Is research necessary for getting into medical school?
Research is one of the activities recommended, but usually not required, of pre-medical students in order to be strong applicants. It's not essential, but very helpful. Some sort of clinical experience with patients, some volunteer service, some physician shadowing - those are pretty essential. Research is not quite up to that level of importance for the well-rounded applicant, but if a student has an opportunity to engage in research and is genuinely interested in trying it, they should definitely do it. The only reasons not to do research would be 1) if the student is not interested, or 2) if doing research would prevent the student from being able to do something else of even greater value.
Regarding the interest issue, researchers love to have students work with them, but not if the student really doesn't want to be there. If the only reason for doing it is because the student heard it looks good on a medical school admissions application, then the student should not do it, for two reasons. One, taking up space and time that the faculty member really should have provided to another student is not good for anyone. Second, while research experience can look good if it's listed on the application, you can be pretty sure the project will be asked about in interviews.
Now what if, at that point, it becomes clear to interviewers that the student was never really interested in the project? An honest answer of "To try it out" is fine, but when the real answer is "just to list it on my application," that's not good. Again, honest, good-faith "trying out" of research is fine, and indeed some students discover that they don't want to do a lot more of it. Discovering that for oneself is fine. At least the student will have gained an appreciation for what's involved in generating the data that a good physician will want to keep abreast of throughout her/his career.
The other issue economists call the "opportunity cost": what the student would have to give up in order to do the research, in this case. Since medical schools do not require that applicants have done research, an applicant is truly free to decline doing research if really not attracted to it at all, and instead do something else important for that individual student. It depends, for example, on whether the student has already had opportunities to gain clinical experience and do volunteer service. If not, those might take priority over research.
If you're not doing any research, we recommend that the student still find opportunities to develop some of the conceptual skills gained doing research. Inquiry that is less structured, more open-ended, interdisciplinary, involves teamwork and communication, requires critical analysis, uses the empirical ("scientific") method of hypothesis testing - some courses involve these things, but many don't very much. So everyone should supplement their academic work with something beyond just taking courses. Research is one of the best things, but there are others. Speech/debate team comes to mind (but it's a big commitment!). So does taking on a complex, technical project in a job. These are just a couple of random examples. Whatever it is, it should be something the student is really pretty passionate about, something of value to others besides the student, and something involving data.
The percentage of applicants who have some research experience is pretty high (68% in 2008). Looking ahead, the percentage of medical school seniors who have done research at some point, either before or after starting medical school, is very high (84% in 2009). Research is considered pretty heavily when applying for some of the residency programs that follow medical school. So, if a student does not do research before starting medical school, we recommend trying to do some while in medical school. It can be clinical/community/behavior based (might not involve test tubes and "bench" science), for example.
Additional Resources
Explore research opportunities at Creighton and around the Omaha area.
Check out Co-op/Internship Opportunities for 2010 in Biomedical Research and Pre-Medical Studies Students to explore research opportunities all over the country.
EDGE update on summer opportunities as of January 2013
Back to PMED 200 Homepage.