Research during residency

[PeepsLove]

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Half way through intern year and I'm starting to think about the required research that I have to do before my time is up. I was wondering what kind of research other people are doing for their projects. I'm trying for something related to anesthesia somehow but I keep coming up with nothing. Maybe hearing some other ideas will get my mind (and hopefully others) rolling on possibilities. Thanks for the help.

 

[michigangirl]

are you interested in potentially going into the lab or are you set on a clinical project? Would help narrow it down.

 

[PeepsLove]

I would like to be in a lab but I know that there won't be any time for that so I'm going to have to do a clinical study of some sort.

 

[soma]

What is the timeline for this research? (end of residency?) Depending on where you train, some programs offer a research elective usually during CA3 for those interested in lab research. Otherwise, common things people have done at my institution include case reports, writing and submitting a research proposal and doing study (depending on time constraints), or helping out on an ongoing study.

 

[Orin]

Depending on where you train, some programs offer a research elective usually during CA3 for those interested in lab research.

The ACGME/ABA BOI says residents can to take up to 6 months straight in a traditional 1+3-year program, generally in the CA-3 year. If you want to be in a lab, why not try to figure out who/what you want to work with/on now, do some lab meetings here/there and read some papers to get some ideas, and then try to figure out a 3 to 6-month research project depending on what you can con you program director into. Depending on when y'all hit your case numbers and what their ideas about the purposes of residency are, you might be able to break that 6 months across the CA1 through CA3 years, but that might be silly in terms of productivity.

In terms of ideas, I would suggest perusing A&A or one of the smaller society journals to see what's being published. Pick up a copy and see what turns you on. They also often have RFA's from various folks looking for research on specific topics.

If you're more science-y or want even more cutting edge ideas, you might like looking at what if being funded by the NIH currently.

http://projectreporter.nih.gov
In the text search portion, type in "Anesthesia" or if you want to be fancy "Anesth%" to get things starting with that root.

That will bring up projects and you can peruse their abstracts and crap.
For example, here's a fun one looking at using anesthetics as a treatment for PTSD.
http://projectreporter.nih.gov/project_info_description.cfm?aid=8063540

Good luck.