A residency application has many components. The most important ones are: USMLE scores, visa status, letters of recommendation, clinical experience, research experience, years from graduation, and medical school–MSPE/Transcript.
Obviously, there are many components in a residency application that can make it strong or weak. It is less common for an application to have maximized every category, so most candidates will have strengths only in a proportion of these categories and relative more or less average to above average performance in the remaining. As the awareness about US residency training has increased, more and more international medical students and graduates are pursuing the USMLE path. More resources are available for prep of these exams and as a result the proportion of applicants scoring well above the average (220-230) has significantly increased. The number of US graduates have increased as well – they always get the first preference.
Given this background, it is suffice to conclude that USMLE scores are no longer a limiting factor for making your application competitive. Although, a minute fraction would score up to 270+ such exceptionally high scores stand alone and significantly make you competitive. For the majority, ways to distinguish your application over other applicants with similar USMLE scores lie in the other categories.
Although in general clinical experiences are considered more valuable compared to research experiences in most situations, there is a large variation. For instance an observership experience with an average letter of recommendation from a less well known institution may be less valuable to a robust research experience that produced multiple publications from a leading institution. The key elements that add strength to the experience are:
- Letter of recommendation
- Institution
- Quality of experience
Research experience is less valuable if it was less productive (no publications, abstracts, presentation of prizes). However, if it results in publications, it’s a permanent part of your CV. Compared to any other experiences, research work forms the strongest bond with your supervisor. An ideal situation is a clinical + research work that will lead to the strongest letter of recommendation. Keep in mind, research can land you clinical opportunities as well. Most attendings are themselves physicians or surgeons and do clinical research. They are aware that as an IMG, your goal is to match into a residency program in US. You can very easily and confidently ask them if you can observe them at the clinic etc. Therefore, the effectiveness lies on how effectively you are able to obtain benefit from a research opportunity.
If done right:
- It adds to research experience, publications and presentations of your CV,
- Gets you a letter of recommendation
- Gets you another opportunity of Clinical experience such as observership/elective.
- As research is mostly done at big institutions and universities, it adds big names to your CV.
- Provides you with an experience that you can talk about at the interview and shine like a star.
- It makes you stand out compared to other applicants, especially if you have publications.
- Make several connections while collaborating with other researchers, more so compared to clinical experiences.
- It demonstrates your interest towards a specific specialty.
A limitation of research is that it is time consuming and a bit less rewarding if done only for a short period. Up to a 6 months of research experience can result in 2-3 publications, if you are hardworking and working at a big institution with ample ongoing research opportunities.
In addition there are also numerous additional benefits. Research experience allows you to better understand published works, learn to balance collaborative with individual work, and determine an area of interest. Exposure to an area of research helps explore career fields. The earlier you become involved, the more experience they attain, which enhances their career choice. Many students considering careers in medicine will also benefit greatly from exposure to research. Many residency programs value research experience, especially academic programs.