Programs that look for strong research background

well, it depends on the research experience and what your ultimate goals are ... is it bench research or clinical ... are the publications ... what areas, basic science (molecular/cell biology), biomechanics/biomaterials, clinical ... all of these come into play ... programs are stronger in different areas of research .... so you need to give a little more info

so i guess with what you have given i would say ... well it depends

I did more basic science research in cartilage. I was wondering if you know the programs that really stress research in the application.

well, the very academic programs will stress the research end. the problem is, if you really want to do the true basic science research, you need a year or 2 to do it ... most orthopaedic residencies do not allow for that ... tha being said, there are several programs that are 6 year programs that allow for that kind of research ... if you are going to stress that in your application, then it better be a ultimate goal of yours

even with research being important, usually the "high power" research programs are going to want grades and scores as well ...

on an application, having good research is a plus but not the only thing that most programs will look at ...

with a cartilage background, you will have to research the programs that are doing that type of research and seek them out ...

Average Joe...
I also had some decent basic science cartilage research as a med student. Here are a few programs I interviewed at that seemed very interested in my research (i.e. more than the required 3 questions to figure out if you actually did it) and had good basic science labs set up...


Syracuse- great bone biology stuff, think laser microdissection and gene arrays, although they focused more on oncology

Brown- really cool cartilage research, big labs, a micro-MTS machine for mechanical testing of cartilage... all residents spend their 6th year as a "Junior Attending" and get 6 months dedicated research time

Rochester- very well-funded, decent basic science lab with maybe 10 postdocs in vcarious area

UConn- brand new chair, tons of new NIH funding in stem cell research, dedicated to research with a new facility and multiple basic science post-docs... 1 intern already had 2 or 3 basic sceince projects going.

UMass- 3 separate basic science labs, has two 6 yr spots, with 1 yr research after internship, beginning to look more seriously at research, plans to build a new building with research facilities in the next 2-3 years

Columbia- TONS of basic science research,a lthough I didn't get a great feel for how much was cartilage... seems like projects just fall into your lap as a resident there

SUNY- Stonybrook- I actually didn't get to visit here, but have heard they have good basic science going on, well-established