Rad onc project

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CHILLMD

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Hi all,

I am a first year who is 90% sure I am going into rad onc. I knew i wanted to do cancer but had to decide between med onc and rad onc. This quater, I spend about 2-3 afternoons a week in our rad onc department working with the attendings and residents. I feel like for now at least, I have a good enough grasp of the specialty to make a decision.

I want to be able to do a quick study ( I have till june) that will yield a pulication or at least a poster. Can any body tell me where I can begin searching for ideas? I can of course search pubmed but i guess what I am asking is I see in the match thread that there are people who discover rad onc late and they are still able to get a pub or abtract or poster.

So what i want to know is what kind of studies are they doing and can a first year med student do them? That way I can narrow my search to such studies to begin to think up ideas of my own. I only have a couple of afternoons free and I already signed up for a basic science cancer project for the summer. If I can come with a good idea, the residents and attendings I work with will be happy to help me with it. Thank you all.

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The project I did in a relatively short amount of time (2 months, but could have been 1 month) was a dosimetry study. These can be "pure" dosimetry studies where you only report on doses to target volumes and surrounding structures with new techniques/equipment or they can incorporate patient toxicity, outcome data, etc. Mine only had to do with doses and thus was limited in scope and very doable. I am sure there are other ideas, but many of us med students do a dosimetry study to strengthen our application if we only have a short amount of time. From my interview experience this last year, this one study I am working on was at least enough to converse about a project and sound knowledgeable about rad onc. Of course, basic science pubs or a more substantial clinical project are always better. And I don't see any reason this could not be done as a first year student who has a basic understanding of rad onc.
 
I too did a dosimetry project that was very manageable. You can realistically crank something out along those lines in 1-2 months if you have to.
 
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