The Director of Student Research (DSR) is a faculty member whose primary job is to prepare COM students to conduct research, to assist them in finding research opportunities, and to provide the support needed for the student to carry through and appropriately disseminate the research. The current Director of Student Research is Dr. Danielle Fastring.
Scholarship or "scholarly activities" for the physician is a broad term encompassing the traditional notions of research as well as other ways of contributing to the development and dissemination of medical knowledge. These can include case reports, CME and other workshop presentations, authorship of electronic articles reviewing current clinical practice and knowledge, e.g. Medscape, StatPearls, professional societies, patient advocacy organizations, etc.
Case reports or small case series of three or fewer individuals do not meet the federal definition of research which is to provide generalizable knowledge. Case reports are important for hypothesis generation and as teaching tools for clinical practice, and are an accessible form of scholarship for the practicing clinician.
Institutional Review Board approval is required for any research project involving human subjects or their records or biosamples. Students conducting research as part of a project at another institution will fall under the jurisdiction of the IRB for that institution. Students conducting research at WCU or in an external environment without an IRB will normally be covered by the WCU IRB. The Director of Student Research will provide appropriate guidance.
WCUCOM now has research elective rotations in both OMSIII and OMSIV. See the Research Elective Rotations page for details.
That is possible but difficult to do. If you have specific research ideas, work with the Director of Student Research to explore feasibility and get the needed resources.
There is a student travel award for students making research presentations. The application form can be found here .
Yes, see the Conference Poster page for details.
As your author affiliation while a medical student, you should always list William Carey University College of Osteopathic Medicine, Hattiesburg, MS. If you did research as part of a project at a remote site, you should also list that site as an additional affiliation. The senior author should be consulted for the appropriate language for the remote site.
The Director of Student Research, Dr. Danielle Fastring, is an experienced epidemiologist and can assist with all aspects of project development and analysis.
WCU does not provide general site licenses for research-related software. However, the WCUCOM is able to provide limited support on a case-by-case basis when a student project requires access to a particular database or similar resources.
For students that have exceptional opportunities for summer research after the OMS1 year the COM is able to provide a number of research fellowships to defray the costs associated with travel and subsistence. See the Summer Fellowship Application for details.
Journal publications and conference presentations are the primary criteria. Publications are more heavily weighted, particularly those articles published while a WCUCOM student. The same criteria are used for nomination for the AACOM National Student Researcher of the Year Award .
All journals have a "peer reviewer" system in which articles submitted to the journal are reviewed by both the full time editorial staff as well as selected experts in the field that the staff recruits for this purpose. Sometimes these expert peer reviewers are considered "associate editors" and sometimes they are not affiliated at all with the journal, but are recognized for their expertise in the field. Certain medical journals have an additional category called "student peer reviewer" which allows medical students to receive formal training as article reviewers and to actually participate in the official peer review process. This is an excellent way to get involved with the publication process, to keep up with current research in the field, and to build your professional network.
Many of the residents in the Forrest General and Merit Health Wesley residency programs are WCUCOM graduates. Our OMS3 students who are rotating in the Hattiesburg hubsite also occasionally are able to join a resident on a research project. We are working toward a more formal research relationship with the residencies both inside and outside of Hattiesburg but that is a long process.
WCU currently has a Memorandum of Understanding with NDORI concerning use of the WCU IRB and involvement of WCUCOM faculty and students in their research efforts. Talks are underway to increase involvement of WCUCOM students in NDORI diabetes projects throughout the state of Mississippi.
WCU maintains a Memorandum of Understanding with USM to facilitate research collaborations. Several WCU faculty were formerly at USM and maintain ongoing research relationships.
WCUCOM has made the strategic decision to promote research in the areas of public and community health, simulation and telehealth, medical education, disaster medicine, and lifestyle medicine approaches to chronic diseases. Laboratory-based biomedical research is not a priority for our mission of preparing primary care physicians, so to that end WCUCOM is in the process of converting the biomedical research laboratory space into educational and research space for anatomy and pathology projects.