Basic science research

[conrad]

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Hi everyone, long-time MD/PhD lurker here, I was wondering whether you guys had an opinion on which schools have EM faculty members doing basic science research, and/or which programs support their residents in pursuing research? EM has always been my first interest (to the chagrin of my advisor!)...

 

[ERMudPhud]

Go for it. One of my advisors quit talking to me all together when I went into EM. Now he is a collaborator. Several others told me I was throwing my career away. I'm still not quite where I was aiming for but I'm close and having a great time doing it.

The best way to find out what is going on in basic science in EM is to go to ACEP and go to the basic science poster session. Many people in EM tend to work with people in other fields an may not be publishing in the EM journals. Most of the bench research tends to be on the cellular and biochemical events related to ischemia-reperfusion injury but you can find people doing other things. I have been most impressed with some of the stuff published out of a couple of programs in Michigan and a few in Philadelphia. I posted specifics in a similar thread a year or so ago. I'll try to dig it up when I get a chance.

There are two advantages to doing basic science while in EM. The first is that the field is so young and so broad that you can pick almost anything and relate it to EM without worrying too much about competition and jobs/residency slots for MD/PhD's in EM are wide open. The second is that EM gives you the flexibility to pursue things that aren't even remotely related to your clinical field. I chose to pursue immunology and signal transduction and rather than join an EM department and pound a square peg into a round hole, I joined an immunology department. The last grant I got I was in competition with rheumatologist and allergist and I still got it. I work an average of one clinical shift in the ED per week which keeps me fresh and pays better than research. Long term I hope to be established enough as a researcher to get a tenure track appt in a basic science department and then get an adjunct spot in the affiliated EM department. Ask me in a few more years if it has worked out.

 

[conrad]

Thanks for the encouragement. I've always been interested in EM, but the shiftwork in EM seems really convenient to maintaining a lab and doing research.

I'm curious; you chose to be primarily affiliated with Immunology rather than EM? I don't know how tough it is to get faculty positions in EM nowadays, but the basic science spots seem even tougher, since you are competing with a lot of PhDs. Did you consider getting into academics the other way around?

One other thing. If you choose your residency right (ie., departmental support and the right collaborators), do you think it might be possible to find a mentor and do enough preliminary data to apply for a K08 coming out of residency? I wouldn't mind doing a fellowship year, either, but it'd be nice to keep a hand (or finger) in research while I'm doing clinical work.

 

[DrQuinn]

I am not at all into research, but when I did a rotation at Einstein, I know they had a lot of physiologic research going on there, with Dr. Munzcak or something like that head of it (he also taught physiology at the local med school). Its a PGY1-4 program, though.

Q, DO

 

[tonem]

I know two places....Pittsburgh and UMass