How to use home country research experience to Match
For most IMGs, the ‘Residency Match planning’ process begins with the USMLE Step 1 and Step 2 preparation and trying to get US Clinical Experience (USCE). However, this strategy overlooks a crucial opportunity to enhance the prospect of a successful match, which is getting quality research experience during medical education in their home country. In the current hypercompetitive environment that international graduates face, research experience can be an important differentiator. While US research experience is valued highly by Residency Programs, you can get vital research experience even in your home country as part of your medical school or work.
In addition to improving your resume, research participation in medical school also enables you to acquire additional skills and critically evaluate the medical literature.  Based on the experience of our panel physicians and of students that we have guided in past few years, we outline top strategies and tips you can leverage to get valuable research experience in your home country.
Ideally you should start on your research projects in the early years of your medical school.  Finding a good mentor and a project can be difficult so early on. There are also several constraints that medical schools outside of US have including resource crunch, lack of research opportunities/programs for medical students. Here are some of the ideas on how to overcome these challenges:

1. Seek out a US/North American or UK trained faculty. Countries like India now have many US/Canada trained physicians who have gone back and are working for large renowned hospital systems. These physicians not only understand the importance of research but also are more likely to be familiar with the latest research areas and provide appropriate mentoring. Their letter of recommendation is also likely to carry more weight with the Residency Program Admissions Committee. If you don’t have such faculty in your Medical School or in your city, reach out to other prominent research institutions in your country. In India for example, AIIMS, PGI, JIPMER, The Tata Institute, ICMR or similar institutions would be a good bet. These institutes have academic faculty who are trained and interested in research and there may be several opportunities. The faculty in these institutes, especially those on an academic track may have research projects that you could get involved with as a starting point. While working on an already developed project, you could develop your own idea with input from your mentor.  It is unlikely that you will get a paid position but most of them will be open to a voluntary position. And if you work hard and make a good impression, a strong letter of recommendation will be a bonus. It is also a good idea to try to seek short term opportunities (for e.g., summer research internships) in these institutions during your early medical school years.

2. Get a Research project: Once you have a mentor identified, you should work with him/her to plan meaningful research projects that have a high potential for publication. You can get involved in one of their ongoing research projects or start with a retrospective study. You should work with your mentor to design the study, get IRB approval and conduct the data collection and analyses and get the study to publication.

3. Technical/Statistical skills: You should also use this opportunity to acquire basic statistical skills and become familiar with atleast one statistical tool like SPSS, Stata or JMP.  There are several free online tutorials that you can use to acquire these skills even if local expertise may not be available. You may also be able to do online certificate courses in statistics/research methodology from prestigious US universities. That would definitely add weight to your CV.  Knowledge of a statistical package is valued very highly once you move to the US and look for US research job. This is definitely something you want to do even if you don’t get a research project. In addition, it is very important to have the knowledge to do comprehensive literature searches using databases such as PubMed and Ovid and to be familiar with Reference manager programs such as EndNote.

4. Publish results: As you work on your research project start thinking about the channels to disseminate your results. Again, your mentor can provide useful guidance in this regard. But remember the end goal has to be a manuscript. We find that most students feel that writing an abstract or giving an oral presentation is enough- while these are reasonable, the Admissions Committee is likely to consider research experience resulting in manuscript very favorably.

To summarize you need a good mentor, a well thought out project which is scientifically rigorous and you need to learn analytical skills- all of which can combine to produce a well written manuscript and help you obtain critical research skills.

More importantly this will help you prepare well for some of the most commonly asked questions in the Residency Interviews, such as- “Are you interested in research? In which field? “Tell me something about your research experience..” and so on.
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However for many IMGs, for several reasons, undertaking a research project may not work out. Does it mean there is nothing that you can do? Of course not! The next best strategy is to pick up a topic you are passionate about and do a systematic review of literature. Here again, finding a mentor: local or international who may be a known expert in the area to run your ideas by can help improve the quality of your work and result in a valuable addition to your resume. Reviewing studies in a given area gives you an idea about the state of science in the area and helps identify gaps which you can then explore to develop projects when the opportunity presents itself.
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Useful Videos for IMGs on Research

Role of research in Match
Competitive field and research