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If you want to be a primary care physician why do you need research... wouldn't your time be better spent volunteering as an ER Tech or something?...
You're a doctor, it's important to have some firsthand knowledge of how that knowledge is generated. And maybe be able to participate in that process as well.
why would you think research NOT important? that is what makes no sense.
everyone knows that all medicine is EVIDENCE-BASED. that means every prescription, every treatment, every decision is made based on painstakingly and rigorously tested principles and concepts via... guess what? research! without research, all medicine would cease to exist. without research, we would be making aimless guesses at how to treat incomprehensible symptoms.
if you will just open an issue of JAMA you will see - drug trials, case reports, etc - why are these published? oh, maybe so doctors can read them? so if you're treating X disease you'll be like, well, in 2009, there was this study that said this awesome new drug Sunitinib is great for clear cell renal carcinoma and i think i should try this on my patient because blahblahblah reason - it had good outcomes and is PROVEN.
now, in a alternate world where research didnt exist, said doctor would be thinking, "well, i GUESS i can try this... i don't really know if it works (not having any research)..."
research is there so that as a medical professional you not only know how to treat disease ,but also how to think about disease, and how to advance the field of medicine through asking the right questions.
like i said, without research, medicine would cease to exist and progress.
A lot of modern medicine would be impossible without CT scanners, but we don't expect doctors to know how to build them. Research, like so many other things, is a big hurdle you get to jump through on the way to the M.D.
I'm going to go against the grain, here, and say that doing research is just another of those hoops med schools want you to jump through and, unless you want to do some research while you practice, is essentially useless to you. You'll get plenty of practice critically evaluating documents during your college courses, so there's no need to get knee-deep in a research project seeking that experience.
I find that the people who find research "useless" are the same people who complain that their volunteer experiences are "meaningless".
I for one love doing research.
IMO that's pretty much how this whole process goes. You do a bunch of crap you most likely otherwise wouldn't do, in order to build up a good resume. At times it just seems so formulaic. Shadow for XYZ hours, get a few years clinical experience, research with pubs if possible, leadership role, 30+ MCAT, blah blah blah.
I feel that most kids that get into med school are bright enough to read a paper and be able to tell whether or not it's full of BS or not.
It takes a lot of familiarity and practice to properly analyze a study. You don't necessarily have to have done research, but you can't jump in and critically evaluate a study without a lot of practice and guidance and knowledge.
It takes a lot of familiarity and practice to properly analyze a study. You don't necessarily have to have done research, but you can't jump in and critically evaluate a study without a lot of practice and guidance and knowledge.
that knowledge doesnt come from doing research in undergrad. at least not for the most part. i.e undergrad research still useless for those who doesn't intended to do it in their future career
and no one gives a **** about analyzing studies in med school save the few gunners of the class, you learn out of first aid. analyzing studies isn't important until residency and beyond
Are you forgetting that you may have to do research during your med school career?
Rationalize it all you want- the fact is, you need research in some form or another
Are you forgetting that you may have to do research during your med school career?
Rationalize it all you want- the fact is, you need research in some form or another
Also, I just made it up, but I'm trademarking 'research vomit'.
Ideally, physicians should get involved in at least a little bit of research. I honestly think it'd be hard to really critically analyze literature without going through that experience of developing a hypothesis, designing experiments, interpreting results, and communicating them to other scientists. It's completely different reading about science in a book and actually undertaking the scientific method yourself in the lab.
Critical reading of literature is not something you can just pick up after a stats/epidemiology class.