Research to Residency (R2R) | USMLESarthi Research Project Initiative

Do Real Research While You Prepare for the Match with real LOR!

USMLESarthi has teamed up with TeenHeal, a US-based nonprofit, to let eligible students work on real research projects with expert mentors — and add real research experience to your residency application with a Real LOR!

Available Research Project Types

Topics include AI in medicine, Mental Health, Medical Education, Sports Medicine, Public Health, and other selected fields. New topics are added regularly, depending on available datasets and mentor capacity.

Not sure if a project fits your goals?

What You'll Get in this Research!

Things You'll Be Responsible for!

Eligibility

Open only to active Platinum, Gold, Turbo & Flexi Plan students in good standing. Project openings, mentor availability, and topics change throughout the year.

How It Works: From picking a topic to submitting your paper!

This is self-directed — you need to stay on top of it — but you’ll have mentors guiding you the whole way.
  1. Pick a topic — choose from the approved list of research topics (from us) and commit to it.
  2. Sign the paperwork, get access — sign any required Data Use and Collaboration Agreement, then get access to the dataset and project materials.
  3. Work with your mentor — go through literature review, study design, and analysis with guidance from your mentor and team.
  4. Write and revise — write the manuscript, get feedback, and revise it until it’s ready.
  5. Submit to a journal — your team decides together where to submit, based on what fits the project best.

Things to keep in Check!

This program: 
  • Does not guarantee that your paper will be published.
  • Does not guarantee a journal will accept your manuscript.
  • Does not guarantee what author position you’ll get.
  • Publication can take time — USMLESarthi, TeenHeal, or the journal doesn’t control that timeline.
  • You’re still responsible for finishing your work and meeting deadlines.
Good news: you can still list ongoing work on your ERAS application — for example, as a submitted manuscript, a manuscript under review, an abstract, a poster, or research experience — as long as it follows AAMC/ERAS rules.

Open only to active Gold & Platinum students in good standing.

Project openings, mentor availability, and topics change throughout the year. Talk to USMLESarthi team to check what's open right now.