EM and Research?

[docjolly]

Hi All!

I'm choosing EM as my field of choice when I graduate from medical school...

However, I'm very interested in the didactic aspect of medicine (as a side note, before entering med. school, I was a teacher for a few years. I loved my experience, and would like to continue teaching).

I'm not interested in doing research, per se. I'm just very interested teaching in an academic setting 30%), in addition to having patient responsibilities (70%).

For those of you who are either going to match, or currently residents/attendings, is it necessary for me to participate in an official research project as a resident? Should I be looking for EM residency programs with a year of research? Is there any way to be involved with didactics without doing research? I seem to be getting conflicting viewpoints from many of the matching 4th years at my school.


Thanks for your help!

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[Hard24Get]

Hello - I ought to match this year!

To answer your question, whether you have to do research during residency depends on the program. Every EM residency requires a "scholarly project", but at many places this is just a clinical write-up, etc.

Unlike many fields, you can do academics without doing research per se - although the more academic jobs may include publication requirements, there are people that research teaching methodology. There are also plenty of EDs that do teaching and no research (ie, community/academic EDs). So you can totally skate by residency and into a job without research.

That being said, a little research (even if it is just didactic) can pad your CV for an academic job, and there are medical education fellowships you can complete, as well. Many 4yr programs will allow you to "specialize" in something while you train, whereas many 3 yr programs leave you the option of pursuing that extra year of fellowhip training should you choose to do so. You can get more info on a career in academic EM at www.saem.org.

Hope that helps!

Hi All!

I'm choosing EM as my field of choice when I graduate from medical school...

However, I'm very interested in the didactic aspect of medicine (as a side note, before entering med. school, I was a teacher for a few years. I loved my experience, and would like to continue teaching).

I'm not interested in doing research, per se. I'm just very interested teaching in an academic setting 30%), in addition to having patient responsibilities (70%).

For those of you who are either going to match, or currently residents/attendings, is it necessary for me to participate in an official research project as a resident? Should I be looking for EM residency programs with a year of research? Is there any way to be involved with didactics without doing research? I seem to be getting conflicting viewpoints from many of the matching 4th years at my school.


Thanks for your help!

 

[iridesingltrack]

I'm only an M4 but, the EM program at my school has more faculty that have clinical/teaching focus than those that have clincial/research focus. In addition my university supports a separate promotion track for clinical teachers to decrease the requirement to publish, though publications are still utilized. Based on this I'd say, unless the academic EM world changes, you could take care of patients and teach without having to do substantial amounts of research. However, as Hard24Get said, a bit of research will only help you land an academic job, not to mention a residency position.

 

[roja]

Please, whatever you do, do NOT do research unless you like doing research. Or want to learn more about doing research. You will just put out bad research, which undermines our field as a whole.

there are MANY MANY MANY different ways into an academic position without doing research. What is important is that you are doing something OUTSIDE of the basics of residency: ie you are doing projects.

If you are really interested in education (we don't really call it didactics anymore) then I would suggest you do projects centered around this and when in residency get involved in these aspects: GME committees, curricula design, conference development, etc. You can also do research in education if you happen to be at one of the rare institutions where people know how to do educational research (it is based in qualitative research methods NOT quantitative). Get involved with organizations and with people that are interested in issues such as faculty and residency development.

 

[docjolly]

thanks hard24, iridesing, and roja for your replies