Taking on multiple research projects at once? (advice needed)

[Foot Fetish]

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I have a retrospective cohort study planned for this summer, which will likely result in a first author pub if I play my cards right. It will require a lot of work though since the PI has given me full reign of the project, which will involve a lot of time-consuming manual chart review (it's a 5-year study), not to mention the fact that I will be the one writing the paper in the end. I plan to devote a good 30+ hours per week to this. But I also feel pressured to get more research going so I can approach the astronomical # of pubs/abstracts/presentations that is considered average in my desired specialty. This would also effectively "hedge my bet" on the current project. So, I have a few questions:

1) Should I even pursue an additional project, or should I just focus on the current one?

2) If I do pursue a second project, should I do it with the same PI or a different one? Within my desired specialty or branch out?

3) If I pursue work with a different PI, should I inform my current PI, and if so, how? (If the research is within the same specialty, my PI would probably find out anyway).

4) What type of research would be most amenable to a "side project" i.e. something that won't be too time-consuming (ideally ~10 hours or less per week)? A case report would probably be ideal, but I'm under the impression that you don't typically write those unless you were directly involved in the patient's care. Is this right?

5) Is it OK if the research drags on into M2 year? I am aiming for a 260 on Step 1, and I think I'm the type who needs a very long and methodical study schedule to get there. Thus, I'm a bit wary of juggling research w/ board prep.


Any other advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

 

[Affiche]

Settle down.

 

[AcademicNeurosurgery]

I strongly believe it is a disservice to the scientific community to publish just for the sake of publishing.

That said, I understand that the medical school/residency application process can perpetuate poor science and the reality is research is becoming more and more important in the application process. My suggestion is to pick a project that you care about and that you think will make a meaningful contribution. Don't engage in extra case reports/worthless projects on the side just to "fluff" your application.

Quality >quantity every time.

 

[mcloaf]

I have a retrospective cohort study planned for this summer, which will likely result in a first author pub if I play my cards right. It will require a lot of work though since the PI has given me full reign of the project, which will involve a lot of time-consuming manual chart review (it's a 5-year study), not to mention the fact that I will be the one writing the paper in the end. I plan to devote a good 30+ hours per week to this. But I also feel pressured to get more research going so I can approach the astronomical # of pubs/abstracts/presentations that is considered average in my desired specialty. This would also effectively "hedge my bet" on the current project. So, I have a few questions:

1) Should I even pursue an additional project, or should I just focus on the current one?

Maybe? It is much better to work a little less over the summer and take one project to completion than it is to kill yourself to get too much done and end up delivering late, low-quality work on multiple projects. If you can reasonably do both then go for it.

2) If I do pursue a second project, should I do it with the same PI or a different one? Within my desired specialty or branch out?

If you like your PI and they can find additional work for you, that's probably ideal unless you have a particular reason to work with someone else. I assume this is about derm, why would you do non-derm research?

3) If I pursue work with a different PI, should I inform my current PI, and if so, how? (If the research is within the same specialty, my PI would probably find out anyway).

Unequivocally yes. Only bad things can come of not informing your current PI that you're getting involved in other work.

4) What type of research would be most amenable to a "side project" i.e. something that won't be too time-consuming (ideally ~10 hours or less per week)? A case report would probably be ideal, but I'm under the impression that you don't typically write those unless you were directly involved in the patient's care. Is this right?

Best case scenario would be coming up with some additional variables to fold into your current chart review and write an additional manuscript. A case report is low effort/time, but it's not really "research" and it can be hard to find places to publish them (this at least has been my experience, but it may be different in derm). Outside of that your least time consuming options are going to depend on doing something with a preexisting dataset, whether that's an institutional cohort your PI or someone in the department has, or something larger.

5) Is it OK if the research drags on into M2 year? I am aiming for a 260 on Step 1, and I think I'm the type who needs a very long and methodical study schedule to get there. Thus, I'm a bit wary of juggling research w/ board prep.

