Is research always slow moving?

[Raygun77]

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Just want to know what the appeal is surrounding research. I'm two months into my research year and I feel like i have achieved nothing.

I started out being part of my supervisors pet 'PET scan for radiotherapy planning of GBMs' Pretty much using fused PET/MRI to contour out gross tumour volumes instead of MRI. Sounded great. Read up a lot on it- the experimental radionucleotide to be used, the biology and treatment of Glioma. I was looking forward getting into patient recruitment and data collection. A year later and ethics still has not even been sought. The project has gone through several big revisions because NO ONE can agree- was a 'fight' between the nuc physicians and rad oncologists as to which plan, the MRI or PET/MRI GTV, the patient should actually be treated on. Nuc doc pretty much said he wouldnt let his facilities be used unless patients were treated with the PET plan. That was the end of that- most of the sections had to be completely re-written.

Now since I need to produce a thesis I've shifted to a retrospective review. Looking at the pattern of failure of GBMs. Great, most of my literature review doesn't go to waste. But now a statistician is refusing to sign off on my protocol because the language is too hard to understand- they're a layperson. But the protocol has to be reviewed and accepted by a panel of RAD ONCS! It's a retrospective study!

So far my feel is that clinical research involves a lot of waiting around, inter-personal politics galore and literally having to wait for the stars to align for progress to occur. Sure it's important. But with all the red tape and dramas I'm wondering- how can anyone enjoy it?

 

[mattjd84]

Yes; Research has a tendency to be slow at times, which can be difficult. However, if you find the right people to work with the only thing that will limit your research is the amount of time you are willing to invest. It sounds like whatever your PI was working on was poorly defined and is not really up to him/her to get things moving (meaning things can be slowed by having too many middle men). You also cannot go in with a fairy tale attitude that you are going to change the world and become famous for it in a matter of a couple of years. You have to evaluate your options understanding the maturity of each project and what all a certain project will entail before you jump on the bandwagon only to find out that it wasn't what you thought it was. Even though novelty plays a vital role in science to bring about change, sometimes it makes it terribly unpredictable. I am the type that is always thinking about what I can do next. I have short-term goals for this week and I have an idea of what I want to have accomplished by the end of the month or the end of the semester. It doesn't mean I will actually get it all done, but I have a realistic goal of what I could accomplish even when things don't work the first time. This is crucial point. Sometimes students get the false impression about research that experiments work the first time most of time, and they don't want to have to optimize an experiment- they just want to move onto something new. It takes a long time for an idea initially conceived to be validated in-vitro, in-vivo and then clinically. This is why you need to be objective about the maturity of a project and how long it will take to get meaningful results at whatever stage of development it is. In your case, it sounds like what you were working on is in humans, but is investigational in that it does not have defined clinical parameters or criteria that decides a specific treatment or course of action is taken. Like a treatment algorithm of sorts. It will still end up being a fruitful experience, even if that means you know what to avoid next time. What are aspirations for this experience? Write a dissertation or get a couple of publications. Hang in there.

 

[Neuronix]

I'm two months into my research year and I feel like i have achieved nothing.

Your story is pretty typical and I've been wondering how people enjoy clincial research a lot myself.

The lesson to be learned for students who pass by this thread is, always make sure you are walking into a mature project. Make sure the project you work on is cleared for IRB at all the sites where it will be performed and is already in the data collection or processing stage. Do not be lulled by songs of easy IRB passage or just one more meeting with a department to get it going... Avoid this advice and you may spend the next year just trying to get the study going yourself--something a paid tech should be doing.

 

[Raygun77]

Thanks for the replies,

I've since been able to start a couple of retrospective reviews of patients. The process for getting ethics approval is thankfully much quicker. Still no progress at all for the prospective study. The head of the department and another doc is away in Europe...and they need to sign off on the protocols for it to go ahead to a statistician to do his thing.

You're absolutely right. Far too many middle-men. Research isn't always benefited by collaborations I'm now understanding. Multidisciplinary settings are both a boon and a curse...