<p>Could the publication of research projects in a journal be a hook for medical school application?</p>
<p>If you are let say a Johns Hopkins Premed, is it more advantageous for getting into Johns Hopkins school of medicine?
I know they don't have a program such as Early Assurance, but do they select a few from their college with outstanding academic achievements in their second/third year at JHU undergrad?</p>
<p>PLZ REPLY</p>
<p>A research publication is always a positive addition to your application, but it’s not a hook.</p>
<p>what would be a hook then?</p>
<p>finding a cure for brain cancer?? well not a definite cure,…but something close to that??</p>
<p>For Med school, URM status is the main hook. Recruited athletes does not apply, not sure about development cases.</p>
<p>assuming that you have >3.8 GPA and >35 MCAT at a school like Johns Hopkins, and lots of neurosurgery shadowing and international missionaries/volunteering, would a publication of papers into Nature or Science or Cell be almost a shoo in to JHU and Harvard med school ? Also, I am talking about original, independent project that was started with my own idea in the first place (not like one of those ones where you just follow what your supervisor tells you to, and just extends from what your supervisor has done/started…)
In addition, if some one has formed a great relationship with physicians/scientists at the college’s hospital/school of medicine, and the professors want to continue working on a project with you, is that also a huge advantage?</p>
<p>If this was actually possible, yes, you might be a shoo-in to a top medical school. However, it is highly unlikely that you will have an independent project that results in a nature paper during undergrad.</p>
<p>Has any undergraduate who got accepted to top med schools published their research (independent) in Nature journal?</p>
<p>cadriethiel: are you a med student? Do you think goin to Johns Hopkins for premed/undergrad significantly increases many medical related opportunities and eventually johns hopkins med school?</p>
<p>I’m an MD/PhD student at a top 10 medical school. I had no publications prior to my acceptance to med school. I’m assuming that you’re still very young and inexperienced if you think its possible to independently publish in nature as an undergraduate. So my recommendation is: go to a school you can succeed at, ace your classes and the MCAT, and get involved in research and in your community. </p>
<p>The problem with attending a school like JH for undergrad is that there are many many pre-med students there and the competition is fierce. If you ace pre-med there, the top medical schools are Ivy/etc snobs and yes, it will help you gain admittance to a top med school. However, you are making a much safer bet by attending a school you know you can succeed at and acing your courses there. A 3.2 from Hopkins won’t live up to a 4.0 from your state school.</p>
<p>Wow. MD/PhD ! I am also thinking of doing that… Im in my senior year of high school, and have done a couple of research projects which earned me siemens regional finalists.</p>
<p>Can a single publication (doesn’t have to be Nature) really help on the med application?
Do you mind if I ask you what undergrad and med school you went to/attending right now?</p>
<p>just PM me, if u mind
Thanks</p>
<p>A single publication will help you and I encourage you to get involved in research ASAP at university. That said, a single publication won’t make you a shoo-in to a top school either. Everyone understands that publications are almost always out of your control: beyond choosing your lab, a lot of it is luck or good timing (right place, right time). There is no penalty for graduating without a pub. </p>
<p>Ultimately, the biggest factors that you can control are your GPA and MCAT; especially for MD/PhD.</p>
<p>Even a single publication is relatively rare at the undergraduate level and is the result of a lot of hard work and a fair share of luck. Only a small number of pre-meds are published. Because of this, having research experience is much more important than being published. Publications can be added plus, especially for MD/PhD, but are not a necessity for getting into top schools. Ultimately, qualified applicants for a school such as JH get rejected every year. It is inevitable, there are many more qualified applicants than spots. Hence, medical school admissions is likened to a crap shoot because you can’t truly count on admission to any one school regardless of your application. Essays and interviews also can’t be undervalued.</p>
<p>Finding a clinical research lab increases your chances in a lot of cases. Basic science research (the typical nature stuff for example) takes a lot, lot longer to publish than clinical stuff. There are at least several publication-proliferate neurosurgeons at Johns Hopkins, since you are interested in neurosurgery obviously.</p>
<p>Agreed w/ mmmcdowe with one exception: MD/PhD programs would rather see good bench research over a mountain of clinical research publications.</p>
<p>True enough, basic science is often valued more because it is harder to publish (for MD and MD/PhD programs) as well as the fact that PhDs are more focused towards basic and translational work in general. Ultimately though, even in MD/PhD programs publishing isn’t an absolute requirement, though it is probably more important. Many neurosurgery labs do have a basic science wing.</p>
<p>Right, I’m sorry if I have made the impression that publications are unimportant. What I am trying to say is that when you are applying to an MD/PhD program, you’re applying for a PhD in a basic science setting typically (social sciences aside). Clinical research is generally frowned upon for a PhD at a MD/PhD program. So programs want you to have experienced bench work for a few years so you know what you’re getting into!</p>
<p>I was wondering which category this type of research would fall into…for ex/ gene therapy for certain brain tumor</p>
<p>It would depend on what you are doing. If you are doing it in cell lines it is probably basic or translational. If you are doing it on real patients (which to my knowledge not many people are currently doing for brain tumors after the initial failures), then it is clinical.</p>
<p>how is clinical easier to be pulished? Do the medical schools know that basic research is harder to be published and therefore weigh more?</p>
<p>I already said that, yes, medical schools are aware that basic science takes longer to publish (and thus by some standards is harder to get, especially in the time frame of an undergraduate). Clinical research is easier because it is very versatile in what you are using as data. There are literally databases of patient information available in many labs, and often all that is missing is the right question to be asked. This would be much easier than, say, starting a clinical trial from scratch and waiting 5+ years until it ends to publish. So not all clinical data is quick and easy to obtain, but a lot more of it is than in the basic science world. Clinical data accumulation is also often easier to do than the laborious task of extracting it from, say, cell lines that need to be grown, maintained, altered, maintained some more, killed, evaluated, repeat as necessary. Patients don’t (typically) stay in refrigerators and require daily attention the way that a lot of basic science material does. In a lot of cases, a patient only needs to be seen once and that is that. Even in repeat cases, it is much less technical to evaluate a patient several times than when dealing with cells, etc.</p>