<p>Does the type of research matter for med school admissions? Ex. sleep research versus virology or something of the sort?</p>
<p>No. You can do clinical or bench research. It depends on your area if interest.</p>
<p>I did research on ants.</p>
<p>I’m doing research with a paleontologist and I’m a pre med</p>
<p>D1 did medium energy collider physics.</p>
<p>Good question. What if you did a certain kind of research, say you did the research on ants, but you aren’t particularally interested in pursuing this particular type of research, does that matter, or does that kind of lock-you-in? Do you become the “ant-research person”?</p>
<p>In med school? In undergrad? In post-grad research positions?</p>
<p>In med school–absolutely not. (D1 is doing her required med school research thesis on tissue-synthetic material implant interfaces. Certainly not at all related to proton irradiation and phonon scattering. Some her med school classmates are expanding on their undergrad research areas, but the majority are pursuing something entirely different.)</p>
<p>In undergrad–absolutely not. (But you may have to get creative in explaining how your particular skill set would be valuable to another lab.)</p>
<p>In post-grad research environment–your options may be somewhat limited by what skills you have and what kinds of expertise you’ve developed. No one wants to train a RA completely from scratch in basic skills. However, many skill sets can be ported from one field to another.</p>