Research during path residency

[qualle]

I hear a lot of encouragement to do research during pathology residency, though often a source of funding and the feasibility of setting aside dedicated time (while being paid) is vague.

Do you folks think that doing research during residency is important? How important is it for getting a desired fellowship, and how important is for getting a job in private practice? I realize that it's important for academic jobs.

I have an M.D. from a good US medical school (no Ph.D.) and no long-term desire to run a research lab or significant ongoing research endeavor - I just want to practice pathology. I published a few co-author papers in decent journals before med school that involved animals, and laboratory benchwork with tissue and cell culture, and molecular biology. My questions are not how to go about doing research, but rather, if it is worth taking the time and effort to do during residency. Many thanks for your thoughts.

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[mlw03]

Depends on what your goals are. For more competitive surg path fellowships (derm and GI come to mind), I'm told it's darn near required. For less competitive stuff, maybe not.

In my program I was one of about 16 who basically refused to do any real research (I did path parts of clinical papers and got a few 4th authors things), because I was going into FP and no one cares if I looked at a bunch of brown stains, and knowing the market, I knew I'd find a solid fellowship without research. So for me, it wasn't worth it. But if your goals include a semi-competitive fellowship before going into practice, you'll probably have to find some project to get your hands on.

 

[pathbot]

Agree that to an extent it will depend on fellowship of choice. Still, I would not believe anyone who says you need 10 publications to get a dermpath spot...I landed a pretty competitive surg path subspecialty fellowship and I would say it was less about my publication or two but more about getting along with the right people.

I would encourage anyone to have at least one abstract/presentation at a national meeting during residency, just to show that you did something. However, if you are interested in mainly a clinical-based private or community practice type job with no research responsibility, don't stress yourself out. Residency is demanding enough just learning to become a competent diagnostician, and I would recommend using your time to get other types of leadership experience in the lab or certain national societies.

I have seen, too often, good residents get sucked into doing so much research that it becomes the priority of their residency, and their basic skills as a pathologist suffer as a result.

 

[KCShaw]

It's a recommended evil, but don't feel like you need to do basic science/benchwork or set aside a large amount of dedicated time. Merely having your name on a couple of things, presenting/postering once or twice at a national meeting, and that sort of thing should be generally sufficient for most programs in most subspecialties. Fellowship programs generally want to feel like they can waste your time doing some work for them too because they have an expectation to publish, and they figure they can more easily do that if you've done some work before. Unfortunately this system tends to draw interest *away* from research because folks get into it because they feel they *have* to (and thus get out of it ASAP), not always because they *want* to. Thankfully some do have a real interest or we'd be in a pickle, but still. You will almost never be provided dedicated time to do any of this, unless it's on a CP rotation and the rotation supervisor would rather you do a pet project than teach you something useful

I don't think it has any bearing on a private practice job. That crowd generally wants to know you can do a large amount of work in a short amount of time and at least put up a pleasant and professional facade while doing so. I've seen more than one otherwise quality pathologist struggle in private practice because they were used to spending large amounts of time on points of small value, and ended up basically living at the office trying to get through their cases.

 

[Patologika]

It's a recommended evil, but don't feel like you need to do basic science/benchwork or set aside a large amount of dedicated time. Merely having your name on a couple of things, presenting/postering once or twice at a national meeting, and that sort of thing should be generally sufficient for most programs in most subspecialties. Fellowship programs generally want to feel like they can waste your time doing some work for them too because they have an expectation to publish, and they figure they can more easily do that if you've done some work before. Unfortunately this system tends to draw interest *away* from research because folks get into it because they feel they *have* to (and thus get out of it ASAP), not always because they *want* to. Thankfully some do have a real interest or we'd be in a pickle, but still. You will almost never be provided dedicated time to do any of this, unless it's on a CP rotation and the rotation supervisor would rather you do a pet project than teach you something useful

I don't think it has any bearing on a private practice job. That crowd generally wants to know you can do a large amount of work in a short amount of time and at least put up a pleasant and professional facade while doing so. I've seen more than one otherwise quality pathologist struggle in private practice because they were used to spending large amounts of time on points of small value, and ended up basically living at the office trying to get through their cases.

Well said!, it couldn't have been summarized better.

 

[yaah]

Yeah when people talk about "research" during residency they aren't talking about getting your own grants and lab time. They are usually talking about translational-type projects where you do work for an attending working on something, or you take the lead on someone else's project. Some people do work in labs but not as many. If you manage to acquire your own grant funding and such you can probably write your own ticket to fellowship acquisition.

It is important for getting a fellowship though - it in a sense "proves" your commitment and interest to the specialty. It also gives you more insight into a specific disease or entity which can help you out. They like to see that stuff. It also helps teach you to think like an investigator and that can add a lot of things to your career in terms of the way you deal with difficult cases and daily practice. I did quite a few projects in residency and I learned a lot about how to work.

 

[Necromonger]

I hear a lot of encouragement to do research during pathology residency, though often a source of funding and the feasibility of setting aside dedicated time (while being paid) is vague.

Do you folks think that doing research during residency is important? How important is it for getting a desired fellowship, and how important is for getting a job in private practice? I realize that it's important for academic jobs.

I have an M.D. from a good US medical school (no Ph.D.) and no long-term desire to run a research lab or significant ongoing research endeavor - I just want to practice pathology. I published a few co-author papers in decent journals before med school that involved animals, and laboratory benchwork with tissue and cell culture, and molecular biology. My questions are not how to go about doing research, but rather, if it is worth taking the time and effort to do during residency. Many thanks for your thoughts.

It's helpful for fellowship, especially the competitive ones. All you really seem to need is a couple small IHC type of translational projects. These usually go like this: Some attending made an observation regarding a weird protein expression pattern and needs a resident to pull blocks and do other scut (that is you), you and them pick out dozens to maybe up to 100 cases, make some tissue microarrays (manually it costs nothing), stain them and send what you get as an abstract to USCAP. Network during the meeting (or meetings). That's how you get your job/fellowship/etc. While you are at it, publish a couple case reports as there should be worthy material lying around your department.

 

[mlw03]

It's helpful for fellowship, especially the competitive ones. All you really seem to need is a couple small IHC type of translational projects. These usually go like this: Some attending made an observation regarding a weird protein expression pattern and needs a resident to pull blocks and do other scut (that is you), you and them pick out dozens to maybe up to 100 cases, make some tissue microarrays (manually it costs nothing), stain them and send what you get as an abstract to USCAP. Network during the meeting (or meetings). That's how you get your job/fellowship/etc. While you are at it, publish a couple case reports as there should be worthy material lying around your department.

And this is why pathology "research" is sometimes a joke, in my opinion. How do these silly little projects advance the field? Patient care? They're research for the sake of research, to pad the CVs the the faculty and residents who do them. Does determining whether a tumour stains for DOG1 do anything for showing whether or not a pathologist 1) can make proper diagnoses 2) can get along with coworkers and clinicians or 3) have the common sense necessary to interact with the world? I say no, and if collectively residents would tell faculty "no, I'm not doing this project. it does not interest me" then maybe the expectation to do crap research would abate.