Does urology match require urology research?

[Treebeard]

Quick question - is urology one of the fields like ortho that really wants Medical student research in urology, or are they more accepting of more general research productivity?

I have a strong cancer research background including multiple first author papers, but most of it is in GI cancer and neuro cancer. I didn't really know much about urology until later in med school. Do I need to scramble for uro publications if I want to match uro? Or just keep doing what I am doing?

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[cpants]

Urology research is preferred, but it's not a dealbreaker if you have high quality research in another field. Just be prepared to explain your change in interest. This is a pretty common scenario as many med students get minimal exposure early on. That said, what year are you. If planning to apply in 1 year there is PLENTY of time to get some urology research done and I highly recommend it.

 

[Treebeard]

Urology research is preferred, but it's not a dealbreaker if you have high quality research in another field. Just be prepared to explain your change in interest. This is a pretty common scenario as many med students get minimal exposure early on. That said, what year are you. If planning to apply in 1 year there is PLENTY of time to get some urology research done and I highly recommend it.

Thanks for the response! Currently in year 2. My plan right now is to finish up the projects I have ongoing by January, then focus on step, then seek out a urology project if my score is reasonably worthy of applying to urology.

All of my research is in cancer, and I have a tech-related background, so I'd imagine it will be easy to explain why I became interested in urology. That and I legitimately did fall in love with the field after doing a selective with them.

Edit - I should mention that part of the reason I'm asking is because it would be easy for me to stay with my current research advisors and continue publishing papers. You're right that I probably have plenty of time to get on a urology project, but starting with a new advisor/group is always a bit of a risk.

 

[Donald Juan]

If you are interested in urology now, I would start looking into urology research. However, like said above I think urology as a whole is less adamant that your research has to be in urology (as compared to ortho or derm). We understand that most people don't know anything about urology until 3rd year of med school, so those applicants who come in wanting to do GU from the beginning are less frequent compared to some specialties.