Clueless about clinical research

[dr.sartorius]

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So i have an idea about what type of info i want to do research on. Essentially I would just need patients to take a quick survey, gather the data, and correlate it. i'm currently starting my second year and am not really interested in lab-type research. I was thinking of starting this during rotations because that gives me access directly to the patients. Or do students just drop off surveys to different departments and pick them up later? Is this how clinical research works? I'm clueless about how to get started, and how to even go about this. My school also has us rotate at a lot of different sites, will I require hospital permission at every site, or just permission from my attending, etc? Thanks 🙂

 

[DermViser]

So i have an idea about what type of info i want to do research on. Essentially I would just need patients to take a quick survey, gather the data, and correlate it. i'm currently starting my second year and am not really interested in lab-type research. I was thinking of starting this during rotations because that gives me access directly to the patients. Or do students just drop off surveys to different departments and pick them up later? Is this how clinical research works? I'm clueless about how to get started, and how to even go about this. My school also has us rotate at a lot of different sites, will I require hospital permission at every site, or just permission from my attending, etc? Thanks 🙂

What are you talk about? You go to the clinical department of interest, ask to get involved in a research project, and finished. The End.

 

[dr.sartorius]

What are you talk about? You go to the clinical department of interest, ask to get involved in a research project, and finished. The End.

So I ask them and get involved in an already on-going project? Or is it encouraged for us students to research our own topics?

 

[SouthernSurgeon]

"Clinical research" is an umbrella term that encompasses pretty much everything that doesn't involve working in an actual lab. When you say you are clueless about "clinical research" it is really hard to know what that means.

If you are interested in conducting a patient survey, and you have a relatively well thought out research question, your next step would be to find an advisor in the area of interest. E.g. if it is a survey for patients with heart disease...seek out a cardiologist who conducts that sort of research.

Survey research seems easy since you just hand out survey, collect survey, compile results. But to make it actually decent science there are a lot of steps involved. You need a validated instrument - meaning a survey that you can feel confident is actually measuring what you intended to measure. You need to pay attention to response rates since low rates can introduce a lot of bias. You need to have either solid statistical methods to analyze quantitative results, or you need the background in qualitative research to analyze qualitative results. If your survey is significantly qualitative, you may not even be doing good science by conducting a survey at all - the question may be better answered through focus groups or direct patient interviews.

You also need institutional review board approval for your research. If you are trying to conduct that research at multiple sites, you might need approval at each one. The applications for IRB approval often resemble a grant application in the amount and quality of information they want.

In other words, research is complex. The vast majority of medical students are ill-suited to go it alone without close, direct guidance from a research mentor.

 

[drcrispmd]

You will need a faculty advisor for your research and an attending will to have you survey their patients. You will also likely need IRB approval and then have permissions from the patients. It is not as simple as just handing out a survey. Usually medical students will jump on board with a resident doing clinical research.

 

[dr.sartorius]

Thank you for the replies, this clears up a lot of questions that I had!

 

[drcrispmd]

Also if you are wanting to get published you will definitely need attending or resident because clinical research from a student only will not be published.

 

[dr.sartorius]

Will starting research during 3rd year be too late? Also, does the fact the we move hospitals every month hurt my chances of dedicating to the research?

 

[DermViser]

Will starting research during 3rd year be too late? Also, does the fact the we move hospitals every month hurt my chances of dedicating to the research?

Depends on the specialty. Your rotations have nothing to do with your research that you do on your own time.

 

[operaman]

Lots of great advice here. Key point: find a good mentor. Find a couple actually. There is no substitute for good advice.

Truthfully, doing research gets pretty easy and straightforward once you've taken a few projects from IRB to final paper, but even then it's time consuming and requires a lot of work. There are many steps in which it helps to have people who can guide you. Doing your own project is great and most faculty mentors are good about helping students with those.

As a student, the "best" research projects are those that are publishable regardless of outcome. Faculty can be a big help in identifying projects like this or even in reshaping your idea so that it fits too.

 

[thingcangoth]

yeah,you might need approval at each one. The applications for IRB approval often resemble a grant application in the amount and quality of information they want.

 

[theSmurfette]

You would need to have IRB approval at each site, which is a lengthy process. You would also have to have the training required by each institution for human subjects research. This step is required whether you perform independent research or assist a resident/attending in their research.

 

[Bancrofti]

For anyone still responding to this thread, how much valuable clinical research could one reasonably do while still honoring the third year core rotations?

