 Alright guys, welcome to another episode of the TMJ show. Today we are talking all about how to be more competitive for those competitive specialties, especially when things are kind of out of your control with things like step one, being pass fail. How do you make yourself more competitive? Specifically, we'll be talking about things like research and finding time to improve your extracurriculars. So let's get into it. So today's questions are coming from one of our medical students as subscribers and listeners. And her name is Durga. Durga is going to be asking a few questions. Number one is step one is pass fail, which is like I'm still jealous about, by the way, but the next question really is how do you deal with research experience and how important do you think having research experience will be in medical school now? And honestly, the answer is like huge. It really will depend a little bit on which residency is special to your considering. So if you're still considering fields like family medicine, pediatrics, internal medicine, research probably will more or less be less important or equally so, not more or less so, but fields like dermatology, fields like orthopedic surgery, radiation oncology that really were built on students who had got high step one scores, I think will now require more research experience in addition to having a really good step two score and other experiences that prove that you're interested in that field. So in terms of research, I think we'll definitely increase. Now question number two, that if you're interested in research, how do you go about like finding a good lab and getting a good fit with research mentors? Now, this is a little bit stylistic on how you do this, but the number one thing I would do is ask yourself like what field you're interested in. Let's say you're interested in dermatology. The first thing I would do is saying, OK, what areas of dermatology you're interested in? Are you interested in like acne or you're interested in autoimmune disease? Are you interested in like more procedural based things like Moe's? Then find those people at your institution that may deal with a few of those and then send mass emails. Obviously, I have a template and then have an area where you can really kind of specify to that mentor of saying, like, I read this article or I saw that you're working in projects like these. So it's still a little bit of personalization when you send an email and saying, like, I am a first or second year medical student or third year medical student and I'm interested and possibly joining a project for my future career as a dermatologist. Is there anything that I could possibly help on? Is there something that you're working on? And if you send that template at email, your hit rate is going to be more or less on how many people respond and then even less on how many people have something available for a medical student. So you want to send as many of those emails as possible, but obviously is going to start with the fields that you're interested in. So figure out the fields because you don't want to work on a project that you're not interested in. So if you're like not interested in certain things like my cosy fungoides, which is definitely a dermatologic field, there's no real point of doing that research just to add it to your application. It's not going to be very interesting to you long term. So find the things that you're interested in. Now, if that person does respond and saying like they don't have anything available, this is really where you find like the next best thing, which is ask them in that, like, oh, totally understand. Is there anybody else that you know that is in this field that is possibly doing a research and then they'll possibly point you to that direction. That is in how you increase your kind of wealth of knowledge of people that are working with. And sometimes it may just be going from a faculty member to a fellow or a resident that is working on a project, but then it has a faculty member who is like in charge of it. And that is basically how I increase my breath of like cardiology research and medical school and like statin research and epidemiology research. When I was a neuroscience major in college, this isn't just how I did it too. So you have to cast broad and then narrow in depending on who says yes and keep asking more and more people for referrals. Remember, you don't have to commit until there's a project you're happy with. So if you send out 20 emails, you can give it like a week and a half until you kind of see who is responded until you say, like, oh, the first person that responded to me like really wants to have me work on that project, but you don't have to commit to that if there's something that's going to come later on. So that's kind of my process of how to find a good lab. And as you start doing more and more projects, you can either start doing more projects, the same lab or finding other people that now understand, oh, this person's experience and working with dermatology related research. So now they can possibly help me. Hey, friends, real quick before we get back to today's episode, if you're on your medical journey, I highly encourage you to check out some of the free resources that we have for you with the MD journey. My favorite by far is the MedVault, which is like over the last half decade, every free resource, every book, video course that I've put in one place for you to just have complete free access to. Again, it's free. So if you want to succeed on your medical journey and you want a bunch of free resources for every phase of the medical journey in one place, then definitely check out the MedVault. It's linked down below. Did I mention it's free? Yep, check it out. Let's get back to today's episode. Question number three is how you find a balance between research and coursework. And there's a few things that I like to do here. One is essentially under promise and over deliver, which means that I'll just say you have to write the method section of a research project. Instead of saying I'll have it for you within two weeks, I'll say I'll have it for you within a month. And understand that everyone usually understands that medical students have a very busy schedule. And so if you over deliver by under committing to your deadline, then even if you're able to get it in two weeks, not everyone is stressed out when you are always behind the eight ball in terms of like your deadlines, including yourself. And so that is a great way to balance kind of the difference. And sometimes what you do is you just pick the day that is lighter in your schedule. So Tuesdays are lighter because there's no thing in the