1st year medical student question

Do ortho research, not another department.

Talk to your med school department. Build a relationship with the department so they can write great letters for you in 4 years. Every academic center in the country has ortho research going on, but your own department is more likely to help you out than another program.

I would ditto everything above. Non-ortho research isn't really going to do a ton for you especially compared with what a published ortho project will do.

Most important thing for a first year to do
- Honor everything -- this will likely lead to you killing step 1 anyway
- Meet/develop a relationship with your home Ortho Program. If you don't have one (my school didn't) try to find one you can work with while your at school. If your curriculum gives you summers off doing some ortho research over the summer wouldn't hurt
- then Honor everything of step 2 year

1

1st

Read this article and do everything it says:



Here is a snippet of the top 10 things you can do] 1 7.88 ± 1.71 (n = 109) Rotation at director's institution
2 7.78 ± 1.48 (n = 109) USMLE Part-I score
3 7.77 ± 1.34 (n = 108) Rank in medical school
4 7.55 ± 1.57 (n = 109) Formality/politeness at interview
5 7.35 ± 1.39 (n = 109) Personal appearance of candidate
6 7.11 ± 2.12 (n = 102) Performance on ethical questions at interview
7 7.01 ± 1.94 (n = 108) Letter of recommendation by orthopaedic surgeon
8 6.92 ± 1.90 (n = 109) Candidate is Alpha Omega Alpha member
9 6.47 ± 1.71 (n = 109) Medical school reputation
10 6.25 ± 2.10 (n = 109) Dean's letter
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Now some of those factors are controllable, and some are not. Work on the things you can control.

2nd. Do some research, ortho is better but anything you can publish is better.

3rd. Study hard 1st and 2nd years. Crush step 1.

I know research with the ortho department is the best bet, what about research that is related to orthopedics but may be done by a different department (e.g. Rheumatology, osteoporosis, etc.) ? Ortho research at my school seems hard to come by but there are research mentors in other departments that are doing related research.