do you call this shadowing?

[opensesame0]

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Hey all,
I'm working 3 days a week at my local hospital with a doctor there. 2 days/ week I'm shadowing in the clinic, and one day a week I'm doing research (well, idk if you would count going through old charts and putting complications into a database as research, but I am) for her.
When I apply to med school, from what I understand I have to check a box to say whether I did research, or shadowing.
How should I describe my experience? Count it as research?

 

[jvesco22]

From what you described, just count them separately.

2 days per week / Shadowing
1 day per week / Research

If, however, what you consider to be research is not in fact REAL research, then just count it as shadowing 3 days per week.

 

[JonathanMD]

Yeah, that's not research. I'd list it like this:

2 days/week Shadowing
1 day/week Volunteering

On a medical school application "research" is strictly scientific research. Gathering, organizing, analyzing, writing, or presenting data that will be (or is already) published in a scientific journal.

 

[Zoom-Zoom]

Hey all,
I'm working 3 days a week at my local hospital with a doctor there. 2 days/ week I'm shadowing in the clinic, and one day a week I'm doing research (well, idk if you would count going through old charts and putting complications into a database as research, but I am) for her.
When I apply to med school, from what I understand I have to check a box to say whether I did research, or shadowing.
How should I describe my experience? Count it as research?

Will the results in this database you're working on be used toward the publication of articles? Is that work funded by grants? If so, it's research. If it's just a database and nothing more, I agree with the above.

People here seem pretty hesitant to call things research but in general 1) schools don't really favor research more than any other volunteer work and 2) this is exactly the type of stuff a lot of med students do for "research" anyway.

 

[opensesame0]

The database is so the surgical department where I'm at can compare it's outcomes with surgical departments across the country in terms of mortality rates from different surgeries and complications. The data is collected from a bunch of places and then turned into a 100 pg publication of clinical guidelines.

Aside from the fact that I'm not writing the text of the guidelines and the fact that it's published as a book, I think a lot of doctors do clinical research in the way I'm doing it--going through old charts and recording data. I think the term they use is "retrospective chart review," and I've definitely seen the method all the time on pubmed.

 

[apumic]

The database is so the surgical department where I'm at can compare it's outcomes with surgical departments across the country in terms of mortality rates from different surgeries and complications. The data is collected from a bunch of places and then turned into a 100 pg publication of clinical guidelines.

Aside from the fact that I'm not writing the text of the guidelines and the fact that it's published as a book, I think a lot of doctors do clinical research in the way I'm doing it--going through old charts and recording data. I think the term they use is "retrospective chart review," and I've definitely seen the method all the time on pubmed.

hmm... I suppose you could call that research experience, but I'd definitely get something else on your CV in terms of clinical research. What you're describing is certainly a legitimate practice, but your role is more that of an office assistant than a research assistant. In most labs (academic or hospital), you would start in a role like that but there would be room to move up. This kind of sounds like you'd remain at the lab rat level your entire time there. The thing is that if you list a research experience on your application, you're most likely going to be asked about it by at least some interviewers and if all you can say is "we're comparing outcomes with other hospitals" but have nothing further to say about why you're comparing outcomes (i.e., you don't know the background literature at all), etc. it looks pretty bad for your research experience. I would, at minimum, make sure you fully understand what it is that's being researched and take a look at the literature on the topic, so that when an interviewer asks you to explain your research you sound like a trained scientist and not a trained chimpanzee!

 

[JonathanMD]

deleted

 

[Zoom-Zoom]

hmm... I suppose you could call that research experience, but I'd definitely get something else on your CV in terms of clinical research. What you're describing is certainly a legitimate practice, but your role is more that of an office assistant than a research assistant. In most labs (academic or hospital), you would start in a role like that but there would be room to move up. This kind of sounds like you'd remain at the lab rat level your entire time there. The thing is that if you list a research experience on your application, you're most likely going to be asked about it by at least some interviewers and if all you can say is "we're comparing outcomes with other hospitals" but have nothing further to say about why you're comparing outcomes (i.e., you don't know the background literature at all), etc. it looks pretty bad for your research experience. I would, at minimum, make sure you fully understand what it is that's being researched and take a look at the literature on the topic, so that when an interviewer asks you to explain your research you sound like a trained scientist and not a trained chimpanzee!

I agree with this. It is sort of a gray area, and it's actually pretty insignificant how you list this 1 hr/week commitment anyway. But, in general, I wouldn't call it research unless the data is used later for a publication in an academic journal....you know, like Nature, or NEJM, or "Journal of Retrospective Chart Reviews" 😉 You're right that it's probably the exact same thing a million people do for research, but in your case it happens to be more of an administrative role.

I'd go ahead and just count everything toward "shadowing." No need to break everything down neurotically into hourly responsibilities.