afternoon, you just kind of have lecture. You can give it two to three hour window every single week and saying this is my research time. Nothing is going to be fitting in this time unless I have like an exam that week. And then you can use that time to work on the next big task of your research project. And so you're always making progress. And then again, still kind of under committing on when your deadline will be. So everyone feels like, oh man, the students like crushing it because they're always making their deadlines or always giving me new and new results. But for you, it's like, oh, I'm just really working like two to three hours a week on it. So that's how you find a good balance between your research and your coursework is you under promise, you plan out where on your week you want to do stuff and you don't over commit to too many projects. So we usually work on one thing. If there's a one project that's kind of like in the dull and the queue, like waiting for stuff to happen, then you can join something else, but try not to join multiple things at one time. Final question is the noticing of like how many publications you need for these competitive specialty. So like dermatology, plastic surgery, radiation oncology, there's like an NBME chart outcomes like PDF report that comes out every like few years. And basically it tells you how many research opportunities somebody had. And that number can seem a little bit like demoralizing because it'll show like, oh, you need six or seven or eight research opportunities. But remember that that number that people are recording isn't just like publications. It's not, sometimes it's just like abstract. Sometimes it's just like a research presentation. And sometimes there's an overlap. So you may be doing one project and then reporting two to three outcomes from that project. Don't get too worried and like second to numbers. You obviously want to get some experiences. So do one project and then once that project is kind of like either in a standstill because things are being weighted or that project is being done, then move on to the next one. That is like a good way of saying, okay, like I have a project. Can I submit an abstract for like a local competition or something about medical school or something for the residency programs that are here or something for a nearby like conference. Those are great ways for you to have multiple things on your application for like one or two projects that you're done for like related topics. And as a personal example, I think when I was in medical school, I published like one thing that was really like my mom herself, but that ended up becoming like two posters. And so that kind of like two things on the application. And then I had other things that I worked on with other like residents and those ended up becoming two to three their own publications and like posters as well. And so my list looked like that was really long, but really I had worked on like two to three projects over the span of four years. And they just had many different outputs and sometimes that's really what counts. So ask yourself, okay, like this project is still kind of in like a standstill. Can I possibly do an abstract or kind of a poster presentation at an upcoming like event at my research forum or symposium at medical school? And that can go on your CV and count as ability for you to share your research, even if not everything is completely done. All right guys, hopefully you guys enjoyed this episode and answering questions on how to become more competitive especially when step one is becoming a pass fail, particularly in the area of research. Now, if you do have more questions, either drop in the comment section down below if you're watching on YouTube or consider hitting that Q and A link either in the podcast or on YouTube to ask your own personalized questions where I can answer this question for you, make a personalized video, respond to an email and then we can go back and forth obviously and then I can make more of these responses for the general public. So love answering these questions for you love interacting with the audience. So if you have your own personalized question, go ahead and hit that Q and A link down below and I'll try to get to it as quickly as possible. If you're watching this on YouTube and you really want to increase my motivation of keep making these videos, consider hitting that like button. It does help the channel, it does help the growth of the channel but also tells me that one, you enjoy this content and two, possibly there's somebody out there that with this question who can watch this video and say, oh, that really helped me out. So I would really appreciate it if you hit that like button like one, three, five times because apparently if you hit a two, it takes it away. Anyways, also consider hitting the subscribe button and notification bell to be notified when new episodes just like this one go out. If you enjoyed today's episode and you want us to help you personalize on your medical school journey, definitely consider applying to our MediGnight program. It's a coaching one-on-one program that we have for you over the span of several weeks. And if you just want to improve things like studying, improving your time and efficiency and essentially if you want to make the entire medical process a whole lot less stressful then definitely check out the MediGnight program. If you want to see what kind of results you may be seeing just from your grades, your happiness, your stress level, your productivity, check out some of the reviews that our students have been leaving on that page and I'll link that down below. If you want something a little bit more DIY on your medical school journey but still want to crush it by every single phase of the journey, whether it be studying productivity, rotation, step one, step two, definitely check out the Med School Domination Bundle which basically walks you through my best step-by-step strategies, things that I did, things that I wish I had did and things that hundreds of students have now learned to help their whole process on medical school become a lot more successful, a lot less stressful. So that'll be linked down below as well. But as always guys, thank you so much for making to the very end of the episode. If you're watching this on YouTube and did enjoy this episode then check out this episode right here on how you can use Onky Like a Pro as well as this one right here on how to study in medical school step-by-step. But as always guys, thank you so much for being a part of my journey. Hopefully I was a little helped to see you guys on yours and I'll see you guys in the next one. Peace.