Research please help...

[postbacc12]

Hi,

I'm a new postbacc student. Right now, I have been looking into research and am confused what medical schools are looking for. I have an opportunity to work with a specific department and basically what my role would be is take information about patients (nothing that interesting like DOB, patient number etc.) from one computer system and enter it into a database which it seems like it eventually will be used to sort different patients for supposedly research purposes. There is no specific research project that it will be used on right now that the doctor could say but that the database would be used for sorting purposes to help with all research projects in the department

I would be working under a doctor who said that she would be giving me a recommendation. Since I'm working for free, I don't want to be working on something that is not going to fulfill what medical schools are looking for when they are looking for "research." Is the research I'm talking about right or is it completely wrong? If completely wrong, what type of research should I be trying to do?

Thanks

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[captaincbr]

Hi,

I'm a new postbacc student. Right now, I have been looking into research and am confused what medical schools are looking for. I have an opportunity to work with a specific department and basically what my role would be is take information about patients (nothing that interesting like DOB, patient number etc.) from one computer system and enter it into a database which it seems like it eventually will be used to sort different patients for supposedly research purposes. There is no specific research project that it will be used on right now that the doctor could say but that the database would be used for sorting purposes to help with all research projects in the department

I would be working under a doctor who said that she would be giving me a recommendation. Since I'm working for free, I don't want to be working on something that is not going to fulfill what medical schools are looking for when they are looking for "research." Is the research I'm talking about right or is it completely wrong? If completely wrong, what type of research should I be trying to do?

Thanks

First of all, is this supposed research part of your post-bacc program? I may just be reading it wrong, so I would like to stand corrected.

It seems as what you're describing is a lot of administrative work. I doubt this kind of work will lead you for a publication or abstract, or anything to show you accomplished something doing research.

Luckily, "research" is a very broad term, and almost anything can be considered research. However, in terms of research, there are three main categories: basic research, translational research, and clinical research.

I believe you are in the clinical research category (just by what you described).

Basic research is basically benchwork in the laboratory that everyone thinks of when we say lab research.

Translational research is what it sounds like: translating the knowledge gained from basic research, and starting up a clinical trial (ie. testing a new combination drug for the treatment of cancer)

Clinical research is again what it sounds like. You're in a clinical setting, obtaining demographical (and other such personal information) from the patient, and using the collected data, some conclusion can be found. Some data may be look at retrospectively, so any previous patients' information may be used to compile a massive data set for a certain study (which I believe you may be involved in here)

Bottom line: If you want to gain research experience, the more you put into it, the more you get out of it. Don't settle with just data work. Try to be more proactive about your role and constantly ask if you can contribute more.

Good luck

 

[Calipers]

Agree with most of what captain said. The research experience you are describing does not sound particularly rewarding or fruitful. I could see the point if you get to see lots of patients in addition to entering that information as then it could be considered a clinical experience and the recommendation letter could be very helpful.

Otherwise, you want to look for a more rewarding research project. Factors to consider include: interests, impact, and publishability.

(1) Interest: Find something that you like reading about/studying. The only recommendation is that it is related to medicine. That's very broad and can include economics, basic science, statistics, and public policy, etc.

(2) Impact: You want a project that means something to you, as it'll be highly likely that you'll be describing it in your application or interviews.

(3) Ability to get it done: Believe it or not, not all projects can be done. Your current project is one of those because the PI has no idea what to do with the data. Another pitfall is projects that sound great but take too much time. A good rule of thumb is to double or triple the estimated time to completion. For example, if the PI tells you that this project should only take a year to complete, plan on actually completing it in 2-3 years. Find something that you can complete in the amount of time that you have.