Would you consider this research?

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Brandonh131

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10+ Year Member
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I took a course this past winter called the research associate program. It consisted of 2 hours a week of lecture and 6 hours a week in the emergency room helping with research. This was a graded class ( I got a 3.6). Would you only put this on your app as a class or would you consider it research and put 60 hours (6 hours x 10 weeks) as doing research in an emergency room?
 
What kind of research? Something that could eventually be published?
I would only put it as a class.
The work I did at the emergency room consisted of screening patients and if they were qualified, I would have them complete the study. In the trauma room, I attended every trauma and recorded the details they asked me to record. So you wouldn't add this to the part of the application that asked about "what you've done"?
 
I would probably throw it in and point out what you did. It's obviously not going to be the same as doing research for 2 years and being first author on a basic science pub, but it's something. I had a 4 hour upper level course in undergrad that I got an A in that was "undergrad research" or something (you can only get credit for it one semester, so even though I kept doing research after that I only had the "class" once). I just had a month of M3 that was research class...aced it too. It doesn't mean I won't talk about the research I did on my apps and CV.

I guess my point is, research is research, it doesn't matter if it's a class you get a grade in. That's pretty standard for universities to do. The only thing here is it sounds like you were just data collecting, not taking part in a lot of the full process. I'm sure it was still a good experience and go ahead and talk about it...especially if you wind up getting a pub (at least an acknowledgement, if not an authorship). I would make sure you understand what the goal/accomplishments of the research was, not just the method you collected data.