For med students

So read the below, and hopefully this helps give you context on: 

(1) how research fits into residency applications

(2) what research is... 

(3) ideal goal for med students...

(4) then (maybe) consider what will help you get to your goal - whether or not it's with us.

So think about your (time/effort) bandwidth including all above tasks, when you are deciding whether or not to "do research" and how many projects you can truly take on & do well on. (And, related to this - how many mentor(s) that might take to get you there - that regular communication & feedback takes a lot of time to build up!)

Sometimes, the above efforts are (possibly) synergistic - i.e. if you are doing a "Radiology Interest Group" in leadership and end up speaking at an event, that can count! Or expanding some special initiative you all did, as a brief abstract at a conference or even a paper. 

Which gets to #2 below... (skip next brief note on IR & IR/DR if it doesn't apply to you)

Special note for medical students applying IR (or IR/DR):
I'm not in IR, and it's a different beast (even more competitiveness).

A few quick thoughts about this:

• • • • IR is extremely competitive (at time of this writing, the Match rate is ~55%), so it is even more critical to think through/do the above.

      • You'll likely need at least one IR letter. And for a strong letter, you may want to collaborate with that mentor on something, whether that's an extracurricular event, or a longer-term (publishable) project. 

      • Consider focusing on developing IR research/mentorship connections first, rather than spreading yourself thin across both IR and DR projects (unless you [a] already have tons of IR publications/connections, or [b] are a budding physician-scientist with a lot of bandwidth and well-established research skills).  For some potential IR mentors, check out this same site's FAQ page.

(2) What is "research"? 

First and foremost, it's important to understand that medical research is a broad term. 

It doesn't just mean working in a wet lab with cell lines, pipetting chemical compounds, or other "traditional" labs you may have previously experienced. 

In medical training, research can encompass:

No/minimal statistical background

• Case reports and series: Sharing unique or educational clinical cases - did you see something on rounds that had imaging?

• Narrative reviews: Summarizing and analyzing existing research on a specific topic.

  • Policy: Investigate how local, state, or national legislative changes impact the (medical/radiology) field and your future practice.

  • Economics/Finance: Payment models affecting the practice and accessibility of (radiology) services.

Basic statistics & data collection

• • Medical education: Writing up an educational project/session you coordinated, or exploring methods to improve medical education, residency recruitment/interest, or other areas of trainee development.

• Quality improvement: Studying & implementing changes to enhance patient care processes & outcomes.

• Retrospective outcomes:  Analyzing existing patient data to evaluate the effectiveness of past treatments or interventions, identifying trends, and informing future clinical practices.

Advanced statistics, data science, or programming skills

• Artificial intelligence (AI) model development: Developing and training AI algorithms to enhance diagnostics, predict patient outcomes, or improve medical imaging analysis and workflow efficiency. 

• Meta-analysis and Systematic review: Summarizing results from existing studies to provide a comprehensive overview and stronger evidence on a specific topic.

  • Clinical trials: Participating in studies that test new treatments or interventions.

And many, many more types of projects - they all take variable amounts of time (and access to data/the EMR which not all med students have).
+Of course success also depends on your personal background, your time investment, & mentor availability.

This wide range means there's likely a type of research that aligns with your interests and fits into your schedule.

Conceptually, engaging in research exposes medical students to the effort, time, +blood/sweat/tears that it takes to advance medical science, one step at a time. 

*Note, the easier/faster a study is to do for "most" students, the more likely it is that similar projects may already exist, so be careful in doing a really, really good literature review so you don't end up spinning your wheels - and being unable to publish at the end of all that work. 

(3) Ideal goal

• Practicality: 

  • 1. Mentor: Find a good (radiology) mentor!!! Hopefully  this mentor is in your field of interest, but a great mentor can help guide you towards this choice if you haven't decided already). They can:

       • • Help guide your career decisions: A good mentor can help you navigate challenges and make informed decisions (including planning your career, ideally with tailored advice to your situation!).
           This can be a resident, attending, family friend, etc.

         • Provide opportunities: Introduce you to projects and networks within the (radiology or other specialty) community.

         • Important (my 2 cents): Often mentors can be anywhere, but personal opinion/tip is that specifically for a short-term medical student mentor who may write you an LOR to Match... I'd recommend making every attempt to try and establish a Primary Mentor at your own local institution (not externally), for a few reasons:

           • It's much easier to go a few blocks to knock on doors/drop by, and to build up rapport over time (so the potential future LOR is more personalized/longitudinal, especially if starting M1-M2 year or on busy M3 rotations). Even if their research interests are slightly outside of your own, you can hopefully find some overlapping interests generally in radiology & they may have wide networks to go to bat for you.

             • Establishes you as a "known entity" at your "home base" -- to help your chance of Matching, as you'll likely get to know more people within your home institution's Dept...(Contrast this with a solo 1:1 remote engagement, where you'll have to be very proactive to stay in touch with messages/emails to stay top-of-mind for the external Mentor to keep track of you.)

           • Streamlines IRB/paperwork...As often you won't be able to access patient data as an external student without a lot of hoops. And, if you need to travel to conferences, these local faculty can (mayyybe) support your paperwork/funding as an intra-institutional person.

           • If you find yourself in need of an external mentor because you can't get one at all locally, think carefully about this choice. As in, sit with prior students who may have Matched from your institution to ask what they did. 

             • Did they spend time establishing a network at conferences, or do clinically focused rotations - to build relationships first?

             • Did they do "scattershot" random projects (not recommended) versus ....having good projects with good mentors longitudinally, and have a project to "warmly" hand off to you? (great option)

             • What was their timeline? (An M3 trying to get 1 project in who has missed all the important deadlines, is fundamentally different from an M1 who has many years ahead).... Which gets to the next point.

    2. Time/Timeline

       • Best time for research?
         I'd say it's the latter half of M1 year into M2 year (hard stop prior to Step 1 dedicated period).
         But, if you decide on DR residency in M3-M4 year, there's still time to switch & do something meaningful.
         (Which circles back to #1, finding a good mentor.)

         • ***For M3's specifically:  ask your Mentor/and personally think carefully on if you actually have enough time to start/complete a project before your ERAS Match application is due.

           • For example: A great conference to attend is AAR; the deadline for abstracts for that conference is October, for the actual conference 5 months later (in March). Separately, the RSNA deadline is usually in May, and conference is in December.

       • +Be realistic about your time commitments.
         (Remember, don't let research overshadow your studies or clinical duties!!!)

For example:

If you think you need to do 10 research projects but end up failing Step 1, that's not a good trade-off. 

Or, if you have no coding experience but want to develop your own AI tool to cure cancer during your third-year clinical rotations, that's ambitious but probably unrealistic.

• Enthusiasm: If you decide to engage in research, choose projects that genuinely interest you.
  Passion drives productivity and leads to more meaningful experiences.

Now, this next part depends on what your background is:

Whatever field you choose to enter, a good goal is to try to submit at least 1 abstract, then if successful, convert that/publish at least 1 manuscript by the end of medical school (total 2 "publications" as that's 1 abstract &  1 manuscript), but this will look different for each person. 

Some people may explore additional projects or collaborate on other projects in teams, but not everyone has bandwidth for that.