Are Summer Student Research Spots Basically Free Labour For The Hospital?

[medhope15]

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[schmitty]

Yes, yes it is cheap labour. However, what's wrong with that? Most UGs doing summer research are there for the experience first and foremost. They often have little to offer a research PI in terms of skills (they usually need to be taught everything they are going to be doing) which is the whole point! Student gets taught some (hopefully) useful skills, gets some experience to put on their CV, gets an idea of whether research is something they like or not and if they are paid/on a grant they get a bit of spending monies. In tern, the PI gets some cheap labour so at least they get something out of the deal. In fact, I know of several profs whom do not take on summer UG student simply because they take up too much of their time/their graduate students time because they have to be taught and supervised and usually overly productive. Overall, it's kind of a win-win for student and PI. 

 

As for the pay level....how much would you expect to be paid for a sub-entry level temporary position in which you must be taught most of what you are going to do and which everybody knows you are doing for the experience? I think $10-$15/hr is on point IMO, and this is coming from  somebody who did several summer/during school research gigs in UG. I did more research after UG and before my research and got paid more, then I did more after my MSc and made a lot more....that's how pay works in the real world.

[oshaku]

I agree with schmitty. It typically takes a couple of months to train UGs who've never been working in a lab. Even if the person has some lab experience, they may not be familiar with the techniques of that particular lab. UGs are typically there only in the summer, so by the time they're trained enough to do some useful things, the student will be going back to school. It's incredibly hard to get anything useful done even if the student continue say 10-15 hrs a week in to the school year. The $10-15/hr PIs pay is more like money given to charity then any reasonable exchange of money for work.

[ralk]

Summer research students are cheap labour. So are grad students, med students, residents, and fellows. So are entry-level workers in many fields, particularly areas now relying heavily on (involuntary) part-time or contract workers. It's an unfortunate trend in the employment market - either you're cheap and relatively disposable, or you're expensive and invaluable, with a fairly sharp transition between the two states (medicine is certainly not exception).

 

When it comes to summer research students, I would agree that the low pay is probably justified. Most undergrads have no major relevant skills and could be easily replaced with a person of roughly equivalent qualifications. Productiveness is variable, but often quite low, in many cases due to inexperience - a student might work for 40 hours a week and only save their supervisor 10 hours of work (or less) once you account for inefficiencies in work and time spent training. Students in these programs get to develop knowledge and skills which are (presumably) useful later on in their careers. Compared to traditional post-secondary schooling, which costs an arm and a leg, summer research projects are a steal and have significant educational benefits.

 

Compared to other, similar arrangements, it's a pretty good deal. Many undergrads don't get paid at all for that sort of work. Med students get pretty much the same arrangements as undergrads when it comes to research, despite being (arguably) more qualified - I actually earn less per hour doing my summer project now than I did as an undergrad. Grad students basically get enough to feed, house, and clothe themselves once they pay tuition, even towards the end of their training when they have numerous useful skills and drive a fair bit of research. Long story short, there are worse arrangements than a minimum wage undergrad summer research placement.

[medhope15]

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[oshaku]

In my experience, most student who wanted to continue with their project beyond the 4 months of summer were able to do so.  Most PIs welcome students with a serious interest in research and try to help them out by sending them to conferences where they can submit an abstract or present a poster, including them in paper the lab is publishing etc. The problem is a lot of these keen undergrad med school hopefuls have very little interested in research, but they're asking to join a lab for the experience and/or because they feel it improves their chances at get accepted in to med school.  In most things in life if you want to have an "experience", you're the one paying for it, not the other way around.  I feel that PIs are justified in offering no pay to student who want to be in a research lab for the "experience" of being in a lab.  

 

 

 I guess I wonder if the whole application process in life (not just med school) is too narrow? If it cannot be looked at more holistically as to what different applicants do? perhaps some applicants never touch a research project but have other experiences (e.g. teaching or mentorship), whereas someone else might actually love research (instead of pretending they do, so that they can get summer research experience) and have some pubs? I guess I just started to think about it in the grand scheme of things. It has become such a strict requirement, that many people who hate research now feel like they have to do it to succeed. But really, do they?

 

No. no they don't. I'm one of those people accepted in to med school with no clinical, hospital volunteering experience, no club leadership experience, no dedication to sports, music or any volunteer organization, but with plenty of research (6 years spread between 4 labs) and 3 pubs (one of which in a very high impact journal).  I'm afraid I don't know people in med school who've no research experience. The closest I can think of is my best friend who, at my behest, did one summer of research in biostats, hated it, never did another summer of research again and got in at UWO several years ago. My not knowing anybody who've never done research could be mainly due to the bias in the people I get to know since being in research meant mainly meeting people through research...