NIW Question and Help in my case

shamur

Registered Users (C)
Dear Gurus Need your advice

I am physician currently doing fellowship in Oncology, prior to that I was involved in research realted to angiogenesis in eye diseases, but the same angiogenesis applies to oncology also and is a very acitve field with several drugs now.
I am confused whether to apply now for NIW or wait ?

- I can clearly prove the work I am doing now if of national interest/ substantial merit as it is related to cancer etc...

- The difficult part is to prove that what you have done has substantial influence in the field...what unique stuff I can do or how I am special compared to the rest...

I think most people have trouble fulfilling this criteria than any of the three

However...does my argument below hold merit for a case:
-3 Journal paper in Eye diseases (not first author)
-1 First author Oncology Journal paper accepted
- 2nd author Oncology article pending publication
-1 first author Oncology to be published by emedicine (Actually I was invited by these folks to write a review...so I can get a letter from them

-Close to 30+ abstracts (4 Oncology, 3 Angiogenesis, rest eye disease etc), national, international meetings
-Wrote a Book (not research related...clinical book)
-Sigma Xi Associate member (trying to upgrade)
-Patent pending
-Biostatistics trained...(can argue that not many are Biostat trained physician/researchers)
-Invitation letter to give a talk at Veteran government Hospital in US
-Can get letters from MD Anderson and Hopkins as reference
- Currently training at top reputable cancer center

Weaknesses:

-Citations may be weak /unrelated currently as my oncology articles are recent and may not have one
- Not many first author stuff
- Initial eye related reasearch now in cancer related...but angiogenesis is common to both...so I am not sure how to argue here as most papers now appear like in eye reasearch but now I am saying I am good in cancer research...

- Can I make a case a just basic science researcher?
- Shall I wait and apply ? ...is there any use to that as there are no guaranatees at any time anyways so why not try now...
 
It will be tough to prove 'how your work is in national interest with substantial interinsic merit'. Think of ways you can satisfy that requirement.
You do not have many pepers yet. If you can wait and get them published and get a few citations, it will be a big plus. Memberships to organizations will help. But sigma xi is known to uscis. Even I thought sigmaxi before until I found out that uscis knows about it and how easy it is to get in. You need societies where it is tough to become a member and are exclusive previleges to selected few. You will also need letters from more than 2 people as you have mentioned to make your case strong. If you can get about 5 good letters it will help you.
 
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