baddreams55 said:
Pikachu, what are Retrospective clinical studies? I have never heard of them, but maybe that's because I haven't started first year yet.
It's a type of study where you look at patient outcomes that have already happened. For a really simple example, you could look at 50 patients who had appendectomies and see what kind of complications they had, whether the complications were related to age, sex, etc. As opposed to a prospective trial where you enroll people in the study, then follow what happens to them usually plus or minus a certain intervention or the presence of a certain variable. Prospective trials take a lot longer and as a med student are probably out of your reach for a variety of reasons. Finally you could do some actual lab work. It sounds like you're already planning this for the summer, which is good. It will be hard to keep up in a lab once you're actually taking med school classes, though.
About the research thing.......does the research have to be in your desired field (like derm or opthalmology?) cuz right now, I am doing a summer research fellowship at that primary care school on cancer-related helicases (good stuff, but not exactly derm or ophto). Not 100% sure, but it looks like I might get my name in the lab;s paper. But I won't be first author or anything, probably just 1 name out of 5 people. Do I have to be 1st author for it to be meaningful in residency matching?
Any name on any paper is good, although first author as a med student is certainly impressive to residency directors. I've heard that being in the first 3 authors is the best, since those are the ones who are mentioned in a standard citation. After 3rd, you get pushed into the "et al." department and your name doesn't show at all in a citation. However, your name would be on the actual paper and you can certainly cite this on your CV. Cancer-related helicases sounds good though, since basic cancer research can apply in almost every specialty.
Wouldn't first authorship be unlikely for a pure MD (not md/phd) that only does 8 wk stretches of research?
First authorship IS unlikely for lab work in med school unless you're an MD-PhD. I'm sure there are people out there who've done it, but it seems like it would be pretty hard. However, a first authorship is NOT out of your reach if you find a good mentor, most likely for a retrospective clinical study. It's easier to make time for chart review, etc. since you can just go and look through charts during your downtime then put it down, unlike most lab experiments. BEFORE you start any project, tell the person who is sponsoring the research that you want a first authorship for your work. A good research advisor should care enough about the student (and have enough publications themselves) that they won't insist on being first author on everything that comes out under their auspices. Stay away from any advisor who hedges on this. To get first author, you need to have put more work into the paper than anyone else. you would probably need to collect all or most of the data yourself, and be the main author of the draft. It's just a question of finding a manageable project (small-medium sample size) and a good advisor. If in the future you have a specific question about a project pm me. I've worked on several similar studies and so I have some idea about what kind of projects are realistic.
