Tips for Summer Research

[Hiree44]

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I'm finishing up my first year at a NY med school. I got into a research project with a few other first years for this summer. The PI is an infectious disease doc (which is what we'll be focusing on), and needless to say he's kind of swamped right now. We decided to do a meta analysis, so we wouldn't have to go through the trouble of getting into a lab or hospital during the shutdown. However, I've never really done research before. We managed to scrap together a research question, but I don't think it will hold water. I was wondering if anyone has any tips for a med student doing research for the first time. How should I go about forming a good research question? What are the best resources/databases to use? Any advice would be welcome.

 

[Adjet]

Honestly, at your stage it's going to be difficult to devise your own research question without the experience to understand where knowledge gaps/questions remain in the field of interest. You also need a PI who will actually provide guidance and be responsive if you hit any roadblocks (for a meta-analysis for example, you will likely need a statistician). Unless you are able to meet with them and devise a research question, I would probably try to identify another mentor/project where you will be more supported and don't have to figure everything out yourselves.

 

[frenchyn]

I'm finishing up my first year at a NY med school. I got into a research project with a few other first years for this summer. The PI is an infectious disease doc (which is what we'll be focusing on), and needless to say he's kind of swamped right now. We decided to do a meta analysis, so we wouldn't have to go through the trouble of getting into a lab or hospital during the shutdown. However, I've never really done research before. We managed to scrap together a research question, but I don't think it will hold water. I was wondering if anyone has any tips for a med student doing research for the first time. How should I go about forming a good research question? What are the best resources/databases to use? Any advice would be welcome.

Agree. Unless you are super driven and motivated where you feel like you can do this whole project from data to stat to write up by yourself, this is muddy...remember he/she will still need to put in the time to edit...so that is another risk here...

 

[peachrings]

The research question is the most important part of doing research and the PI needs to be involved in this. To be able to ask relevant and novel questions requires lots of experience in the field. If you guys really want to do it yourself, at least make the research about COVID, given there is less known and less published so far.