link in the description as well as that coupon code,
which is valid until the end of July.
Much love and I'll see you guys in that next one.
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