Help with EM research ideas - Looking for guides.

[lucid_interval]

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I'm a medical student from a foreign county, looking into EM.

Just wondering how do I find research topics in EM to speak with an attending about.
Attendings in my hospital do not encourage any meetings about research unless you already have a solid plan and protocol prepared. And the resident's aren't very interested in research. And I can't seem to find any good worthwhile topic, however hard I search or read about.

Can someone suggest any ways in which I can find topics and questions to research in?

Or can someone PM me if you can guide me with a research question, so that I may work on it, and we can work towards formulating a question, and I can acknowledge your contributions with authorship.
I work in a tertiary care hospital with an efficient EMR system and management protocols, and I'm pretty sure, given a good question, I can easily find enough data for good retrospective studies or case series by working overtime.

 

[boomshaketheroom]

Think about a topic that you are interested in. Research it and see what unknowns, or controversies, or new research/procedures exist related to that topic and see if there is any way you can look into that.

 

[lucid_interval]

Think about a topic that you are interested in. Research it and see what unknowns, or controversies, or new research/procedures exist related to that topic and see if there is any way you can look into that.

Thanks for the reply.

can you suggest how i can read up about controversies, unknowns etc related to it?
Eg: if i am interested in snake bite, how do i find the above related to this topic?
Search pubmed by date for latest research in the field, and try if i can incorporate the same or a related question in my study?

sorry if i sound ignorant.

 

[gro2001]

Thanks for the reply.

can you suggest how i can read up about controversies, unknowns etc related to it?
Eg: if i am interested in snake bite, how do i find the above related to this topic?
Search pubmed by date for latest research in the field, and try if i can incorporate the same or a related question in my study?

sorry if i sound ignorant.

It's unfortunate that you are in this situation. As you are discovering, formulating the right research question is one of the harder things about research and one that requires good mentorship, which it sounds like your institution is unable to provide. There is no way around this however. You do need a good mentor. This is where I would recommend to start.

 

[lucid_interval]

It's unfortunate that you are in this situation. As you are discovering, formulating the right research question is one of the harder things about research and one that requires good mentorship, which it sounds like your institution is unable to provide. There is no way around this however. You do need a good mentor. This is where I would recommend to start.

Thanks for the reply. Do you think posting in online forums, and asking for mentorship, or research ideas is a realistic/feasible plan?

 

[gro2001]

Thanks for the reply. Do you think posting in online forums, and asking for mentorship, or research ideas is a realistic/feasible plan?

I don't think it is. You really do need an IRL mentor. Having a research idea is not enough. You need to be able to turn it into a question that is answerable with methods you have at your disposal, and that takes experience with research, knowledge of the literature in the field, and preferably experience with having conducted research at your institution. The idea has to somehow become a fleshed out research project. Unless you can do that by yourself, you need someone who is willing to meet you frequently to work on the many drafts that it will take. Based on my experience on both ends of that arrangement, I don't think it can be done purely via the internet. To be clear: on line collaboration is possible, but every successful example of this I've seen, either the mentor-mentee relationship has been well established offline and/or all of the people collaborating were not novices at research.

 

[lucid_interval]

I don't think it is. You really do need an IRL mentor. Having a research idea is not enough. You need to be able to turn it into a question that is answerable with methods you have at your disposal, and that takes experience with research, knowledge of the literature in the field, and preferably experience with having conducted research at your institution. The idea has to somehow become a fleshed out research project. Unless you can do that by yourself, you need someone who is willing to meet you frequently to work on the many drafts that it will take. Based on my experience on both ends of that arrangement, I don't think it can be done purely via the internet. To be clear: on line collaboration is possible, but every successful example of this I've seen, either the mentor-mentee relationship has been well established offline and/or all of the people collaborating were not novices at research.

Thanks a lot for the advice.