Conducting a Meta-analysis

[PL198]

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Anyone have any tips from previous experience? Don't want to get into the subject really, just things you learned along the process, or even common flaws you find in meta-analyses that you read.

 

[PL198]

bump, no one?

 

[evilbooyaa]

It's generally not something a medical student will initiate. I know quite a bit about most types of research, but even I don't really know how a meta-analysis is compiled.

 

[dadaddadaBATMAN]

It's generally not something a medical student will initiate. I know quite a bit about most types of research, but even I don't really know how a meta-analysis is compiled.

bump, no one?

I'm considering starting one, but I'm probably going to end up just doing a review article instead. Everything I read about them has the phrase "surprising amount of work" written in somewhere. If I didn't have the rest of the summer and protected time during the year I wouldn't even consider it, based on how other people describe it.

 

[VisionaryTics]

I'm considering starting one, but I'm probably going to end up just doing a review article instead. Everything I read about them has the phrase "surprising amount of work" written in somewhere. If I didn't have the rest of the summer and protected time during the year I wouldn't even consider it, based on how other people describe it.

I did one last year with no training and very little help. I read the book "Practical Meta-Analysis", read a couple online guides, and used Cochrane's RevMan to do the stats.

 

[dadaddadaBATMAN]

I did one last year with no training and very little help. I read the book "Practical Meta-Analysis", read a couple online guides, and used Cochrane's RevMan to do the stats.

I'm not sure if you would have kept track of this thing, but any idea how many hours/weeks you put into it?

 

[PL198]

Curious about the time as well. I have a very high level of stats knowledge, however I feel like the immense amount of organization would probably be the biggest time drain. What kind of recognition did you get for yours? End up presenting anywhere?

 

[VisionaryTics]

I'm not sure if you would have kept track of this thing, but any idea how many hours/weeks you put into it?

Spent probably a month digging through research on the topic and collecting pertinent papers. Then a faculty member talked through which pieces of data to collate for the systemic review/meta-analysis. Then I spent probably another month pulling data and analyzing it, then another month writing the paper.

I was mostly working on weekends/occasional weeknights. The hard part was managing the mountain of data I was collecting.

 

[VisionaryTics]

Curious about the time as well. I have a very high level of stats knowledge, however I feel like the immense amount of organization would probably be the biggest time drain. What kind of recognition did you get for yours? End up presenting anywhere?

The paper was accepted to a well-known subspecialty journal. I probably could've presented it at a conference beforehand, but I was also cognizant of the fact that I had zero publications in the field I was applying to. So I just talked it over with my faculty member and decided to submit it to a journal.

 

[PL198]

Thank you for all the information, that's more helpful than everything else I've read about actually doing one so far.