What's a good example of "research" experience?

[Rotinaj]

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Whenever people talk about applicable experience for admissions, volunteering comes up but also research pops up there a lot as well. Is it the kind of research where you work under a professor helping them collect data or is it say writing a personal 20 page research paper on the status of healthcare in America and submitting it for review? Or is it both?

Basically my question is this: what are some examples of the kinds of research you should perform and where do you start the process?

 

[lord_jeebus]

Working on any sort of project that has the potential to produce results that could be written up and submitted to an academic journal.

 

[rds726]

basically med schools just want to know that you know what the research world is like.
so anything that gives you exposure to what the real research environment is, should be good. getting your name on a few things is good too.

I got into it by just looking up professors' doing research during undergrad. I read up on their current work and emailed them to see if I could come into the lab.
hope this helps.

 

[Piyush]

Whenever people talk about applicable experience for admissions, volunteering comes up but also research pops up there a lot as well. Is it the kind of research where you work under a professor helping them collect data or is it say writing a personal 20 page research paper on the status of healthcare in America and submitting it for review? Or is it both?

Basically my question is this: what are some examples of the kinds of research you should perform and where do you start the process?

I would be more inclined to basic science, clinical or field research, where you go out into a lab or hospital or clinic or field and perform your experiments, make observations, or collect data. There are people who do history research for example, but most do research in a basic sciences lab or clinical research. Writing a personal statement of any number of pages is not research, but if it gets published somewhere, then you got a publication on your hand...it still wont be a research.

I hope that helps 🙂

Cheers
Piyush.

 

[LizzyM]

Working on any sort of project that has the potential to produce results that could be written up and submitted to an academic journal.

I like this nice broad definition. Testable hypothesis are always nice but I wouldn't rule out exploratory and qualitative research that does not begin with a hypothesis. There is research in the humanities (particularly history) that is legitimate research, too, although that takes place in libraries and archives for the most part, and not in a lab or clinic.

 

[CCLCMer]

I like this nice broad definition. Testable hypothesis are always nice but I wouldn't rule out exploratory and qualitative research that does not begin with a hypothesis. There is research in the humanities (particularly history) that is legitimate research, too, although that takes place in libraries and archives for the most part, and not in a lab or clinic.

Even history and other social science researchers test hypotheses though. They just look for evidence in a different place and use different methods (interviews, surveys, public records, etc.) to obtain evidence than science researchers do.

I think doing hypothesis-driven research is what differentiates a "serious" research student from just being a tech who rotely performs procedures but doesn't contribute much intellectually to the work. Rotinaj, it depends on what kind of research you want to do. Look for a prof at your school who is doing research that sounds interesting to you and ask if you can get involved. It doesn't matter what field you do research in. My program is one of the few MD schools that actually requires research experience from all the applicants, and we have some people who did research in physical sciences, engineering, computer modeling, history, ethics, and probably other things that I can't think of offhand. You don't have to do molecular bio lab stuff if you don't want to.