Research opportunities for incoming MS1 interested in surgery

[futureczar]

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Hey guys,

I will be starting medical school in August and I was wondering what is the best place for research involvement for a ms1. I am potentially interested in a career within a surgical subspecialty, and do not care much for lab research. I was thinking of contacting the chairman of surgery at the school and asking him to direct me to faculty involved in research? Also, the school has a division of surgical sciences, which is involved with clinical trails within the hospital. Is this a good place to ask around?

Thanks for any and all help!

(and please no comments about not worrying about research until later, I am aware that schoolwork comes first 🙂)

 

[evilbooyaa]

Sounds like you've read a number of threads on this forum. This is what most people would recommend in going about specialty specific clinical research as a first year.

 

[Flamen04]

Finding research in medical school can be a lot like finding research in undergrad. However, instead of sending emails to random PIs, you send random emails to the doctors doing research in the field you're interested in. You can either find the head of the department online or search your school's website until you find something.

 

[pandoraone]

Chart reviews are what you should do, not clinical trials

 

[crafter24]

Chart reviews are what you should do, not clinical trials

can someone explain what is involved in doing chart reviews? i never knew this was an option for doing research. (i'm an incoming M1 as well)

 

[sevenmints]

1. Ask a question -- ie.. what is the rate of recurrence of papillary thyroid cancer following I131 treatment versus total thyrodectomy.

2. Find all thyroid cancer patients undergoing said treatments.

3. REVIEW CHARTS for demographic variables and post-operative variables.

4. Do statistics to answer question.

5. ???

6 Profit... umm I mean write paper.

 

[tiedyeddog]

In my experience, find an MD doing research. Often, they publish more often than their PhD counterparts. Usually translational papers aren't as time consuming (on average, not true for all). I latched onto an MD in surgery and my the end of MS2 I will have a clinical review and 2 basic research articles. Hopefully a 1st person basic research article by the end of 3rd year.

 

[tiedyeddog]

can someone explain what is involved in doing chart reviews? i never knew this was an option for doing research. (i'm an incoming M1 as well)

Basically, all the data is there in a database. Your job will be to use the database to comb for specific things and report on it.

 

[NickNaylor]

Basically, all the data is there in a database. Your job will be to use the database to comb for specific things and report on it.

AKA these projects are generally very simple but require lots of time and work. You know, the perfect kind of stuff for a med student to do!

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717

 

[JoshSt]

Hey guys,

I will be starting medical school in August and I was wondering what is the best place for research involvement for a ms1. I am potentially interested in a career within a surgical subspecialty, and do not care much for lab research. I was thinking of contacting the chairman of surgery at the school and asking him to direct me to faculty involved in research? Also, the school has a division of surgical sciences, which is involved with clinical trails within the hospital. Is this a good place to ask around?

Thanks for any and all help!

(and please no comments about not worrying about research until later, I am aware that schoolwork comes first 🙂)

If you know current students at the medical school you are going to attend, I would contact them and express your interest in research. They may know the ins and outs of which physicians/PhDs are good to do a publishable project with. If they do not know personally, they can probably easily find out via classmates and such.