Difficulties finding research as a medical student

[CavsFan2016]

I'm an M3 and I recently decided that I wanted to go into diagnostic radiology. My school doesn't have a radiology program and I'm having a really difficult time finding ANY research opportunities available to me. How should I go about getting involved in diagnostic radiology research at a school without a radiology program?

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[watermelon master]

I'm an M3 and I recently decided that I wanted to go into diagnostic radiology. My school doesn't have a radiology program and I'm having a really difficult time finding ANY research opportunities available to me. How should I go about getting involved in diagnostic radiology research at a school without a radiology program?

I'm not sure if this is going to help you very much, but the only answer to your question, and it sounds like you might not want to hear it, is that you have to get in contact with a diagnostic radiology department that does research. Send out some emails.

Good luck

 

[CavsFan2016]

I'm not sure if this is going to help you very much, but the only answer to your question, and it sounds like you might not want to hear it, is that you have to get in contact with a diagnostic radiology department that does research. Send out some emails.

Good luck

At other schools? Alright I can try that, just wasn't sure how best to approach that as a medical student outside of their university.

 

[watermelon master]

At other schools? Alright I can try that, just wasn't sure how best to approach that as a medical student outside of their university.

Of course you can give it a try, what’s the worst that can happen?

Make sure to, of course, explain that you don’t have a home department and that’s why you are asking.

 

[Bonejorno]

At other schools? Alright I can try that, just wasn't sure how best to approach that as a medical student outside of their university.

Just explain your situation, tell them why you are interested in the type of studies they are doing, and ask if there are any opportunities for you.

One of my good friends who just matched neurosurgery did some remote research with people at Hopkins last year (we do have neurosurgery department, I think he was just really interested in what the PI at Hopkins was doing).

Also, worst case scenario, I think you could look into doing research in other fields (IM perhaps or, hell, join an ortho lab that does a lot of radiographic studies). May not be as interesting to talk about as radiology research during radiology interviews, but research is research. Plenty of people match into specialty x after only doing research in specialty y. Show them that you know how to carry out the scientific method and have experience with working on projects.

 

[CavsFan2016]

Sounds good, I appreciate all the advice everyone.

I think I may be able to find something at a university academic center an hour away, so that's promising!

 

[Dr G Oogle]

Does anyone in the department (sans residency program) do or is interested in mentoring you? Also other specialties do imaging research, for instance we are doing neuroimaging research in patients with OAB, pulm May be doing things with lung CT or screening lung CTs, etc. May want to explore that avenue

 

[SUP360]

Does your school have like interventional cardiology? They do a ton of diagnostic radiology---there was just a study that came out May 1 in Circulation about cardiac MR and its utility in distinguishing areas of infarction in NSTEMI.

I'm not sure where you are, but I'm in the midwest and I've gotten a couple of invites to radiology interest days at multiple universities. There was one in the fall in Chicago and one in the winter in Ann Arbor, plus my school had a Radiology career night...

I'd join the professional organization and get on the med student list-servs. A lot of these orgs have mentor arrangements.
Look up the Student Radiology Interest Group at the closest med schools to you, as well.

Also, when is their professional conference?? Go to that, network, meet people.

And definitely cold e-mail people. That's how I got on my current research study.

And---anyways---maybe your school doesn't have IR, but I'm sure there's a hospital near you that has one. You can never be too far away from an interventional radiologist. Just go shadow that person and then see where that takes you. At M3, you probably don't have time to start and complete anything ground brreaking, but I'm sure you could do a case report or a small retrospective cohort study............

Good luck! Bottom line: network.

 

[Philosopher Jagger]

Never discount things like book chapters, case reports, video presentations, etc. as research. They add inches to your CV just like any cohort or RCT would. I've never known anyone who would scoff at a student with 2-3 publications that weren't necessarily testing a hypothesis.

 

[CavsFan2016]

Never discount things like book chapters, case reports, video presentations, etc. as research. They add inches to your CV just like any cohort or RCT would. I've never known anyone who would scoff at a student with 2-3 publications that weren't necessarily testing a hypothesis.

