Will clinical research harm my chances at MSTP programs?

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
1

<p>I will be doing biochemistry research and clinical research starting in the first week of october. I have just recently heard that doing clinical research may harm my chances at MSTP programs because those programs are looking to make SCIENTISTS, and clinical research is for regular MD's. Since I will have no time for anything else (I will also have a part-time tutoring job), and the clinical research takes up 7-8 hours per week (or more?), should I just drop it and do regular hospital volunteering instead? I could put in 3-4 hrs/week volunteering in a hospital to get regular clinical experience, obviously like 10+ hours per week of researching in biochemistry lab, 10 hours per week of work, 3 hours per week gymnastics, and maybe I could join a club or something, or perhaps do some non-clinical volunteering and/or leadership.</p>

<p>So, what do you think? Will this clinical research be useful for getting into MSTP programs? I will be doing it at a medical school that is near me, and obviously it is unpaid. It is a medical school that has an MD/PhD program that I will be applying for, in fact, this is my top choice med school. (it's not a top 20 or anything, but I want to go there because I want to keep living in this place).</p>

<p>Pros of dropping it:
-Time to get some non-clinical volunteering done (I have none)
-Could also do 3-4 hours of volunteering in hospital as well (I have none of this as well)
-Could get into a leadership position
-Could join a club for fun (perhaps even a leadership club? Or debate club? and obviously pre-med club, that is a given, but I mean extra clubs outside of that). </p>

<p>Pros of keeping it:
-this research position is at the medical school I want to go to. Might make connections there or something. But idk if this will actually happen or not, I might not make any connections. Also, since it is in the medical school I want to go to, I might have a higher chance of getting accepted to it if I do research there.. But idk! Is this true or a myth?
-Clinical RESEARCH. It is still a form of research. Might get onto a publication, which might boost chances at MSTP programs.
-Might count as both "clinical experience" and "clinical research", so I might get the benefit of having the "clinical research" portion be the same as my "clinical experience" portion on my future applications. I won't have to do any extra clinical volunteer work. I might shadow a bit, but that doesn't count</p>

<p>Don't know what to do! Keep it or drop it?</p>

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<p>Depends on what the clinical research is and what your role is. It’s not that clinical is better or worse it’s just different and is thus evaluated differently (for example a clinical research pub is easier to get and people know that). If you’re recruiting patients and interacting with them during the research process (e.g. administering questionnaires or evaluating their performance on some test) then it could count as patient interaction but if that’s all your doing then you’re not really doing research. If you’re just doing chart reviews then you’re doing clinical research but you’re not doing any clinical experience. If you’re involved in both that would be ideal.</p>

<p>I had a summer of epidemiology research (worked for an MD/PhD dermatologist whose PhD was in math) and the only reason it wasn’t discussed more in my interviews is because it wasn’t my most recent experience and because it was in a very unrelated field to what kind of PhD I am pursuing.</p>

<p>You have bench work so I think it’s fine to also have clinical. If anything I think an applicant who has done both and can intelligently discuss the differences between them would be better than an applicant who has only done one and then says something about the other that shows a lack of insight.</p>