 

[mcloaf]

Honestly I'd avoid a project involving a survey unless you really can't find something else. Your best bet is to find a faculty member with an existing database you can analyze to answer questions. There is a lot of potential to lose valuable time when you're trying to administer a survey. If you can't find an existing database, a retrospective chart review project is what most people I know are doing.

 

[Bancrofti]

Honestly I'd avoid a project involving a survey unless you really can't find something else. Your best bet is to find a faculty member with an existing database you can analyze to answer questions. There is a lot of potential to lose valuable time when you're trying to administer a survey. If you can't find an existing database, a retrospective chart review project is what most people I know are doing.

What if your potential interests are surgical? I would agree though. I was involved in a basic sciences project involving dissection that looked promising, but amounted to nothing. From that experience I've made the obvious assumption that research involving different components is much more time consuming than others. I've considered taking a year off for research and have seen a few programs with openings, but they all need a step score and I won't have mine back until the end of the month.

 

[Apoplexy__]

So i have an idea about what type of info i want to do research on. Essentially I would just need patients to take a quick survey, gather the data, and correlate it. i'm currently starting my second year and am not really interested in lab-type research. I was thinking of starting this during rotations because that gives me access directly to the patients. Or do students just drop off surveys to different departments and pick them up later? Is this how clinical research works? I'm clueless about how to get started, and how to even go about this. My school also has us rotate at a lot of different sites, will I require hospital permission at every site, or just permission from my attending, etc? Thanks 🙂

What if your potential interests are surgical? I would agree though. I was involved in a basic sciences project involving dissection that looked promising, but amounted to nothing. From that experience I've made the obvious assumption that research involving different components is much more time consuming than others. I've considered taking a year off for research and have seen a few programs with openings, but they all need a step score and I won't have mine back until the end of the month.

I consider myself to be completely clueless about clinical research also. I used to read threads like this on SDN and get completely overwhelmed and discouraged. I never ended up doing anything clinical in MS1-2 -- only computational stuff with public databases.

It's MS3 for me now, and I happened to be talking with a nurse of a doc I'm rotating with who connected me with a doctor that does a lot of research. In just a couple days, I got plugged into a study on pre-operative imaging measuring the effective on outcomes of a disease. IRB approval already given with the study, just have to hop on by jumping through some hoops with human resources. I was amazed at how quick and easy the process was -- it really is pretty much as simple as what the people in this thread are saying.

Both of you: Call up some docs in a specialty you're interested in (maybe the same ones people at your school rotate with, if you have no other contacts), and ask if they know anyone who's doing any clinical research. There's plenty of quantitative, interesting stuff that you don't need to be a research master to jump into. I can message you guys to let you know my thoughts moving forward with my project.

 

[mcloaf]

What if your potential interests are surgical? I would agree though. I was involved in a basic sciences project involving dissection that looked promising, but amounted to nothing. From that experience I've made the obvious assumption that research involving different components is much more time consuming than others. I've considered taking a year off for research and have seen a few programs with openings, but they all need a step score and I won't have mine back until the end of the month.

I don't think any of what I said is specialty specific. I'm working on three projects right now that are all surgical and all are some form of retrospective chart review and database analysis (as an aside, working on three projects at the same time is generally a bad idea, I regret doing it but didn't realize things were going to stack up like this until it was too late to drop any of them without feeling irresponsible).

There are cool opportunities to do basic science type stuff involving animal surgery, but I don't think these are necessarily the safest bet for medical students depending on the amount of time you have. I have friends doing projects like this and while, yeah, it's sweet that they show up to work in scrubs and get to "operate", at the end of the day they still have the same limitations as other basic science projects: longer timelines, rougher learning curve, higher probability of failure/necessary troubleshooting, and harder for you as a med student to really be in charge on your own (obviously this is variable, but generally you're depending on a lot more on manpower and help from others in a basic science context than you would be as a data jockey doing a clinical project).

I am also planning to take a year off and haven't decided if it will be basic or clinical research, but I'm leaning towards clinical for all the reasons above. If I really enjoyed basic I'd do that (obviously you should do what makes you happy), but since I don't feel strongly about it I think I can be more productive in a clinical research setting with that time.

Lastly, I'll be the first to say that I'm far from an expert on any of this, so take what I say with a grain of salt. I'm just a rising M2; a lot of what I say is mostly informed by talking with my research mentors, who have a lot of experience helping med students get involved in productive projects that help them match to great places. Basically they've told me to be pretty merciless when choosing projects. If you're not very confident you can get something to publish out of it, don't do it. You're not a premed doing research to understand the scientific method, you're at a stage in your career where your time is limited and you need to focus on investing it in things that will allow you to show some sort of track record of productivity (abstracts/presentations/publications).

