3rd year research?

[Eagles6389]

Hi all,

I'm about to start my 3rd year clinical rotations, and I was wondering how previous 3rd year students went about getting research experience. Did you reach out to your preceptor about doing research and propose a research topic to them? Did you find a way to network with a doctor who was currently doing research in which you were able to hop on board? What kind of research did you do/recommend? I've heard a lot about how research publications can really help for applying to residencies, so any advice is highly appreciated.

I did do research between my 1st and 2nd year of medical school but did not get published and didn't really have any significant findings. So while this is better than no research experience at all, it doesn't hold much weight compared to those who got published.

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[doyouhaveaflag]

I was originally not planning to do research in 3rd year because of the hours, but I decided about half way through the year that I wanted to do a competitive specialty.

I met with the PD and the department chair of the specialty for some advising and asked at that time if they had any projects going on or knew who I should talk to. I ended up getting a project with each, but there was really only time to do smaller things (I wrote a case report and did chart review that led to a poster presentation).

I think it would be really difficult to do bench research third year, but others may disagree. Certainly, there are some rotations in which you would have time (psych, EM, and outpatient part of peds for me) but other rotations you might be there 80+ hours a week and have difficulty finding time even to study (IM and surgery for me). I think your best bets will be small things like chart reviews and case reports.

Another thing you can consider is to look up various people in the department of the specialty of interest to you and see who is most productive then ask them if there's a project you can hop onto.

 

[Eagles6389]

I was originally not planning to do research in 3rd year because of the hours, but I decided about half way through the year that I wanted to do a competitive specialty.

I met with the PD and the department chair of the specialty for some advising and asked at that time if they had any projects going on or knew who I should talk to. I ended up getting a project with each, but there was really only time to do smaller things (I wrote a case report and did chart review that led to a poster presentation).

I think it would be really difficult to do bench research third year, but others may disagree. Certainly, there are some rotations in which you would have time (psych, EM, and outpatient part of peds for me) but other rotations you might be there 80+ hours a week and have difficulty finding time even to study (IM and surgery for me). I think your best bets will be small things like chart reviews and case reports.

Another thing you can consider is to look up various people in the department of the specialty of interest to you and see who is most productive then ask them if there's a project you can hop onto.

When you say PD and department chair of the specialty, do you mean the PD at a certain hospital or where? I'm not sure where to go to look at various people in the department of a specialty. My medical school doesn't have certain advisors for each specialty either.

Yeah I highly doubt I would want to do bench work. My hope would be to do what you did, a case report or chart review that leads to a poster presentation.

 

[doyouhaveaflag]

When you say PD and department chair of the specialty, do you mean the PD at a certain hospital or where? I'm not sure where to go to look at various people in the department of a specialty. My medical school doesn't have certain advisors for each specialty either.

Yeah I highly doubt I would want to do bench work. My hope would be to do what you did, a case report or chart review that leads to a poster presentation.

Are you in a DO program? If so, it might be a bit different for you. At my school, we only rotate at one hospital (well, plus the VA) so that kinda narrows down who to talk to. The surgical subspecialty I'm going into only has five attendings at my hospital, so I got to know the residency program director (PD) and chair a bit in the OR before I went to meet with them, which made contacting them a bit less awkward. These are people you'll want to get to know anyway before you apply for residency, regardless of whether you do research with them. Many specialties require a letter from one or the other.

If you're rotating at several different hospitals, I'm in unfamiliar territory giving advice. However, I would think reaching out to people at the academic ones would be a good place to start. Some academic hospitals have a webpage for each attending where it says their training, particular interests, and recent publications. If you work with a particular attending that you like, you could google them and see if such a thing exists at their hospital and see what kinds of publications they're doing. Or you could just browse through the attendings in the specialty of your interest and see what people are up to. Then just send out some emails. (Btw, keep the emails very short - it increases likelihood they will be read).

If that type of publicly available info doesn't exist where you are, I don't think anyone would mind if you just asked around to see if anyone is working on a project you could get on or if they know of people you could contact. The PI I worked with M1 and M2 was someone I cold-emailed based on the recommendation of someone else who said this PIs interests aligned with mine.

Hope that's helpful!

 

[Eagles6389]

Are you in a DO program? If so, it might be a bit different for you. At my school, we only rotate at one hospital (well, plus the VA) so that kinda narrows down who to talk to. The surgical subspecialty I'm going into only has five attendings at my hospital, so I got to know the residency program director (PD) and chair a bit in the OR before I went to meet with them, which made contacting them a bit less awkward. These are people you'll want to get to know anyway before you apply for residency, regardless of whether you do research with them. Many specialties require a letter from one or the other.

If you're rotating at several different hospitals, I'm in unfamiliar territory giving advice. However, I would think reaching out to people at the academic ones would be a good place to start. Some academic hospitals have a webpage for each attending where it says their training, particular interests, and recent publications. If you work with a particular attending that you like, you could google them and see if such a thing exists at their hospital and see what kinds of publications they're doing. Or you could just browse through the attendings in the specialty of your interest and see what people are up to. Then just send out some emails. (Btw, keep the emails very short - it increases likelihood they will be read).

If that type of publicly available info doesn't exist where you are, I don't think anyone would mind if you just asked around to see if anyone is working on a project you could get on or if they know of people you could contact. The PI I worked with M1 and M2 was someone I cold-emailed based on the recommendation of someone else who said this PIs interests aligned with mine.

Hope that's helpful!

Very helpful. Thank you!

 

[ctsprospy]

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