Planning to do research during med school

[clownbabyMD]

I'll be an MS1 starting this August, and was wondering if anyone can offer some advice in regards to research while in med school. I have my main questions below.

Is it possible to do significant (publishable) lab research while in med school, without your life being study/research/eat/sleep?

How do you recommend finding research mentors?

Does it make sense to do research in a specialty that interests you early on, or rather to do something that is more general (like wound healing, cancer, or stem cell research)?

Also, just any general insights/things you learned along the way/regrets/good decisions made, would all be much appreciated. Thank guys!

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Frazier]

I'll be an MS1 starting this August, and was wondering if anyone can offer some advice in regards to research while in med school. I have my main questions below.

Is it possible to do significant (publishable) lab research while in med school, without your life being study/research/eat/sleep?

in b4 drizzt

 

[Kaputt]

1. Finding a mentor should be easy. It's understood that med students are great cheap labor for the PIs to put to work. Sometimes there is a faculty directory of PIs looking for students to work on projects, or you can just manually hunt for a lab in your area of interest.

2. Do what you like. In most fields (except derm--they want you doing derm research) any research is good research.

3. It's possible to start a great project in MS1, but expect to continue it into the summer. And that'll probably be all the time you'll have unless your school has research time in 3rd or 4th year. MS2 priorities are boards, boards, boards. Publications don't trump a big Step 1 score.

Be aware -- you will have to sacrifice study time to do research. You have to rank your priorities. MS1 you might be able to get away with it.

 

[Dr Love]

You can do research and study, but that is pretty much all you can do. Your studying will definitely suffer, which may or may not be worth it depending on what you want to do.

 

[Kaputt]

A good chunk of people take a year off between MS2 and 3 or MS3 and 4 and do research. It's a great option for someone who wants to do more substantial research.

 

[operaman]

Just finished first year and I found time to do some research, though mine was not a basic science sort of project. I'm actually using this summer to do some lab work since I don't have any background in research but think it's something I'd like to incorporate into my career.

I would imagine that bench research would have been very difficult to balance with study. The projects I did during first year definitely took away from my studies, but not significantly enough to matter due to the grading/ranking system at my school. Clinical research is much easier to do and actually finish a project. I was able to finish 2 last year and have 2-3 more lining up for second year. If any departments at your school have a good database, you could possibly churn out even more. If you really have no idea what field you're interested in, I'd look for the department with the best database and do something there since it will be fast and easy, relatively speaking.

I found my mentors simply by cold-calling faculty who were doing work that interested me and who were at a point in their career that they were truly interested in mentoring med students. Sometimes younger mentors are under a lot of pressure to publish themselves and may not be open to giving up first author even if you do the bulk of the work -- this is just something I was told but have never experienced.

If my school had labs working on things that truly interested me, I would definitely consider doing what I'm doing this summer during the year, although significantly scaled back time-wise. There are other benefits to clinical research though:

There is a significant networking component, especially if you're working in the field you ultimately want to practice. I've been able to meet most of the faculty and the chair and start building relationships before I'm under any real kind of scrutiny. Presenting my work at national meetings has also helped make connections with other institutions. Obviously these won't mean much if I bomb step 1 or my grades suck, but it certainly can't hurt assuming the rest of the package is in order.

Other ideas: if you can find projects that cross multiple specialties that's always a nice plus. It isn't hard to formulate good questions that draw from different disciplines, so this is a nice way to hedge your bet if you aren't settled on one field just yet.

Discuss authorship early on with your mentor. Invest your time in projects that will net you the most return.

Finding time is not too difficult but does require discipline and forethought. I do the bulk of my work after exams during those 1-2 weeks when things aren't so crazy yet and then scale back as the next exam nears. I would advise to focus on classes for the first couple months and see what it takes for you to score well and then adjust. Any mentor will tell you that grades/boards are far more important than research, so be smart about how you balance your time.

 

[TenderRender]

Hey Operaman or others, can you describe what clinical research involves mainly? Is it just database research and analysis, or does it ever involve collecting data on your own? I've only done basic science/bench research, so this'll be uncharted territory for me.

 

[operaman]

For me it was mostly database research and retrospective chart review stuff. These are generally easy once you have a decent sample and a good question. Obviously there are many other types of clinical research beyond this as well, but I found this kind of thing suits my level of experience and training (read: not much!) and is something from which I get solid 1st author pubs in my field.

Generally as a student, you won't be doing the collection/treatment part -- the attending or resident will do that. You will usually be consenting patients, analyzing data, biostats, and that sort of thing.

Best thing to do is start talking/email with attendings in the department you're interested in. Most of them will have projects/ideas that they have been thinking about doing/asking residents to do but nothing has been getting done. An ambitious med student willing to work hard, learn, and finish the project is always welcome. They also understand where you're coming from and what you need on your CV, so most are very amenable to feeding you work and giving you prominent authorship if you do the work.

 

[TenderRender]

For me it was mostly database research and retrospective chart review stuff. These are generally easy once you have a decent sample and a good question. Obviously there are many other types of clinical research beyond this as well, but I found this kind of thing suits my level of experience and training (read: not much!) and is something from which I get solid 1st author pubs in my field.

Generally as a student, you won't be doing the collection/treatment part -- the attending or resident will do that. You will usually be consenting patients, analyzing data, biostats, and that sort of thing.

Best thing to do is start talking/email with attendings in the department you're interested in. Most of them will have projects/ideas that they have been thinking about doing/asking residents to do but nothing has been getting done. An ambitious med student willing to work hard, learn, and finish the project is always welcome. They also understand where you're coming from and what you need on your CV, so most are very amenable to feeding you work and giving you prominent authorship if you do the work.

Thanks, much appreciated!