How to approach research ~stuff~

Earlier this week, I presented some research at a conference for the first time, and I wanted to talk about how to approach research if you’re not interested in becoming a physician scientist. As background, I’m not a combined MD/PhD student- I’m only here for the MD and I don’t ever expect to have a lab of my own. That said, I still think research plays an important and unique role for those of us in medicine, whether we like it or not, so here’s my $.02 on research and mentors.

The most common question- how important is it really? 

I feel like people are sort of looking for an answer like “Do activities that you love, don’t do research if it’s not what you’re interested in” when they ask this question. On some level, that may be true, but I wouldn’t realistically recommend that to someone because it’s risky (but there are caveats to this).

For undergraduate students who will apply to medical school, I think it’s very helpful to have research experience. I’d be lying if I said anything else. Most students who successfully enter a US allopathic med school have research experience, even if they don’t have publications yet. Given how competitive the process is becoming, I almost see research experience as another box to check off, just like volunteer experience. In theory, it’s not a requirement, but since most students have the experience, you should too. Plenty of students get accepted to med school without research experience, but they likely have other things that make them extremely unique and memorable. Just be honest with yourself about whether you can pull that off as well. And remember that health policy or global health research also counts- it doesn’t ONLY have to be clinical or basic science research (but those are the most common).

For residency applicants, I think it’s expected that everyone has had research involvement. Again, that could be global health or health policy research if you’re not interested in clinical or basic science research. But overall, I think it’s very uncommon to apply to residency without ANY research experience, regardless of what medical school you are at.  In fact, I’m not sure it is realistically possible to get in to the more competitive residencies without significant research experience. Those programs ultimately want to produce physicians who are thought leaders. It makes sense that they’d focus on research. But again, what do I know? I’m only 2 years through and obviously I haven’t applied for residency yet.

Overall, I think that at a lot of the top institutions, there’s an expectation that if you want to be a physician, you embrace a role of being involved in knowledge production. There are so many other awesome careers available if your goal is just to take care of patients and make decisions about their health management (PA, Nurse Practitioner, etc.). The differentiating factor for doctors then, I think, is the ‘leadership’ role, and that most often plays out through knowledge production via research involvement, and it makes sense that institutions look for that quality in applicants at all levels.

How to reach out/find a mentor or research opportunity?

In terms of finding a research opportunity you are interested in, I think the way to go about it is to look at work that professors or faculty at your institution have already done, and try to find recent publications that they’ve put out. Chances are that they may be doing other work expanding on those publications. One of my readers recommended talking to older students about who they worked with or searching professors on PubMed or other databases to see which labs are productive. Either way, I think it’ll come down to searching up professors in the departments you are interested in and look at what work they’ve recently put out.

When it comes to contacting professors, as annoying as sending cold emails is, I don’t think there’s any way around this one. It’s great if you meet a research mentor naturally, or if someone you know introduces you to a potential mentor, obviously. And I think later on in our careers- once we’re in residency or practicing- that may be how it works. But as a pre-med or med student, reaching out over email is what I’ve seen to be most common.

When you initially reach out, I recommend sending a concise but specific email to a professor or PI introducing yourself and stating that you are interested in their work. Be specific about what you are interested in, but you can state that you are open to collaborating on other projects as well. Maybe state how much time per week or month you’d be interested in devoting to research. Ask to meet up, and work around their schedule. If they don’t reply (which is likely to happen), you may need to send follow up emails. Also, you should probably contact multiple PIs over the course of a few weeks or months, as things may not work out with the first person you contact. The process of finding the right person to work with can take up to a semester, so just start early. In undergrad, I feel like I had reached out to 10 people before finding someone who was willing to take on a student. In med school, I reached out to 2-3 people before finding the right PI.

How do you decide on a research topic?

I’m going to be honest here- when you’re in undergrad, you may have to take what you can get. I don’t love the idea of doing research in an area you aren’t interested in, but not everyone is 100% passionate about the first project they work on. It’s okay to get some experience wherever you can, and then try to focus on projects that are more interesting to you later on. This is especially true if you’re at an institution where there aren’t as many opportunities to get involved in research. In med school, that’s less likely to be the case since research opportunities are more plentiful. As we progress through med school, residency, etc., it seems like picking a niche and sticking to it may be the way to go. Being the expert in a specific area is valued more than having done a bunch of unconnected projects, from what I’ve seen.

Now, I’ll go into some of the more specific questions I’ve received.

How to know if a mentor is good or bad?

In the initial stages of finding a mentor and committing to a project, focus on three key things. How responsive is this person- do they take a week to reply to each email, or are they proactive about communication? This is one of the biggest complaints students have about mentors, so pay attention to this before you commit to working with them. The second thing is how much they care about your interests. Do they ask your opinions and make sure that you are interested in the projects they suggest you work on? If they don’t make an effort to find out what you are most interested in, that’s not a great sign. Third is personality and how well you guys interact. If you can laugh with your mentors and if you guys have good conversations, that makes all the difference, and will affect how much you enjoy your experience.

How to deal with unresponsive or otherwise not-so-great mentors?

Truly, I am lucky that I haven’t dealt with this much. The PI I work with at Yale is incredibly considerate, patient, and overall super fun. The people I worked with at Princeton were the same- I really enjoyed their company and they made me laugh a ton. I have dealt with mentors on smaller scale projects who are unresponsive to email, and I tried to just finish up whatever project I was doing with them but I never continued working with those individuals. Honestly, you can just email and follow up a couple times, but if someone doesn’t respond, you shouldn’t commit to more projects with them. Try to pop in to their office and casually ask if they had a chance to think about your email, but be normal about it and say something like “Oh, I know you are super busy, I just popped in to see if you had any thoughts on xyz, No worries if you need more time, but let me know!” That will at least nudge them to give you an answer and you won’t look crazy.

How to impress your research mentor?

HAHAHA I am not sure if I have ever done this. I try to just put my head down and get the work done and do whatever my mentors tell me to. That’s the only way that I think I can impress them. These people are experts in their fields and they know 500 times more than me. I’m not going to blow them away by my knowledge. Maybe in terms of creativity I could contribute something. But otherwise, I think you grow by putting in the hours, and I think that’s all mentors really want from us. If you do that, they’ll be happy.

How much of a time commitment is it? How to balance it?

I think it’s really helpful if you can devote one entire summer to research. I had done this in undergrad and also in med school. This gives you some uninterrupted time to focus on the project without worrying about classes. But besides that, I think it’s nice if you can block out about 5 hours per week to wrap up those projects during the academic year. Of course, it’s hard when classes or rotations get busy, but if you can put in that much time, I think you’ll make good progress. Since starting rotations, I haven’t put much time into research, and I feel slightly guilty but I also get home at 9 PM sometimes and I wake up at 5 AM, so there just aren’t enough hours in the day to do it. After this year, I hope to do a lot more. In undergrad, I used to spend a few hours a week in lab- sometimes I’d go in at 10 or 11 PM and just crank out some work, and I didn’t mind because I could do it on my own schedule. Anything with a flexible schedule will be easier to balance. Otherwise, I guess the answer is to take one less class or participate in one less activity. There’s only so many hours in a day.

Okay that’s all for now. There’s also the question of taking a year to do research, and that can be a whole other post. Anyways, have a nice Memorial Day Weekend friends!