What do you mean by "video presentations" and "book chapters"?

 

[CavsFan2016]

Does your school have like interventional cardiology? They do a ton of diagnostic radiology---there was just a study that came out May 1 in Circulation about cardiac MR and its utility in distinguishing areas of infarction in NSTEMI.

I'm not sure where you are, but I'm in the midwest and I've gotten a couple of invites to radiology interest days at multiple universities. There was one in the fall in Chicago and one in the winter in Ann Arbor, plus my school had a Radiology career night...

I'd join the professional organization and get on the med student list-servs. A lot of these orgs have mentor arrangements.
Look up the Student Radiology Interest Group at the closest med schools to you, as well.

Also, when is their professional conference?? Go to that, network, meet people.

And definitely cold e-mail people. That's how I got on my current research study.

And---anyways---maybe your school doesn't have IR, but I'm sure there's a hospital near you that has one. You can never be too far away from an interventional radiologist. Just go shadow that person and then see where that takes you. At M3, you probably don't have time to start and complete anything ground brreaking, but I'm sure you could do a case report or a small retrospective cohort study............

Good luck! Bottom line: network.

A lot of these sound like great ideas but I'm not sure what you mean by radiology interest days..can't seem to find anything like that at any of the universities in the surrounding area. If you could send me a link to what you mean, that would be super helpful!

 

[Philosopher Jagger]

What do you mean by "video presentations" and "book chapters"?

Things academic docs who belong to these big wig societies have to do to stay on as teaching faculty at researching institutions

Video presentations - surgical case reports often turned into an oral presentation with attached video that the presenter (a lucky medical student) gets to present at said big wig annual medical society meetings

Book chapters - self-explanatory, but lots of docs help write these especially if they sit on editorial boards for medical society journals. Students can hop on these so easily and all they have to do is literature review, a couple meetings with the doc, and write the thing up. Slam dunk publication

In general these types of things I'm bringing up, many students don't know exist as options. They are, as I said, slam dunk publications that quite often turn into first-author scenarios for the student. A very, very untapped resource for those seeking publications in medical school

 

[ooh a bean]

Things academic docs who belong to these big wig societies have to do to stay on as teaching faculty at researching institutions

Video presentations - surgical case reports often turned into an oral presentation with attached video that the presenter (a lucky medical student) gets to present at said big wig annual medical society meetings

Book chapters - self-explanatory, but lots of docs help write these especially if they sit on editorial boards for medical society journals. Students can hop on these so easily and all they have to do is literature review, a couple meetings with the doc, and write the thing up. Slam dunk publication

In general these types of things I'm bringing up, many students don't know exist as options. They are, as I said, slam dunk publications that quite often turn into first-author scenarios for the student. A very, very untapped resource for those seeking publications in medical school

How would you recommend hopping onto one of these if a student's school doesn't have a home program for the specialty they're interested in?

 

[kelminak]

@CavsFan2016 Hit me up when you find something, I'd love to hear how you went about it too since I'm in a similar position.

 

[7331poas]

Just explain your situation, tell them why you are interested in the type of studies they are doing, and ask if there are any opportunities for you.

One of my good friends who just matched neurosurgery did some remote research with people at Hopkins last year (we do have neurosurgery department, I think he was just really interested in what the PI at Hopkins was doing).

Also, worst case scenario, I think you could look into doing research in other fields (IM perhaps or, hell, join an ortho lab that does a lot of radiographic studies). May not be as interesting to talk about as radiology research during radiology interviews, but research is research. Plenty of people match into specialty x after only doing research in specialty y. Show them that you know how to carry out the scientific method and have experience with working on projects.

Did your friend need to do a research year by any chance? Or did they manage to match in 4 years.

 

[Bonejorno]

Did your friend need to do a research year by any chance? Or did they manage to match in 4 years.

He matched this year without a research year.