 

[cs24]

I don't think any of what I said is specialty specific. I'm working on three projects right now that are all surgical and all are some form of retrospective chart review and database analysis (as an aside, working on three projects at the same time is generally a bad idea, I regret doing it but didn't realize things were going to stack up like this until it was too late to drop any of them without feeling irresponsible).

There are cool opportunities to do basic science type stuff involving animal surgery, but I don't think these are necessarily the safest bet for medical students depending on the amount of time you have. I have friends doing projects like this and while, yeah, it's sweet that they show up to work in scrubs and get to "operate", at the end of the day they still have the same limitations as other basic science projects: longer timelines, rougher learning curve, higher probability of failure/necessary troubleshooting, and harder for you as a med student to really be in charge on your own (obviously this is variable, but generally you're depending on a lot more on manpower and help from others in a basic science context than you would be as a data jockey doing a clinical project).

I am also planning to take a year off and haven't decided if it will be basic or clinical research, but I'm leaning towards clinical for all the reasons above. If I really enjoyed basic I'd do that (obviously you should do what makes you happy), but since I don't feel strongly about it I think I can be more productive in a clinical research setting with that time.

Lastly, I'll be the first to say that I'm far from an expert on any of this, so take what I say with a grain of salt. I'm just a rising M2; a lot of what I say is mostly informed by talking with my research mentors, who have a lot of experience helping med students get involved in productive projects that help them match to great places. Basically they've told me to be pretty merciless when choosing projects. If you're not very confident you can get something to publish out of it, don't do it. You're not a premed doing research to understand the scientific method, you're at a stage in your career where your time is limited and you need to focus on investing it in things that will allow you to show some sort of track record of productivity (abstracts/presentations/publications).

This guy gets it @Bancrofti . Tons of surgical outcomes research to be done with either databases or retrospective chart review studies, you just have to find a mentor who's doing it. Lab experience with dissection won't mean ANYTHING as far as becoming a successful surgeon. Your best bet is finding manageable projects you can finish and be productive with (and has been stated, this often means clinical projects).

That said, I am also a rising M2, so I claim the same disclaimer as mcloaf. I've also been doing a few clinical surgery projects, so I have experience from the med student side of things at least. My mentors seem to think I am setting myself up for success, and I trust them.

 

[medstudent7860]

What if your potential interests are surgical? I would agree though. I was involved in a basic sciences project involving dissection that looked promising, but amounted to nothing. From that experience I've made the obvious assumption that research involving different components is much more time consuming than others. I've considered taking a year off for research and have seen a few programs with openings, but they all need a step score and I won't have mine back until the end of the month.

How do we find out about these programs for research? I don't know where to look.

 

[Bancrofti]

Thanks everyone for the advice.

I don't think any of what I said is specialty specific. I'm working on three projects right now that are all surgical and all are some form of retrospective chart review and database analysis (as an aside, working on three projects at the same time is generally a bad idea, I regret doing it but didn't realize things were going to stack up like this until it was too late to drop any of them without feeling irresponsible).

There are cool opportunities to do basic science type stuff involving animal surgery, but I don't think these are necessarily the safest bet for medical students depending on the amount of time you have. I have friends doing projects like this and while, yeah, it's sweet that they show up to work in scrubs and get to "operate", at the end of the day they still have the same limitations as other basic science projects: longer timelines, rougher learning curve, higher probability of failure/necessary troubleshooting, and harder for you as a med student to really be in charge on your own (obviously this is variable, but generally you're depending on a lot more on manpower and help from others in a basic science context than you would be as a data jockey doing a clinical project).

I am also planning to take a year off and haven't decided if it will be basic or clinical research, but I'm leaning towards clinical for all the reasons above. If I really enjoyed basic I'd do that (obviously you should do what makes you happy), but since I don't feel strongly about it I think I can be more productive in a clinical research setting with that time.

Lastly, I'll be the first to say that I'm far from an expert on any of this, so take what I say with a grain of salt. I'm just a rising M2; a lot of what I say is mostly informed by talking with my research mentors, who have a lot of experience helping med students get involved in productive projects that help them match to great places. Basically they've told me to be pretty merciless when choosing projects. If you're not very confident you can get something to publish out of it, don't do it. You're not a premed doing research to understand the scientific method, you're at a stage in your career where your time is limited and you need to focus on investing it in things that will allow you to show some sort of track record of productivity (abstracts/presentations/publications).

You didn't, I'm sorry. I misread what you said the first time and saw avoid anything involving a "surgery" instead of "survey."