It's probably unavoidable that the two will overlap. People claim clinical research projects have turnaround times of a few months, but I think it's more accurate to plan on a year from initiation to publication if things go reasonably well. At a minimum you want to be sure you get the actual chart review portion done over the summer. Either way don't sacrifice your step studying for research.

Any other advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

As an aside since you say you're pretty much running the show on the chart review for this project, be sure you establish very clearly what variables you're collecting and how things will be defined. Don't put yourself in the situation of getting 3/4 of the way finished and realizing you want to add something else to the data.

 

[Goro]

Do one thing, and do it well.

I have a retrospective cohort study planned for this summer, which will likely result in a first author pub if I play my cards right. It will require a lot of work though since the PI has given me full reign of the project, which will involve a lot of time-consuming manual chart review (it's a 5-year study), not to mention the fact that I will be the one writing the paper in the end. I plan to devote a good 30+ hours per week to this. But I also feel pressured to get more research going so I can approach the astronomical # of pubs/abstracts/presentations that is considered average in my desired specialty. This would also effectively "hedge my bet" on the current project. So, I have a few questions:

1) Should I even pursue an additional project, or should I just focus on the current one?

2) If I do pursue a second project, should I do it with the same PI or a different one? Within my desired specialty or branch out?

3) If I pursue work with a different PI, should I inform my current PI, and if so, how? (If the research is within the same specialty, my PI would probably find out anyway).

4) What type of research would be most amenable to a "side project" i.e. something that won't be too time-consuming (ideally ~10 hours or less per week)? A case report would probably be ideal, but I'm under the impression that you don't typically write those unless you were directly involved in the patient's care. Is this right?

5) Is it OK if the research drags on into M2 year? I am aiming for a 260 on Step 1, and I think I'm the type who needs a very long and methodical study schedule to get there. Thus, I'm a bit wary of juggling research w/ board prep.


Any other advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

 

[Foot Fetish]

As an aside since you say you're pretty much running the show on the chart review for this project, be sure you establish very clearly what variables you're collecting and how things will be defined. Don't put yourself in the situation of getting 3/4 of the way finished and realizing you want to add something else to the data.

Thank you for that advice. I totally agree. We are going to submit the IRB proposal sometime this week. I'll make sure to double check all the variables and run them by my PI again before we commit to the protocol.

 

[Anti-PD1]

Echo about quality. And chill. It's nice outside, at least in the northeast.

PDs, people who run GME programs, PIs, academics, they all know how much a paper is worth.

I know people with 40+ pubs, which says a lot about work ethic. But you could convey a different but similarly weighted message with 5 quality pubs.

There are tons of databases out there. People running multivariate regressions who find that an increase in total operative time by 5 minutes increases your risk of readmission. They have a fancy p value of 0.0001 to boot. But a surgeon would tell you 5 minutes in the OR is neither here nor there. (Blame anesthesia 😉).

Go for quality. Always always ask yourself two things: does this help patients, and, is this novel.

 

[coldcase331]

How about trying to enjoy life a bit in medical school? If you keep pushing yourself this hard, burnout will be inevitable. Take care of yourself. Enjoy the sun, go out on some dates, God knows it only gets harder the deeper you go in


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[Dro133]

God knows it only gets harder the deeper you go in


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That's what she said...?

 

[coldcase331]

That's what she said...?

Well done, here's a cookie for your hard work


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[Dro133]

Well done, here's a cookie for your hard work

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Thanks, but I'm on a strict diet of (low-hanging) fruit.

 

[aalamruad]

How about trying to enjoy life a bit in medical school? If you keep pushing yourself this hard, burnout will be inevitable. Take care of yourself. Enjoy the sun, go out on some dates, God knows it only gets harder the deeper you go in


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It doesn't seem like OP is pushing himself that hard, really. 30 hours per week is nothing, and he really needs to step up his research productivity

 

[Foot Fetish]

It doesn't seem like OP is pushing himself that hard, really. 30 hours per week is nothing, and he really needs to step up his research productivity

Not sure if sarcastic or srs.

