what kind of research should residency applicant do?

Today's post is regarding the type of research a residency applicant can consider to enhance their chances of match. Assuming that you are doing or want to do research, the following table discusses the results of 3 scenarios (non degree course, masters degree or doctorate degree) with 2 types of research (basic sciences versus clinical research) with 2 outcomes (unfinished versus finished).

The research experience has been listed on a color coded heat map with the least favorable at the top (red) and the most favorable at the bottom (green). see figure 1.

Type of research for US medical residency applicants

As you can see most of the unfavorable research experiences that lie in the red zone are ones with unfinished outcome (column 3 - completion). In fact, this may influence your application negatively, since the PD or faculty will be left to think if you have issues with commitment and hard work. Thus the first 6 are unfinished research experiences tiered by - clinical more important that basic, and doctorate more important than masters and non degree. 


This is assuming that you have started working on your project and made progress and not abandoned the project in a day. Of course this also does not take into account extenuating circumstances where one had to leave a project due to social, family or other personal issues. In case this happens, make sure you address that during the interview or in your personal statement.

Then the green zone research experiences are those where applicant has successfully completed the project and demonstrated competence in the skills required as a researcher. In this case doctorate degrees are given a lot of importance and again clinical science is given more weight that basic. This is not to discount basic research because there are very good areas of basic science that have direct clinical relevance and are guaranteed to help the applicant. Some areas of research that I can think of are atherosclerosis research (ox LDL, statins, new developments), stroke research, obesity and DM research, autoimmune disease research, these are all very relevant to medical applicant. Basic research like iron transport in microbes or adenovirus pathogenesis are little more remote than direct clinical relevance and will not be as useful for residency applicant. 

Clinical research is usually done with multi university centers with patient populations, patient or samples. There is direct patient care involved though as a graduate student you will not come in contact with patients themselves for most part. you will be involved in data collection, analysis and write up mostly. 

The rest of the scenarios are listed in the figure. I have not included masters of public health here or even health administration for that matter as they are not technically research - in the sense of discovery and innovation. Hope this grid helps you decide what you want to do as far as research is concerned. And dont forget, USMLE scores are still the criteria for selection so remember to study for the boards and crack the exam.

Also be sure to check out How important is research for IMG to match? and Sample letter asking for research experience opportunities