Hello everyone...
I will be starting my intern year this upcoming july.
I have no research experience in my life, and would really like to get involved during internship. I would like to perhaps join a project, but feel I lack experience to contribute in any meaningful way.
Does anyone have any suggestions on how I could perhaps learn to do research?
thanks for your help!
There's not really an easy way to 'learn to do research' on your own. Most people do some combination of the theoretical (ie., by taking classes) and the practical (ie., by doing supervised research).
I'm not sure that I would really recommend getting involved with a research project at the very beginning of your intern year. As an intern, your primary responsibility is to sponge up clinical knowledge and follow your senior's instructions to keep your patients alive. If you have any discretionary time, one could argue that you should be spending it reading about your patients. (On the other hand, the structure of many specialty fellowship application cycles makes many interns feel like they have to start research right away. If you have to apply for cardiology fellowships at the beginning of your PGY2 medicine year, for example, that doesn't leave you very much time to get much done before your applications have to go in. Understandably such a resident would be anxious to get started right away.)
The extent to which you even have time to get involved with research as an intern will probably depend on what specialty you are in. It is hard enough as a medicine intern. Nearly next to impossible as a surgery or ob/gyn intern (depending on your program).
If you don't know how to do research but have some knowledge of statistics/econometrics, then your best bet is to join a project where the data are already collected. You can then just swoop in and do the analysis.
If you don't know how to do research and have no knowledge of statistics/econometrics, then your best bet is to join a project where you will be the data collecting monkey. During your intern year, I would recommend against any sort of lab work. The fact that you have to be physically in the lab to collect the data makes this impractical, because (assuming you don't have any elective time as an intern) with your hours you would basically have to do all your work after-hours. The most practical type of data collection to do would be some sort of project where you can do the data collection at home. Examples of such projects would be a chart review (if there is some way for you to access charts from home); a literature review or meta-analysis (if you can download, review, and evaluate articles from home); or a case report or case series (if there is some way for you to access charts from home and you can download, review, and evaluate articles from home).
-AT.
