Is clinical research really much better than basic science for the purpose of volume?

[sargon2123]

I feel like basic science is easier to get posters and talks from. Is this just as feasible with clinical?

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[ndafife]

False. It is way easier in clinical. Not even much of a debate.

I say this as someone who did basic science research my 1st 2 years of med school and during undergrad. I was really productive - multiple posters/publications - but after churning out a couple case reports on maybe 5-10 hrs of work maximum, it really puts the 15-20 hrs a week for close to 2 years in perspective.

 

[AnatomyGrey12]

Yeah clinical is like 10x easier than basic for getting high outcomes.

 

[afib123]

Debatable. I would say in most cases, yes but also not all the time. I had a friend who took up an offer to work in a basic science lab and got 4-5 publications in a year because her PI was just very prolific, had everything set up and all she had to was put in few hours a week for man power.

On the other hand, I turned down that offer and signed up to do a clinical project which I have to do all by myself and much harder to get publications out of.

Summary: get on projects which you will have good support from. Don't be like me and pick projects that you have to do all by yourself although I didn't really have a choice

 

[sargon2123]

I see. I’ll probably just keep options open and be choosy. I’m not gonna repeat undergrad where I whined and got upset for a while about not getting a paper. This time I’m gonna make my own luck

 

[ndafife]

I see. I’ll probably just keep options open and be choosy. I’m not gonna repeat undergrad where I whined and got upset for a while about not getting a paper. This time I’m gonna make my own luck

FWIW I wouldn't change anything I did. I enjoy basic science research and loved the project I had. Its just 90+% of the time its going to be a lot less work/time commitment for clinical research than basic science stuff

 

[sargon2123]

FWIW I wouldn't change anything I did. I enjoy basic science research and loved the project I had. Its just 90+% of the time its going to be a lot less work/time commitment for clinical research than basic science stuff

Seems all the more important for med school than undergrad then doesn’t it?

 

[aldol16]

Clinical research is much easier for papers, abstracts, posters, whatever. Mostly because a lot of the data is already there and all you have to do is 1) think up a good question and 2) analyze the data. With basic science, the hardest part is step 0: getting your experiments to work. But if you're talking about getting a New England Journal article as a med student, then I'd say that's just as hard as a basic science paper (if you can even do it at all). That's because NEJM typically publishes either very interesting and relevant case reports or really big clinical trials that the PhDs and epidemiologists have priority over.

But if you're content having papers in the smaller field-specific journals, then clinical research is much faster than basic research.