Advice for MS1 regarding research

[themoonman2]

Hi everyone,

Before I can ask my questions, I have to give a little background info:

I met with the clinical research coordinator at my school last week and was told that because our ENT department is so small, there are no clinical projects going on at the moment. I was told that my name was going to be put down on a list of interested medical students, and as residents and faculty members contact the coordinator, the list will be gone down in order to hand out research spots. I don't intend to begin research at this exact moment- I just started school- but was hoping to start planning for a project I could begin in the winter or spring. The only good part to this is that I was the first MS1 to speak with her.

My school has a very active ortho department that I could certainly join and participate in clinical research, but I'm not as interested in ortho as I am ENT..

My questions are as follows:
1) Do I hold my breath and wait for a possible clinical ENT project?
2) Do I seek out basic ENT research?
3) Do I join the ortho department so that I can be sure to gain experience?
4) Do something entirely different in terms of research that I have yet to think of?

Any and all advice is appreciated. Thanks!

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[VisionaryTics]

Hi everyone,

Before I can ask my questions, I have to give a little background info:

I met with the clinical research coordinator at my school last week and was told that because our ENT department is so small, there are no clinical projects going on at the moment. I was told that my name was going to be put down on a list of interested medical students, and as residents and faculty members contact the coordinator, the list will be gone down in order to hand out research spots. I don't intend to begin research at this exact moment- I just started school- but was hoping to start planning for a project I could begin in the winter or spring. The only good part to this is that I was the first MS1 to speak with her.

My school has a very active ortho department that I could certainly join and participate in clinical research, but I'm not as interested in ortho as I am ENT..

My questions are as follows:
1) Do I hold my breath and wait for a possible clinical ENT project?
2) Do I seek out basic ENT research?
3) Do I join the ortho department so that I can be sure to gain experience?
4) Do something entirely different in terms of research that I have yet to think of?

Any and all advice is appreciated. Thanks!

There are really two purposes to doing research as a med student

1) The research part - saying you learned a skill, can write a paper, get published, put crap on your CV
2) The connections part - meeting faculty who will get to know you, write papers for them, etc

Doing basic science research or doing ortho research fulfills the first part, but that second part is still really important. Try to find other ways to get involved in department.

An alternative is to simply be a self starter. See if you can write a systematic review or meta-analysis, then send it to a faculty member specializing in that field and ask if they can give you some feedback. When I was a med student, I basically read a book on how to do meta-analysis, asked a faculty member I knew for an idea, then wrote it and submitted it.

 

[themoonman2]

Thanks for your response, @VisionaryTics, and that's an incredible suggestion I would have never considered! In your opinion, might emailing faculty members directly to inquire about open spots be seen as somewhat pushy or annoying given the fact that I already spoke to an ENT clinical research coordinator?