No ENT department at home institution. Advice for research please.

[gregoryhouse]

My home school does not have a formal ENT dept. My school has some connections with the local ENT docs but I'm not sure if any of them do any type of research.

I was considering working with the EM department in ENT emergencies or possibly even with the radiology dept. However I'm not sure what type of research would look good enough to be considered ENT specific enough for residencies.

Right now I've considered research in the following areas:
-7th nerve palsy
-Angioedema
-Ludwig’s angina
-Tracheoinnominate fistula
-Epiglottitis

However I feel like these are all relatively rare conditions which might make it hard to get enough data for them. I preferably would like to do a clinical research project.

If you guys have any advice that could help me, please let me know. Thank you.

And I know I could contact my EM dept. and ask them what kind of projects they could put me on but I'd like to have a general idea of what type of project I want to do before contacting them.

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[Runican]

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[Runican]

My apologies. I must have "butt posted" earlier today.

 

[Dunce]

you're on the right track

I would say though that if you are in an area with a lot of hypertensive African Americans on ACE inhibitors, then angioedema is anything but rare! That would make a decent topic to work on with your EM colleagues. Consider looking up the most recent literature on the use of decadron vs. not using steroids. I don't know what the latest guidelines are. The medicine doctors always seem baffled when we save the day by giving a gigantic dose of decadron because they try to overthink the underlying pathophysiology.

Also, try getting in touch with the ENT residency program in the nearest city from you. Consider that like your home program.

 

[DrBodacious]

Dunce: if you have an article you know about with some evidence against using corticosteroids, link please. Very true about the medicine doctors over thinking this. Corticosteroids reduce edema, regardless of how much you talk about the MOA. I am aware there are some new drugs out there, such as recombinant C1 esterase. I am wondering if those drug companies are sponsoring research that would increase physician prescribing.

 

[DrBodacious]

My residency program had a run of tracheoinnominate fistula... Someone should have written that up.

 

[neutropeniaboy]

My residency program had a run of tracheoinnominate fistula... Someone should have written that up.

Maybe the run stopped when you stopped doing all the trachs!

 

[DrBodacious]

I didn't have the pleasure of being on service or on call for one. I'm sure some one would have "pointed out" that it was my trach if it was...

Let's just say that someone "out in the community" did them. Oh wait, that is me now!

 

[neutropeniaboy]

 

[tvelocity514]

you're on the right track

I would say though that if you are in an area with a lot of hypertensive African Americans on ACE inhibitors, then angioedema is anything but rare! That would make a decent topic to work on with your EM colleagues. Consider looking up the most recent literature on the use of decadron vs. not using steroids. I don't know what the latest guidelines are. The medicine doctors always seem baffled when we save the day by giving a gigantic dose of decadron because they try to overthink the underlying pathophysiology.

Also, try getting in touch with the ENT residency program in the nearest city from you. Consider that like your home program.

What do you mean by get in touch? Should you email the program director and say you don't have a home program and were wondering if there were any open research positions? (I'm just curious who to contact and what to say since I have no idea. I didn't know other programs would let you do this.)

 

[ThePursuit]

First off, what year in medical training are you and thus, when are you expecting to interview? Unless you are taking some real time off or have great resources, I would think it better to ride the coat-tails of something someone else already has up there sleeve rather than re-invent the wheel. This seems especially true in your situation of not having support from a home program.

You could consider speaking with the radiology department at your institution and write up some stuff about head and neck imaging. You could also pick a subject on something that crosses boundaries (such as steroid use for edema etc), pair up with a medicine folk etc. and then write a systematic review or do a meta analysis. That will take time, but have a high impact factor and be helpful if done well. It will also spare you the agony of setting up a true "research" project, while making you an "expert" in something by the time you have read all you need to write something like that.

Another though is look a biochem labs etc in your area that are studying stuff that may be applicable to ENT (some squamous cell marker etc) and write that up.

Lastly, another area that crosses over with ENT is plastics. Do some wound healing or scar revision paper with a plastics attending. See if you can get it submitted to the AAFPRS journal.

Be careful what you pick so that you can produce something tangible. Also, don't get stuck doing someone elses crappy project and spend a bunch of time working on something that's never going to go anywhere. Try and pick your project and advisor based on someone who's really putting out lots of and/or good research. It will be smoother.