Can I do non-science research in medical school (Public Health)?

[Magyarzorag]

I was wondering if residencies look down upon non science research like in Public Health, Social Inequality, Global Health, Social Justice, Literature, International Studies,or Economics. My goal is anesthesiology, though path or psych aren't ruled out yet.

I've had very bad luck with my science research in the past and cannot even pipette or incubate cells correctly, and was fired from my lab. I can't even PCR/ELISA and almost broke a $50000 machine. Also, science is not my strong area and an area of only marginal interest. I'm much more interested in the human side of medicine and social sciences and topics like public health, geography, and international relations/economics.

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[wanderingorion]

Research=research. Pursue whatever you're interested in

 

[Sephirakra]

Public health research very often IS scientific research. Just because one isn't plating cells and running gels doesn't mean the scientific method has been thrown out the window.

 

[Thesimplelifeofamyloid]

Competitive specialties won't take you seriously if you have that.

 

[Dr G Oogle]

Competitive specialties won't take you seriously if you have that.

Disagree. If you find a healthcare economist to work with (look at business school near you or if there is a statistical grad program or population health dept) you could generate very good research, papers, presentations etc and make yourself competitive for any specialty. Things like literature, social justice etc May not net you a competitive residency spot unless somehow very relevant I.e. qualitative study on racial disparities in postop care or something of that ilk.

Could even hook up with people in computer science dept and work on some predictive models

Like someone said above don’t need to be unspooling mitochondrial dna to get research

 

[751866]

Disagree. If you find a healthcare economist to work with (look at business school near you or if there is a statistical grad program or population health dept) you could generate very good research, papers, presentations etc and make yourself competitive for any specialty. Things like literature, social justice etc May not net you a competitive residency spot unless somehow very relevant I.e. qualitative study on racial disparities in postop care or something of that ilk.

Could even hook up with people in computer science dept and work on some predictive models

Like someone said above don’t need to be unspooling mitochondrial dna to get research

Prediction models, outside of image classification (true AI type stuff) is a statistical problem and the stat or biostat department is probably a better bet.

 

[Dr G Oogle]

Prediction models, outside of image classification (true AI type stuff) is a statistical problem and the stat or biostat department is probably a better bet.

Depends on your stats or biostatistics departments and if you’re If you’re affiliated with a top engineering school, EECS department will still be your best bet unless you’re just trying to reinvent the nomogram.

 

[751866]

Depends on your stats or biostatistics departments and if you’re If you’re affiliated with a top engineering school, EECS department will still be your best bet unless you’re just trying to reinvent the nomogram.

I give the general advice because at non top programs, the quality of statistical work from nonstatisticians is more heterogeneous if it even exists. Regardless of the program tier, if you have a biostat/stat department, there's a much better chance of finding someone who works generally on "clinical prediction models"-- but nearly all of them boil down to statistical methodology.

 

[Dr G Oogle]

I give the general advice because at non top programs, the quality of statistical work from nonstatisticians is more heterogeneous if it even exists. Regardless of the program tier, if you have a biostat/stat department, there's a much better chance of finding someone who works generally on "clinical prediction models"-- but nearly all of them boil down to statistical methodology.

Agree, with the caveat that many people in CS who work in AI/ML know how to write statistical code, but may not be as well versed in the biological aspects of medicine.

 

[751866]

Agree, with the caveat that many people in CS who work in AI/ML know how to write statistical code, but may not be as well versed in the biological aspects of medicine.

I’ll point out, though, that writing statistical code is no where near what I mean by statistical quality( just look at all the data science people who learn to get output from R and python and haven’t a real clue what they’re looking at)-even at top schools, there are plenty of ML/AI people who incorrectly think a p value is an error probability (or probability that chance created the results, or some bs phrase) or think logistic regression is a “classification” technique. We agree with infinite caveats