As far as I know, the Academy does not have a category of membership for medical students. There is one for basic scientists. This is the case for the Orthopaedic Trauma Association as well (i.e. basic scientist membership, but not one for med students).

The Ruth Jackson Orthopaedic Society and (I believe) the J. Robert Gladden Orthopaedic Society have medical student memberships.

I looked into this myself during grad school (to get a membership in ORS - the basic science counterpart to AAOS). It was a pain, and I decided it wasn't worth the effort even though I ended up with a presentation at their annual meeting one year.

For what it's worth, I am a member of ORS, it was on my ERAS CV, it was never brought up during interviews.

Almost no one wanted to talk about my 20+ basic science pubs/abstracts, even though most were ortho related and even presented at ORS several times. Most interviewers focused on a couple clinical projects that were listed under research experiences. People like to talk about what they know, and for most orthopods that clinical research and not basic science.

For what it's worth, I am a member of ORS, it was on my ERAS CV, it was never brought up during interviews.

Almost no one wanted to talk about my 20+ basic science pubs/abstracts, even though most were ortho related and even presented at ORS several times. Most interviewers focused on a couple clinical projects that were listed under research experiences. People like to talk about what they know, and for most orthopods that clinical research and not basic science.

Wow, this information is extremely valuable to a newbie like me. I am an ORS member as well and have some basic science experience and pubs related to ortho. I thought this might be helpful. No one brought up 20+ pubs and ORS presentations? That's amazing. It's awesome that you did all that.

So did you have a separate section of your CV titled, "Research Experiences," just for those clinical projects on which you worked in med school? That's a great idea.

Thanks for your valuable input, as always, cnh.

I would second what cnh has said regarding this. The only things that people cared about were my clinical projects.. after that, they could care less.

Whatever you put for research experience, make sure it is concise.. no one will read your CV if it looks like a book.

Membership in those professional organizations is really..pointless from the perspective of an ortho application. A benefit would be to have presentations at an academy meeting or something like that, but after that.. it really doesn't matter.

So did you have a separate section of your CV titled, "Research Experiences," just for those clinical projects on which you worked in med school? That's a great idea.

ERAS has a section for publications and conference abstract/presentations. There's a separate section called research experiences. Any relevant research I had done that did not result in at least an abstract was put in the research experience section.

I also included research experiences that did result in a publication

But, only as an encompassng thing.

If I worked for someone for 3 months, and made 3 papers.. I would list the papers as publications, and then talk about the different things we worked on..