Research

[prominence]

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General question: How does one go about learning how to do research, if they have never had any previous experience in doing it before?

any advice would be appreciated. thanks.

 

[Hurricane]

You just have to get in and do it. You can ask students who are already doing research to ask around and see if anyone they know wants to take on another student. Or there are summer research programs as well. Or sometimes your school will have a list of people looking for a student.

Are you an undergrad or a medical student?

 

[prominence]

Are you an undergrad or a medical student?

actually, i am a first year psychiatry resident, with absolutely no prior research experience whatsoever.

 

[Doc Samson]

Depends if you want to do research with a big "R" or a small "r".

Big "R" Research (meaning large RCTs that get published as original reports in the fancy journals) means hooking up with an attending (likely a full- or near full-time researcher) and working with them on their project, maybe adding a tiny related project that you can call your own on the back of their grant.

Small "r" research (meaning small clinical trials, case series, etc.) means figuring out a clinical question you want to write about, and finding an attending who'll help you figure out how to go about it.

Either way, the most important thing to do is to find a mentor in your department that can point you in the right direction. I found a senior researcher as a PGY-1 that I have never actually worked with, but he has hooked me up with a bunch of interesting projects.

 

[Hurricane]

actually, i am a first year psychiatry resident, with absolutely no prior research experience whatsoever.

In that case, I would ask your PD for suggestions for who to work with. Or maybe the research chair, depending on how accessible he/she is. The way to learn research is to hook up with a mentor and start doing it.

Are you interested in clinical work, lab work, imaging? If you're interested in more basic stuff, you might want to see if the psych department or graduate program has research seminars that you can attend, to get an idea of the kind of stuff/possible mentors that interest you.

 

[LM02]

Another option would be to check if your department has any NIH T32 research fellowships. If so, they should have a dedicated didactics series that you could probably sit in on... good luck!

 

[50960]

I agree with docsampson, and LMO2 completely. Big R and little r are quite different. Most people mean big R when they talk about research, but there is alot of good little r around as well, and you can learn about both R's by doing some little r. I have most enjoyed my little r research....post doctorally of course, as it was something I was very interested in. Good luck, and enjoy!! 🙂