The Role of Research Methodology in Medical School?

[Shirafune]

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What is your take on the role of a research education as an undergrad in preparation for medical school? How about in medical school?

I've been reading some articles discussing the "endangered" physician scientist (MDs and MD/PhDs), all of which point to similar reasons:

1) Underemphasized research/basic sciences curriculum in medical school
2) Less crosstalk between biomedical research and clinical work
3) A slow growing NIH budget (increased relative competition that favors PhD holders) that intimidates prospective physician scientists from entering the field
4) Research is expensive and usually never yields a positive revenue

Articles:
http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/7/285/285fs17.full
http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.or...s_issues/articles/2010_05_28/caredit.a1000054

You can easily find more on PubMed and the like.

Anyways, I've noticed that many of peers don't take research seriously enough to understand the methodology of their work. To many of them, the bigger focus, or perhaps only focus, should be on clinical experience. I would have a hard time picking which is more important, but research technique certainly seems to be an underemphasized skill, at least at my UG institution.

Discuss?

 

[mmmcdowe]

Not all MDs want to do research, those who do should have access to undergraduate experiences to prepare them and this should continue in medical school as their literacy in the field increases. Part of the problem with doing legitimate, thoughtful research as an undergraduate is that there is often a steep learning curve before you are able to generate your own novel hypothesis and projects of a quality high enough to get published. I personally didn't get to that point until taking a research year during medical school.