No publications

[Heisencat]

Hello,

 

I'm a third year med student who is planning my electives for next year and thinking about CARMs apps. One thing that has me stressing a little is the fact that I have no publications in a medical journal during my medical school years (I only have one as a third author from undergrad). I only did two small summer research projects and presented a poster at only one university research conference for students (nothing major or high impact). I am interested in psych which I know tends to be on the non-competitive side but I'm wondering if this will hurt my application for more competitive places like say U of T or McGill. Any suggestions on how I can boost my app research wise this late in the game? Or do I still have a good chance at with excellent letters and personal statement? 

[Edict]

On 3/25/2018 at 1:35 PM, Heisencat said:

Hello,

 

I'm a third year med student who is planning my electives for next year and thinking about CARMs apps. One thing that has me stressing a little is the fact that I have no publications in a medical journal during my medical school years (I only have one as a third author from undergrad). I only did two small summer research projects and presented a poster at only one university research conference for students (nothing major or high impact). I am interested in psych which I know tends to be on the non-competitive side but I'm wondering if this will hurt my application for more competitive places like say U of T or McGill. Any suggestions on how I can boost my app research wise this late in the game? Or do I still have a good chance at with excellent letters and personal statement? 

From what I have seen, projects in the works matter just as much as publications. In fact, I talked about a project in the works more often than my projects published on the trail. If I were you, I would try to get involved in research projects longitudinally, and as long as you can talk about what you've done and what you are planning on doing, you can put them in your resume and they look just as good come CaRMS time. 

[zebster]

At their interview day this year, U of T was quite explicit about the fact that they are looking for diversity in their residents and do not expect everyone to be a researcher. I think it's important to be able to express a genuine interest in the field, however you choose to do that, but as someone who matched to psych (at my first choice school) with no research, I don't think programs are lying when they say this.