How to Get Research Experience?

In the residency application, your USMLE scores, USCE, research, volunteering, everything matters. Research experience and publications are one of the many ways to make your CV stand out from the crowd, improve the chances of residency, particularly for international medical graduates to outshine others. With all the barriers to take up research, there are still various ways you can do. Any research will help anywhere!

Your Medical School: Some medical schools/universities require students to form groups and conduct a scholarly activity. It may be a brief survey or a quality improvement project. If you plan it well from the beginning, those projects may yield oral/poster publications. If such activities are not in your curriculum, start exploring in your medical school if any clinicians/professors are doing research. You can approach any professor/senior or anyone you know who is into research and start working on a publication. If they are, I am sure they would love your volunteer time. They may expect you to have ground knowledge of how the research is taken up and conducted. Familiarize with the research methodology or journal publications before you approach them and get research experience. If you do not have anyone, start a research club and attract like minded people in your medical school. Together you can apply for some Govt. Research Scholarships (like ICMR in India) and that will be an addition to your CV. This can also help in your interview where you can state your leadership initiatives. Also, it may help future students to overcome some of their barriers to medical research.

Do Your Own Research: You are a physician. If a physician in the United States can do research, you too can! It may take some time but you will develop additional skills in a few weeks which will be with you for the rest of your life. First decide a topic you want to research followed by a thorough literature review. Then follow the pattern like, rationale, aim, objective, target audience, methodology etc. If you have a study partner or you go to the library to study USMLE, express your idea of researching. Tie up with them and form a research team. Remember, a small group of people can do wonders and research is not as difficult as USMLE!

Thesis During Home Country Residency: Many countries require medical residents to conduct a scholarly activity and defend their thesis. This is a great opportunity for you to get research experience. If you are doing residency, you will have co-residents, seniors and juniors who are also doing the scholarly activity. Ask them if you can help them publish the data in reputable journals. It will be surprising if they decline. If you are not in residency in your home country, you may want to contact your medical school classmates who are into residency training and offer help. It is likely to get around 10-12 publications by this approach.

Network From Home Country: There may be physicians in your home country who may be doing research or who may have connections with mentors or physician researchers in the USA. Try to connect with them by writing an impressive email. Such researchers will add you to some of their research activities, may be willing to collaborate with you in multinational/multi-centric study or to give you opportunities to participate in research abstracts and publications. Sometimes you may fail but remember, you have not failed in attempting. It is important to understand what your research mentors should know about you even before networking to make your networking effective.

Seniors in the US: There are social media groups and it is relatively easy to find seniors from your medical school, hometown, state who are currently doing residency or are attending physician in the US. They may have some research opportunities where they may need help. You may have some research (with publicly available de-identified database or meta analysis) projects in which they may bring their expertise. Together, you can do wonders.

Researchers in the United States: Researchers in the US always want volunteers to do research. If you are in the US, go to a nearby university or take a look at their website. Familiarize yourself about the research regulations and there may be several courses they may want you to take up. Once you are familiar with regulations, your mentors don’t have to micromanage your works. You will be able to make a good impact and they love when they don’t need to spoon-feed you.

Research Electives: There are physician scientists who train research skills, supervise and guide/train through research. They may do it for no cost or for a small fee. They may assist with question formation (based on your interests) to publication guidance. This option is good for someone who is naive to research. They will not help you from scratch but may spend their time and resources to contribute to literature reviews, systematic reviews and meta-analysis. There are some online research fellowships too which you can work from the comfort of your home in your home-country or when you are studying for USMLE. You will also save money in terms of travel, visa and accommodation in the United States.

During US Clinical Rotations: Often, there will be an interesting case or rare case diagnosed in the hospital where you rotate. Kick start a conversation with your attending physician and see if this is worth publishing. If he agrees, volunteer to write it up with a literature review. You will have access to the electronic medical records from which the pertinent information can be extracted. Library staff may help you find suitable literature. Publish! The hospital you rotate or an attending physician you rotate with may have some projects going on. If you step up and ask, your attending physician may provide you such an opportunity and help strengthen the bond. This opens up an avenue to get a strong letter of recommendation both from a clinical and research perspective.

Network in Medical Conferences: There is a huge networking opportunity in the professional conferences where researchers meet. There will be research teams presenting their research orally or by posters. Talk to them and connect. See if they are looking for additional help or collaboration. This can be done in your home country, virtual and in the United States.

Learn a Research Skill: For example, there are many clinicians in the US who can come up with a relevant clinical question but they aren’t familiar with bio-statistics. If you are a physician who understand the clinical relevance (which a lot of non-physician bio-statisticians do not) and are good at bio-statistician, you are an asset to any research team. You have something to offer. Capitalize it and be mutually beneficial in research efforts. This makes it easy to get research experience.

Look who has Research Grants: There are physician scientists who have huge grants which means they are actively researching! For instance, NIH funding. The details are available on the website. Download the data based on your area of interest and find their email addresses from their affiliated hospital/University website. These funded researchers usually have multiple publications in the past and you may find their contact information in PubMed. Write an impressive email to many people (based on your area of interest) and you may be surprised by a positive response!

MPH or MS Programs: There are graduate level programs in the United States which teach research. Enrolling in those programs will help you learn in a structured way. These graduate level programs are expensive. However, these programs will give you an opportunity to interact with research mentors in the University and have access to the patient database, library and bio-statisticians. Also, you are likely to meet like-minded international physicians in the program who may be more than willing to collaborate with you in research. These collaborations can yield multiple research publications, if you utilize the resources well. Graduate level programs may also help you in your clinical fellowship application.

Job Portals: There are several job portals online who advertise the research job opportunity. They are looking for researchers! See what their requirements are and email/apply, even if you exactly do not fit their requirements. Sometimes they are flexible and may give an opportunity to interview. Once you get into the job, you not only get paid but also get access to their team which may increase your research horizon.

Finally, research is important for residency. Go. Publish!