Designing research

[Jonkst]

Does anyone have any advice on designing a research project? I'm a medical student, want to start doing some research, and have a ton of time, but am having some trouble figuring out what to do. I guess both me and my friends have worked in research, but typically we've been handed a project idea and then just run with it. This time, I'm trying to come up with my own research ideas and design the study myself, but I'm having trouble since I'm not as caught up on the state of research as the typical resident or attending. I've got a couple of ideas, but its difficult to design a question that hasn't already been looked into. Any ideas on where to start would be great

Thanks!

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[TheThroat]

I would talk to one of the residents at your school. When designing a study, you need to think about what type of study do you want to do: case review, retrospective review, prospective study, DBRCT....Then go from there.

 

[resxn]

1 - Ask an attending at your school

2 - Ask a resident if they started something they couldn't finish at your school

3 - Grab any of the supplements to the journal: Otolaryngology/Head & Neck Surgery, otherwise known as the white journal, that deals with an algorithm for treatment of a disease and/or a consensus statement. In those supplements the committee that writes it will usually list about 15 studies that need to be done to further clarify the disease and treatment for evidence based medicine purposes.

4 - pick a disease, read up on it. Ask yourself a question about it that's very generic. Like, "Why in the world do squamous cells so frequently degenerate into malignancy, but cardiac muscle never does?" Then answer it. Win a nobel in the process.

 

[aggernodi]

I applaud your initiative! I wish more medical students are like you!

It is tough to come up with a good research idea and to do things on your own without assistance given your lack of experience and not having been reading on the subject for as long as residents and attendings have.

BUT, basically, you have to read a ton on the subject area and than you will soon realize what areas are lacking. If you have a specific research idea and don't want to bounce it off someone, just do a pubmed lit search, read every article that comes up regarding your idea and READ READ READ!

Even if your specific research idea does not pan out, you may think of another idea.

Of course, if you ask an attending, you will get a quick yes or no on whether your idea is a good one or not and save you time...

Alternatively, feel free to post your research idea and the forum can let you know if it sounds good or not. BUT, you run the risk of letting all the other forum members know what your great ideas are!

 

[aggernodi]

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