 

[aalamruad]

Not sure if sarcastic or srs.

srs. 30 hours per week during summer break? You'll be doing 90 hours per week in residency, so 30 hours really shouldn't be too intimidating at all unless you have a bunch of other time consuming obligations. 30 hours isn't even full time. You're the one who chose to pursue a research-heavy specialty, right?

 

[byaaaaaaah23]

Agree with above, don't spread yourself too thin. Seems like you're interested in derm. Board scores, and AOA to a lesser degree (as tons of people still match without AOA but IMO it helps greatly) will be what prevents your application from being screened out, so you need to make sure both of these things are on the right track before you get too deep into research. You can always take a year off between 3rd and 4th year if you are concerned about your research output at that time (and in my experience is definitely not necessary for matching, and you can still not match even after taking a research year, likely because of lack of AOA and poor board scores as above). Would highly recommend against starting a second project at this time since other things are more important right now. Do a great job on the first project, and then think about other projects.

 

[dempty]

Thank you for that advice. I totally agree. We are going to submit the IRB proposal sometime this week. I'll make sure to double check all the variables and run them by my PI again before we commit to the protocol.

Also be sure to specify an analysis plan and your hypothesis(es) before collecting data, and specify how issues will be handled (violated assumptions for test X will result in procedure Y). It's a rampant, incredibly misleading practice with a lot of research when researchers not to have decided on or stated an analysis plan ahead of time, subsequently allowing them to slice and dice the data as many ways as they want until they find something they find interesting or significant. This is incredibly bad practice and contributes heavily to the research crisis. The only real way this is acceptable is stating ahead of time that research is exploratory, stating in the paper all the analyses performed irrespective of significance, and that any potentially interesting findings are far from meaningful until proper research is done with this finding as the primary outcome (or stating clearly that a finding was significant but there's no real support for this from current literature, so it could be spurious). A basic understanding of probability and statistics should make it clear why this is important and how not doing it can cause misinformation.

The saying is something along the lines of, "Tortured data will say almost anything you want it to say."

 

[dempty]

There are tons of databases out there. People running multivariate regressions who find that an increase in total operative time by 5 minutes increases your risk of readmission. They have a fancy p value of 0.0001 to boot. But a surgeon would tell you 5 minutes in the OR is neither here nor there. (Blame anesthesia 😉).

Did you mean multivariate or multivariable? The former is multiple dependent variables while the latter is multiple independent variables 😀 ...I ask since I've yet to see a med student actually using a multivariate regression and frequently see the two confused in published papers

The databases and significant p-values are part of the general lack of understanding of the methods used to analyze them, which is what it seemed like you're getting at here. It's easy to get a moderate sample size with tons of variables from a database, which vastly increases the risk of significant but not practically important results (getting a large enough sample to detect a clinically unimportant effect size) and the overall risk of false discoveries (running tons of tests and making type I errors).

 

[flapjack3d]

Did you mean multivariate or multivariable? The former is multiple dependent variables while the latter is multiple independent variables 😀 ...I ask since I've yet to see a med student actually using a multivariate regression and frequently see the two confused in published papers

The databases and significant p-values are part of the general lack of understanding of the methods used to analyze them, which is what it seemed like you're getting at here. It's easy to get a moderate sample size with tons of variables from a database, which vastly increases the risk of significant but not practically important results (getting a large enough sample to detect a clinically unimportant effect size) and the overall risk of false discoveries (running tons of tests and making type I errors).

why are you talking about this here? did you just get out of your stats class?

 

[motu]

What's a "competitive" amount of publications? I figure quality of publication would be better than quantity...?

But hot damn, if 260+ and 500 publications (or 2-5) won't get someone where they want....

 

[dempty]

why are you talking about this here? did you just get out of your stats class?

I haven't been in a stats class in years, but that's kind of irrelevant. I brought it up because it's somewhat connected to another post. It's also a thread regarding a database-type project, so I thought it was relevant, at least in a general sense. Wouldn't you agree?

 

[mw18]

Keep in mind that the average research production on NRMP is divided between abstracts, presentations, case reports, and papers. So getting to around 12 (derm average in 2016) is more about maximizing a few situations and less about trying to get a million things going at once. That said, 30 hours a week on one thing and 10 or so on another, taking weekends off in summer between M1/2 is not a big deal. But seeing your first project through from a conference to a paper would be best.

