What is meant by "research" experience in the context of medical school admissions?

[nauru]

Since medical schools purportedly admit well-rounded applicants from a wide variety of academic backgrounds, I'm curious about what is meant by "research" experience when discussing the application of someone whose undergraduate field is music. Or a student of math? Or philosophy, or economics, or classics? Or any other subject which is not biology, chemistry, physics, or some applied version/amalgamation of these topics? Are people from non-physical science backgrounds expected to have research experience that involves some sort of laboratory with experimental apparatus and in some way related to biology, chemistry, physics? Intuitively I would think students from non-physical sciences would be more likely to have research experience in their non-physical science field. Is this valued at all, and if so to what extent? Also, when members of the non-trad forum and the main premed forum mention "research experience", what do they generally mean by this?

[Kasiunut]

Since medical schools purportedly admit well-rounded applicants from a wide variety of academic backgrounds, I'm curious about what is meant by "research" experience when discussing the application of someone whose undergraduate field is music. Or a student of math? Or philosophy, or economics, or classics? Or any other subject which is not biology, chemistry, physics, or some applied version/amalgamation of these topics? Are people from non-physical science backgrounds expected to have research experience that involves some sort of laboratory with experimental apparatus and in some way related to biology, chemistry, physics? Intuitively I would think students from non-physical sciences would be more likely to have research experience in their non-physical science field. Is this valued at all, and if so to what extent? Also, when members of the non-trad forum and the main premed forum mention "research experience", what do they generally mean by this?

 

Research isn't a requirement and if you do it, it doesn't have to be scientific research either.

[future_doc]

I would think research in non-scientific areas is viewed as having as much value as in science. Med schools take students from all backgrounds, not just science, so I wouldn't worry about it if you have a non-scientifc background. You will not suffer in the application process as a result, although you likely will need to work harder in med school, which is quite doable.

[thehumanmacbook]

The more "popular" research experience that is discussed would broadly fall under either basic or clinical research. Basic often involves lab work investigating aspects of disease or health at the cellular/molecular level, while clinical examines addresses perhaps questions involving disease/disorders or even medical practice with patients. Of course these are broader definitions, and a lot of research projects can fall in-between or out of these topics.

 

Research is not a mandatory requirement for any medical school, unless you're looking to specialize in a MD/MSc or MD/PhD. I personally don't know how adcom looks/evaluates research, but it's a good way to be involved with patients and expanding one's knowledge of a particular disease.

[nauru]

Ok. And a follow-on question: what is meant by a "publication" in this forum and in the medical school application context? What counts as a publication here, and in the minds of medical school admissions people?

 

I ask because publication quality is so broad, and the range of standards for publication is enormous. There's the extremely rigorous peer-reviewed 100+ year-old academic journal widely recognized as the top journal of a given field, whose old editions are littered with seminal articles from people who would go on to win the Nobel Prize (or equivalent), and where even seasoned mid-career tenure-track profs at leading universities have significant difficulty publishing (huge accomplishment for them when it happens); and then there's "we'll generally print any article people send us in our glossy popular-press magazine or industry newsletter as long as it's somewhat interesting to a layman with a passing interest in our field, not too long and not too technical; bonus points for references".

[future_doc]

Any publication is an achievement, especially for an undergrad, and sure, some will carry more weight than others.

[kpm]

I think you should put any publication you have on your application. Since you need to write the details of the publication, the adcom can always look further into it and judge it from there.