What are some of the best research experiences for medical school? Hey BeMo Nation! Welcome to
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keep in mind that these are unscripted, there's no fancy music, there's no fancy visuals, there's
no fancy sound effects just pure content, 10 minutes with pure content. As I mentioned
today we're going to talk about research experience for medical school
and we're going to talk about how to gain such research experience and what are some best
research experiences that you could represent in your medical school application process so
first thing first we're gonna start our time, there we go we got 10 minutes. All right so
my name is Behrouz Moemeni, I'm the CEO and founder here at BeMo and I am joined today with Meng
Yang and she's one of our senior admission experts and we're gonna do a little bit of
back and forth to see how you could find the best research experience and what is
possibly could be qualified as the the best research experience for medical school so,
Meng, why don't you tell us a little bit about this topic maybe you could first talk about what is
is literally the best experience, what are medical school admission officers looking for when they
say hey they want to see that you have some research experience? What is actually we could
even go a little bit further back, why is this even necessary for a medical doctor? Okay well a lot
of medical doctors are involved in research so obviously if you have some of those skills going
into your medical training that helps but even for those who are you know purely doing clinical work,
there's a lot of transferable research skills that goes into being a good physician, right?
Analyzing and interpreting information, that's something that you learn by doing research, reading
articles and interpreting that and applying it to your practice, right, and just in general
it's a great exercise of critical reasoning and critical thinking when you engage in research so
I think no matter what kind of physician you are or actually whatever profession you're in research
experience does help you to develop very essential skills that will help you to succeed in
that practice, in that profession. Yeah I completely agree with this you know a medical doctor
absolutely needs to understand where the knowledge for practice is coming from.
A practicing physician needs to completely understand how to go and do a literature review
and when presented with literature be able to review that piece of literature and say
whether or not the information presented is sound, is it statistically significant,
is it large enough of a sample for it to have any impact or is it just frivolous,
because 90 of research is frivolous at the end of the day just like anything else 90 percent
is not good it's just that 10 and a good medical doctor needs to understand that and be able to
even if doesn't have any sort of research as part of their role needs to be able to interpret
other individuals research findings. So that's the reason why you have to demonstrate this, this
is one of those things that you know students cannot fake because it's going to be obvious if
you're just doing it for your application or no you have a real interest in this
because somebody who's just doing it for their application they do a research for
like you know eight weeks and then that's you never see it. I don't think that's the best
type, now that we're talking about the best type of research is one that's been in depth and you know
you probably thought before watching this episode that when we were talking about
the best type of research experience for a medical school you're going to be like oh
you know cancer research or diabetes research no, no, no. It's not about that at all. It's hey
how much in depth did you go in? When did you start? Did you start first year? Did you start second year?
Did you start third year? Did you start fourth year after getting rejected so that to try to
make up for that experience you didn't have? Those all matter because the duration of commitment
shows that hey you were interest - interested in this. Like they say, actions speak louder than
words. When somebody's committed they're committed and it's not just the summer they just you know
maybe they started in the summer in their second year but they continued during their third year
then this continuing their third third year's summer months then it went all the way to
their fourth year, that's a whole different sort of ballgame and then eventually maybe they were
even on a publication, they had presentations, they did their own independent research, those are the
things that show you have the qualities because you want to show that you could analyze data,
you want to show that you could interpret literature and search for different pieces
of information in the literature, and you you also want to show that you could present
your data either in the form of a publication or a research talk and if you've done it in the short
term it's impossible to show those because you probably don't have that kind of an experience. I
think that's what I would say about the best type, if you have anything to add, Meng, we also need to
discuss how to find research experiences as well and I can tell you we have less than five
minutes left. I'll say one more thing about the best type, a lot of people will think that it's
you know clinical research that they have to do just like you said, it has to
be cancer, has to be diabetes, but you can actually branch out because any research
venture you go on will allow you to gain to do those things that Behrouz was talking about.
Gathering data, analyzing data, interpreting data, writing up your data, presenting your data, and
those are the transferable skills that are most valuable that you would get and those are the
things you should highlight in your application not the specific topics of research that you
end up doing. I think we can now move on to how to get the best research experience.
I think an obvious resource is your professors, your TAs, these are people who are probably,
very likely, currently engaged in research. Professors for sure TAs are often grad students
who are conducting their own research or part of a lab. They are your most direct and your best
resources to seek out these types of opportunities so it's very important for you to be able to
establish good rapport with your professors and your TAs while you're taking courses with them
make sure you're going into office hours, make sure you're not just a number to them, make sure
they know your name, they know your face, they know you know the quality of your work in that class,
and then that makes it easier for you to then approach them well first do research on what
they're doing research on and then approach them to say that you're interested, you would love the
opportunity to be a part of their lab, even if you're just doing like very basic footwork at
the beginning in their lab you know even if you're not directly involved in the research at the lab,
getting your foot in the door is very important and doing so early on is important so that
you have the time, as Behrouz had talked about to progress and increase in your responsibilities.
Yeah a hundred percent I agree and you know at the beginning you should be comfortable
to participate just as a volunteer, you want the experience so don't go with the expectation of
getting paid because that is not your end goal anyways and when you're not asking for pay
and you make it clear in your first communication that you're willing to volunteer just because you
don't know especially if it's your first one and this is the first time you're getting
research experience, you need to let the person know that hey I'm interested in your research
for this and this reason,
I like to get involved but I understand I don't have necessary experience so yeah I'm okay just volunteering
until I learn a little bit more, until you trust me that I can do a good work, I'm diligent, I pay attention to detail, and I learn things fast, then later on if
you think that's appropriate you could pay me appropriately whatever you think is best
but I'm mostly interested in the experience and that should genuinely show when you actually get
started because that's more likely for them to keep you because that's another thing getting it
is one thing then keeping that position is another, they have to be satisfied with you to try to
advance you and over time give you more and more responsibilities hopefully an independent research
project that gives you that publication, the research presentation etc all those things that
you need in order to have sufficient experience before you create your medical school applications.
Any final thoughts? Yeah I think if you can think ahead and take all of those steps that
we've just been talking about what you'll have at the end is not only great research experience
and transferable research skills, you will also likely have a very strong recommendation letter
from the individuals who oversaw your work and so you're coming out of this with a lot
that will add to your application .A hundred percent and I would recommend as a final note that whatever you start
with take your time make sure it's something you're really interested in so you could
be willing to put the time and effort and stay there in the long term. The longer you stay in one
position rather than jumping around over and over and over again the more likely the person will get
to know you and the better a little recommendation and the more that you could actually advance in
that role which is really important for your application with that said, I think that wraps up
our One Question Podcast episode, we have 10 seconds left so we did not too bad today. Thanks
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