 

[Mr Roboto]

Is there a causative relationship between neuroticism and the number of threads started about research per week? That might be a solid project to undertake 😉

 

[Lya]

Do one thing, and do it well.

Would highly recommend against starting a second project at this time since other things are more important right now. Do a great job on the first project, and then think about other projects.

Great advice.

Spend as much time as you can on this project and try to finish it this summer. Based on your work ethic and productivity, I'm sure your PI will notice and give you more projects later on.

 

[eteshoe]

I strongly believe it is a disservice to the scientific community to publish just for the sake of publishing.

That said, I understand that the medical school/residency application process can perpetuate poor science and the reality is research is becoming more and more important in the application process. My suggestion is to pick a project that you care about and that you think will make a meaningful contribution. Don't engage in extra case reports/worthless projects on the side just to "fluff" your application.

Quality >quantity every time.

Thank you

 

[Foot Fetish]

srs. 30 hours per week during summer break? You'll be doing 90 hours per week in residency, so 30 hours really shouldn't be too intimidating at all unless you have a bunch of other time consuming obligations. 30 hours isn't even full time. You're the one who chose to pursue a research-heavy specialty, right?

Hey, I'm not disagreeing with you. I am on the same page actually. It's just that my ambitious plans are often met with sarcasm or disapproval around here. FYI, the reason I was only budgeting 30 hours per week for the main project is because I plan on spending 6 hours/day studying for boards when I get home from research. Nothing too intense, just watching Pathoma and doing 150 new Brosencephalon Anki cards/day. Maybe some light reading of Robbins or Goljan to fill in the gaps...so there is another 36 hours/week. Plus, like I said, I am considering squeezing in a second project , which I would devote ~10 hours/week to. If I don't end up adding the second project, like many have suggested, then those ~10 hours will be added to the main project and/or board prep. I have no problem with working hard. In fact, that's my strong suit. I may not have the highest IQ in my class, but I definitely work the hardest, and so far it definitely shows in my class exam results.

 

[aalamruad]

Hey, I'm not disagreeing with you. I am on the same page actually. It's just that my ambitious plans are often met with sarcasm or disapproval around here. FYI, the reason I was only budgeting 30 hours per week for the main project is because I plan on spending 6 hours/day studying for boards when I get home from research. Nothing too intense, just watching Pathoma and doing 150 new Brosencephalon Anki cards/day. Maybe some light reading of Robbins or Goljan to fill in the gaps...so there is another 36 hours/week. Plus, like I said, I am hoping to squeeze in a second project , which I will devote ~10 hours/week to. I have no problem with working hard. In fact, that's my strong suit. I may not have the highest IQ in my class, but I definitely work the hardest, and so far it definitely shows in my class exam results.

Ah, I wasn't aware that you'll be studying for your boards too. If you're doing 30 hours of research and 36 hours of studying per week, it's probably not a good idea to pick up a side project because it'll likely lead to a lower-quality main project or less/worse studying. Just my very inexperienced $.02. Though if I were you, I'd probably take up the side project anyways even though it would probably be a bad idea haha.

Aren't you a first year by the way? Isn't it a bit early to be prepping for step 1?

 

[Foot Fetish]

Ah, I wasn't aware that you'll be studying for your boards too. If you're doing 30 hours of research and 36 hours of studying per week, it's probably not a good idea to pick up a side project because it'll likely lead to a lower-quality main project or less/worse studying. Just my very inexperienced $.02.

Aren't you a first year by the way? Isn't it a bit early to be prepping for step 1?

Yeah, I am leaning towards just focusing on the main project and making sure it ends up being super productive (poster, abstract, paper trifecta).

And yes, I am but a measly M1, but my motto is it's never too early to prepare. I don't believe in "burn out." Or rather, I believe I am immune to it. I have already started board studying btw. I started doing Bro's deck a week ago, and I already have a few hundred cards banked. There are 15,000 cards though, so I have a lot of work ahead of me this summer 😀 And to those who say that I won't retain anything this far out, that's nonsense, because that's the whole point of spaced repetition. I just regret not having started sooner. I should have been doing this since Day 1.

