Clinical Chart Review Question

[GreenLedbetter]

---

Members do not see this ad.

I would ask these questions to the PI but I like the anonymity of the boards: I have been trying to obtain a research opportunity for my first summer off in med school. I have been offered the opportunity to take part in a clinical chart review that is in the early stages of development within the field of my interest. I have no clinical research experience and very little knowledge about the different kinds of clinical research that are available. I do know that there are some types of research that most people, including myself, would like to avoid ie. simple data logging in excel, etc. That being said...

What is generally involved in Clinical Chart Reviews? Is this sort of work something that would be a good start to clinical research over my first summer? How long do these tend to take ie. is it feasible to have something published. Do MS1's who help out in chart reviews even get recognition for their work?

Sorry for asking so many questions.

 

[soeagerun2or]

I would ask these questions to the PI but I like the anonymity of the boards: I have been trying to obtain a research opportunity for my first summer off in med school. I have been offered the opportunity to take part in a clinical chart review that is in the early stages of development within the field of my interest. I have no clinical research experience and very little knowledge about the different kinds of clinical research that are available. I do know that there are some types of research that most people, including myself, would like to avoid ie. simple data logging in excel, etc. That being said...

What is generally involved in Clinical Chart Reviews? Is this sort of work something that would be a good start to clinical research over my first summer? How long do these tend to take ie. is it feasible to have something published. Do MS1's who help out in chart reviews even get recognition for their work?

Sorry for asking so many questions.

I read your other thread on summer research and felt it would be prudent to clarify for you what clinical research for medical students involves.

Namely, unless you have your own patients your job (if you are lucky) is to propose a hypothesis to investigate and design the project you will be researching. In a less involved project you just mine charts for a predefined set of variables. The design of the project more involved than it sounds, you have to think of the parameters you will be logging and try to anticipate any future data you may wish to acquire. This is imperative as finding out half-way through 1,000 charts you wanted an extra set of data or two slows the process down (scanning a chart for 12 variables is far more efficient than 10 and going back for 2).

The data mining itself is something you will have to do as a medical student.

After that you will analyze the data you collect and present it in a useful way to your resident supervisor or attending (tables, charts, figures etc.). If you are competent enough you can actually write the paper.

Three months over a summer is generally enough time to do a retrospective chart review. Any other clinical studies take much longer and you would have to commit to continuing the project for the duration of your medical school career. If you are merely doing a case series the process is much abbreviated, but less lucrative.

It may be beneficial, once you have your "foot in the door" to continue with further projects.

Feel free to PM me if you have any questions or if I may provide any further advice. Good luck.