Research question

[spiridon]

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I am a 2nd year medical student and I contacted a lab regarding an interest in doing research. However, the professor who runs this lab told me that because of my medical school schedule I will not be able to do a project by myself but just hang around the lab and watch other people doing their projects. Will this be a good option for me and will this look good if I indicate it on my residency application?

 

[Adcadet]

I am a 2nd year medical student and I contacted a lab regarding an interest in doing research. However, the professor who runs this lab told me that because of my medical school schedule I will not be able to do a project by myself but just hang around the lab and watch other people doing their projects. Will this be a good option for me and will this look good if I indicate it on my residency application?

Sounds pretty ****ty to me. How would you list that on your residency application or CV? How would you explain that in interviews? Watching experiments is really very very boring unless you are personally invested in them, or if you just like watching paint dry (or ELISA's run, plates to grow out, etc). From what I've seen/heard/been told, you need to have a project that you can speak definitively about (you understand the background info, the need for such information, the study design the data analysis, the interpretation, the relevance to the field, etc) and preferably something you can publish/present on. Tell that prof thanks but not thanks, and find somebody who can give you your own project. It also seems like that prof may not be interested in investing any time/energy into helping you develop into a scientist and won't be useful for teaching you or writting LORs. And you tell us, what are you going to gain by just hanging out and watching?

I'm guessing you don't have much research experience. I suggest finding somebody who's willing to teach you and let you have a project of your own, even if it's pretty small and under the guidance of a larger project (and a more experienced grad student/post-doc/whoever).

 

[Jaded Soul]

If you're not going to do anything, it's not worth your time. Basic research is tough to do on a med student schedule. Try looking for clinical projects instead.

 

[azzarah]

sounds like a really bad deal to me too. I would instead ask a clinician if he has any case reports for you to write up or something....