 

[Mr Roboto]

Yeah, I am leaning towards just focusing on the main project and making sure it ends up being super productive (poster, abstract, paper trifecta).

And yes, I am but a measly M1, but my motto is it's never too early to prepare. I don't believe in "burn out." Or rather, I believe I am immune to it. I have already started board studying btw. I started doing Bro's deck a week ago, and I already have a few hundred cards banked. There are 15,000 cards though, so I have a lot of work ahead of me this summer 😀 And to those who say that I won't retain anything this far out, that's nonsense, because that's the whole point of spaced repetition. I just regret not having started sooner. I should have been doing this since Day 1.

Dude I started Bro's deck last week too! Only working through the stuff we have covered in class, though, at about 200 cards a day. It's been cool to realize how much info I've retained. Think you'll keep with it or end up dropping it?

 

[FindMeOnTheLinks]

Just start on a 2nd project after you finish the first project. If you don't waste time, you should be able to finish the first project with a few weeks to spare in the summer. Then ask your mentor for another one, or ask if he/she knows anyone else in the department that needs a med student to help. Or maybe ask a resident if they need help with something (hint: residents ALWAYS welcome med students to be their chart review monkeys). The only reason you wouldn't be able to do more than one project is if you completely waste your time on the first one, or if you don't ask for a second one. It's not that hard

PS it's great that you're doing all the work on this one to get 1st author, but also be aware that as a med student, you should be trying to get your name on anything you can. So if somebody offers you to be the data monkey on a project that will only net you 2nd or 3rd author, you should take it. Don't hold out for trying to only get first author pubs if you don't already have something lined up.

PPS don't be afraid to do a bit of research during 2nd year. Work on it on the weekends, during fall break or winter break or whatever, or in the few days after exams. People on here will tell you that it's a terrible idea and that you'll screw your self over, but if you're smart it won't be a problem.

 

[aalamruad]

Just start on a 2nd project after you finish the first project. If you don't waste time, you should be able to finish the first project with a few weeks to spare in the summer. Then ask your mentor for another one, or ask if he/she knows anyone else in the department that needs a med student to help. Or maybe ask a resident if they need help with something (hint: residents ALWAYS welcome med students to be their chart review monkeys). The only reason you wouldn't be able to do more than one project is if you completely waste your time on the first one, or if you don't ask for a second one. It's not that hard

PS it's great that you're doing all the work on this one to get 1st author, but also be aware that as a med student, you should be trying to get your name on anything you can. So if somebody offers you to be the data monkey on a project that will only net you 2nd or 3rd author, you should take it. Don't hold out for trying to only get first author pubs if you don't already have something lined up.

PPS don't be afraid to do a bit of research during 2nd year. Work on it on the weekends, during fall break or winter break or whatever, or in the few days after exams. People on here will tell you that it's a terrible idea and that you'll screw your self over, but if you're smart it won't be a problem.

What does this usually entail, just data management/extraction/analysis? Any paper writing?

 

[dempty]

What does this usually entail, just data management/extraction/analysis? Any paper writing?

Sitting at a depressing, quiet computer terminal clicking through charts while the bright white screen burns a hole in your retina. It's not much different than a desk job, including the part where you don't know exactly what you're doing for awhile.

 

[FindMeOnTheLinks]

What does this usually entail, just data management/extraction/analysis? Any paper writing?

It depends but in my experience, residents are very busy and don't have the time to extract data from charts (the most time consuming part of retrospective clinical research). So they need somebody to extract the data and build the database for them - great job for med students. Maybe they'll let the med students do some writing, you just have to ask and see what they say.

 

[FindMeOnTheLinks]

Sitting at a depressing, quiet computer terminal clicking through charts while the bright white screen burns a hole in your retina. It's not much different than a desk job, including the part where you don't know exactly what you're doing for awhile.

good time to throw on some tunes and veg out. Or listen to Edward goljan's incredibly soothing voice