How to get Research experience?

[Handsome88]

I have no research experience as of yet.

I'm very clueless about this subject as I went to a small campus in my undergrad and research opportunities were very limited. So excuse my ignorance.

I need help obtaining clinical (or lab, preferably clinical as I hear it is quicker) research experience:

1) What are the steps I have to take (Who do I contact, how do I ask them, do I need to have my own research Idea...etc?).
2) Do most students have their own research or do they assist a doctor with theirs and still put it on their CV as research?
3) Also, can you describe to me what it's like? Do you go around asking patients questions or handing out surveys to compile data? Do you get a lot of assistance/guidance or are you on your own?
4) How long is the commitment usually?


P.S. I'm an International student and would like to do research over the summer (I have ~2 months time) back in my country (Canada).

Thanks.

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[SamuMedic]

i basically didn't have any research exp at all before med school, but now i have one pub comming out and working on 2 research now, so i can give few words on this.
first, you should think about what field you want to go into. find doctors/phds working in that field and send them email. briefly describe your back ground, and tell them that you want to help out with anything. also attach your cv. then they will either ignore your cold turkey email or respond to it. depending on their response, you take action.

what you do varies on type of research you are involved in. sometimes you make surveys and mail it to people and write paper about it. other times, you look at charts and list different outcomes or try to find correlations between different factors. or mabye you may just write write write and edit edit edit. it really depends. but first thing, you should shoot emails

 

[Handsome88]

i basically didn't have any research exp at all before med school, but now i have one pub comming out and working on 2 research now, so i can give few words on this.
first, you should think about what field you want to go into. find doctors/phds working in that field and send them email. briefly describe your back ground, and tell them that you want to help out with anything. also attach your cv. then they will either ignore your cold turkey email or respond to it. depending on their response, you take action.

what you do varies on type of research you are involved in. sometimes you make surveys and mail it to people and write paper about it. other times, you look at charts and list different outcomes or try to find correlations between different factors. or mabye you may just write write write and edit edit edit. it really depends. but first thing, you should shoot emails

So I don't have to have my own research idea? I just e-mail random MD/Phd's in the department that I want to do research in?
Can you tell me how long your research took? Also, will I have help from the doctors or am I on my own...I really never did research so I don't want to look stupid lol.
Thanks for the help.

 

[Lil Mick]

E-mailing is a good way, especially if you have a specialty of interest (clinical department heads are good resources). Does your school have a student activity office/professional development office? At our school, we have a coordinator aware of good research opportunities and a counselor to help us with our career decisions (research/grades...).

 

[Handsome88]

E-mailing is a good way, especially if you have a specialty of interest (clinical department heads are good resources). Does your school have a student activity office/professional development office? At our school, we have a coordinator aware of good research opportunities and a counselor to help us with our career decisions (research/grades...).

To be honest, my school's department is not that helpful as I have contacted them and they actually discouraged me from doing any research believe it or not. As I mentioned above I am an international student and want to do research back in Canada. Do I e-mail departments in any local hospital?

Also I'd appreciate if anyone has any input about the other inquiries I posted above.

 

[SamuMedic]

So I don't have to have my own research idea? I just e-mail random MD/Phd's in the department that I want to do research in?
Can you tell me how long your research took? Also, will I have help from the doctors or am I on my own...I really never did research so I don't want to look stupid lol.
Thanks for the help.

You don't have to have your own research idea. a lot of times, doctors will have main idea and you will basically do the labor portion, like recording data and stuff. the first pub i had was case study, so it took like 4 months to go through writing, submitting to journal, etc. but other two real research that i am working now, they will probably take up my entire summer. but again, it really depends on research you do though. if you end up doing basic science (like sitting on a bench and running gel/pieptting all day), then the research probably won't be done in few years. and it will be hard to get publication until you graduate. clinical research though usually takes only few months... to write IRB,rev ewing charts, etc. so it might be a good idea to send emails to MDs first rather than Phds. yeah and docs will tell you what to do, i mean if you dont know what's going on, you can always ask them. they will understand, especially because they already know that you don't ahve previous research exp. you can also look at pubmed, find similar studies, and get a glimpse of what's goign on or familiarize yourself with terms, methods, etc.

also, i would advice you to do a research at your own med school than in canada. i know not being able to go home during sucks, but it would be a good idea to build a good relationship wtih one of your researchers so that when you are doing rotation later on, you already have familar faces and also you might be able to get a good letter later on for residency if he/she sees you as a hard worker. plus, i am not sure whether such research opportunities are widely available in canadian hospitals.