HHMI Med Fellows program now defunct...alternatives?

[Birdnals]

HHMI has unfortunately suspended their med fellows program. I've searched high and low in the past but haven't been able to find any other programs that provide funding for a year of research for a project designed by the student with a mentor of their choice. Does anyone know of any programs that allow for this? Is it possible to apply for a T32 grant as a student? All the funding programs I've seen require you to essentially jump on pre-existing projects, require you to pick a mentor from a limited pool of researchers, and/or relocate for a year.

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[TheKMan1]

HHMI has unfortunately suspended their med fellows program. I've searched high and low in the past but haven't been able to find any other programs that provide funding for a year of research for a project designed by the student with a mentor of their choice. Does anyone know of any programs that allow for this? Is it possible to apply for a T32 grant as a student? All the funding programs I've seen require you to essentially jump on pre-existing projects, require you to pick a mentor from a limited pool of researchers, and/or relocate for a year.

I did HHMI within the past few years. At the institution where I did my research there were MD students on T32. Also, depending on your field of interest, you can do a research fellowship through an academy grant or another private institution. Feel free to PM me with any questions. Also happy to discuss the merits of doing a research year, as it can be very valuable for some, and a complete waste of time for many.

 

[aafisahar]

Blessing in disguise.

Most research is junk science designed to further careers than answer a question. The vast, vast, vast majority of clinical research is garbage, doing nothing for patients but padding resumes. It's all poorly powered retrospective garbage that doesn't even generate a hypothesis because of all the limitations of the study.

Basic science is not exempt from this either. I'd say maybe 5% of research in a given field is truly impactful, the rest is tiny incremental movements designed to churn papers not advance the field.

Take research for what it really is. Foul medicine you have to take in order to further your career. I know several T32s who figured things out in their PGY8 year (in a nominal PGY6 field). The institution offered one an instructor`s position, essentially PGY7 pay plus a small bonus. She said f that and took a job in private practice for literally 4x the money for half the work.

 

[Oso]

Blessing in disguise.

Most research is junk science designed to further careers than answer a question. The vast, vast, vast majority of clinical research is garbage, doing nothing for patients but padding resumes. It's all poorly powered retrospective garbage that doesn't even generate a hypothesis because of all the limitations of the study.

Basic science is not exempt from this either. I'd say maybe 5% of research in a given field is truly impactful, the rest is tiny incremental movements designed to churn papers not advance the field.

Take research for what it really is. Foul medicine you have to take in order to further your career. I know several T32s who figured things out in their PGY8 year (in a nominal PGY6 field). The institution offered one an instructor`s position, essentially PGY7 pay plus a small bonus. She said f that and took a job in private practice for literally 4x the money for half the work.

........... you do realize that research is how we discover new **** and develop new drugs and treatment plans for patients, yeah? You do realize that medicine has changed a ton even in the past 10 years because of this research, mostly for the better, yeah?

 

[atomi]

........... you do realize that research is how we discover new **** and develop new drugs and treatment plans for patients, yeah? You do realize that medicine has changed a ton even in the past 10 years because of this research, mostly for the better, yeah?

No, he's correct. 99% of what's published out there is useless retrospective garbage that doesn't change practice and can actually do harm by making invalid conclusions and fills up the literature with junk making it harder to find the important stuff.

It is done entirely for C.V. padding to advance in academics. Residents are abused and made to waste their time going through charts. Huge amounts of resources are wasted attending conferences to present posters on this nonsense and paying outrageous publication fees, often to predatory journals.

Most of the really ground breaking stuff comes out of Europe or Asia. Pretty much any "research" in America is total junk unless it's coming from industry.

The academics know this but won't admit it. They have a chip on their shoulder. They get paid less and pretend they are devoting their lives to a more noble cause than the PP docs. Reality is, they are doing little if not harming science all for the sake of trying to win the whos-got-the-longest-CV popularity contest that is academics hoping to one day land a national leadership position. The bold ones will try to start an investigator-initiated trial, which are often based on questionable preclinical data and often extremely dangerous (either in terms of over treatment or undertreatment) because they are taking stupid risks with patients hoping they get lucky with a wacky experiment and can publish something with a snazzy title.

The whole system is a racket. But most everything in medicine is a racket these days due to the stupid amount of money the government blindly throws at it.

 

[Lnsean]

........... you do realize that research is how we discover new **** and develop new drugs and treatment plans for patients, yeah? You do realize that medicine has changed a ton even in the past 10 years because of this research, mostly for the better, yeah?

But that's just a very small percentage of the research being done these days. There's been an exponential increase in the number of garbage publications. That's his point. The majority of published literature is to pad resumes and increase count...to further careers and whatnot. It's part of the game and he admits that.

 

[Lnsean]

No, he's correct. 99% of what's published out there is useless retrospective garbage that doesn't change practice and can actually do harm by making invalid conclusions and fills up the literature with junk making it harder to find the important stuff.

It is done entirely for C.V. padding to advance in academics. Residents are abused and made to waste their time going through charts. Huge amounts of resources are wasted attending conferences to present posters on this nonsense and paying outrageous publication fees, often to predatory journals.

Most of the really ground breaking stuff comes out of Europe or Asia. Pretty much any "research" in America is total junk unless it's coming from industry.

The academics know this but won't admit it. They have a chip on their shoulder. They get paid less and pretend they are devoting their lives to a more noble cause than the PP docs. Reality is, they are doing little if not harming science all for the sake of trying to win the whos-got-the-longest-CV popularity contest that is academics hoping to one day land a national leadership position. The bold ones will try to start an investigator-initiated trial, which are often based on questionable preclinical data and often extremely dangerous (either in terms of over treatment or undertreatment) because they are taking stupid risks with patients hoping they get lucky with a wacky experiment and can publish something with a snazzy title.

The whole system is a racket. But most everything in medicine is a racket these days due to the stupid amount of money the government blindly throws at it.

I agree with your first point about the padding but most of the ground breaking stuff is definitely not coming from Europe or Asia. Asia has its own issues with plagiarism and authors that blatantly falsify study results...while still getting published. The bar is even lower for these other countries. I'd say the majority of quality research is profit driven by the pharmaceutical industry, and American companies and thus american healthcare consumers are shouldering the majority of the cost. It's the reason people in India can get Harvoni for 100$ a pill and Americans have to pay 40$k for it.

 

[TheKMan1]

Many good comments here. To any readers in the future, I would say this: I've done 4 years of basic / translational research including a full dedicated year as an hhmi fellow. It's true that 99% of research is BS. It's true that many researchers are in it for the wrong reason. It's also true that you could say similarly damning things about clinical medicine, the corporate world, or any other work setting. My hhmi year was extremely challenging and humbling. During it I would've said to anyone NOT to do a dedicated research year. Now, I can say that with the right attitude you can gain a lot from the year. Last two things - 1) If you're prone to jadedness, I can't imagine a worse environment than a competitive basic science research lab. 2) your experience will depend entirely on your PI and mentors in the lab, choose wisely.