CALCULATINGinfinity - 14 April 2009 11:33 AM

When did you all start trying to get involved in small projects here and there? I imagine it would be extremely difficult to do once 3rd year rolls around..

Had no clinical research experience coming out of the PhD, probably not a big deal, but one of the neurosurgery faculty at my program felt it would be beneficial to be able to additionally demonstrate specific neurosurgery research activity. Ended up starting to get involved with 3 clinical projects during 3rd year:
1) I emailed the above faculty after attending a research meeting, asking about one of the projects. He helped get me hooked up with something else, though eventually the project flopped - what we had been hoping to see from patient samples didn’t pan out.
2) When on an interventional neuroradiology rotation, I volunteered to help a fellow with some data collection and analysis for an abstract that needed to be submitted that afternoon. Definitely the fastest I have ever become author on an abstract. I talked with the fellow more about interventional treatments for stroke, and after some lit review found actually that the published data was not strong, and that in fact no one at our institution had even retrospectively analyzed the data available from our institutions. I sat down with the databases and had a manuscript for a retrospective case control study drafted 2 weeks later.
3) Spoke with my chairman about “becoming involved” He suggested 3 projects, and after we chatted, decided on one, admittedly somewhat nebulous projects. I worked on this for some time, but being somewhat outside of my expertise in terms of analysis needed, progress was slow and guidance was not direct. Project is currently ongoing with the aid of additional personnel with supplemental skills. 

Studmuffin - 14 April 2009 06:24 PM

This is a logistical question.  I am a second year doing research at an institution 15-20mins from my home institution (specialized topic not offered at my school).  How do you continue doing research in third year if your time now becomes the hospital’s?  Any advice on that and what kind of commitment I should extend to the PI for next year?

Good question. Some people are excellent at multitasking and can maintain significant lab activities in addition to rotations (eg clinic by day, lab by night, etc). However, I would say most can not. To be safe, I would try to avoid much solid commitment to your PI, but if you have additional help in the lab (I still had 3 of my undergrad students working with me after I returned to clinic), and you are a good team leader, you actually can make some significant headway. Alternatively, if someone else can take over managing the project, you can assist by lending your unique skill set to the project - whatever works, so long as the project has the necessary push behind it. Realistic expectations, careful planning, extremely well trained students or co-workers and a lot of persistent follow-up and close monitoring/mentoring as needed can go a long way. Ultimately doing lab work at least somewhat via remote control is what the future holds for some of us, so if the circumstances are favorable in 3rd and 4th year, its a great time to try your hand at the process, and learn from your mistakes along the way if need be, including learning how many balls you can realistically juggle without coming unstuck or becoming too inefficient. I personally found that I was unable to do entire projects worth of bench work myself, but could provide a critical supplement to an existing core of labor and thereby continue to keep select projects moving forward.

functional_neurosurgery - 14 April 2009 03:50 PM

jb - 14 April 2009 01:02 PM

Most of the time, those emails go straight to the trash, if they haven’t at least heard of you from a colleague or resident.

this is nonsense - be persistent. neurosurgeons aren’t celebrities, with a (very) few exceptions. you could try not sounding like a total tool in your emails, and try to know something about what that surgeon has been up to in the lab

That’s what I was told by one of the academic neurosurgeons I’ve worked with, and I have no reason not to believe him.

I’ve also done my share of emailing people I don’t know at my own and other institutions.  If the email is coming from within the institution or some other .edu account, and involves an easily answered question demonstrating your interest (like, when is your major teaching conference and would I be welcome there? I’m interested in observing OR cases, who should I talk to and what day of the week is best?), it’s much more likely to be answered.  Once you get your foot in the door, lots of things can open up from there.

I’m trying to think what would sound toolish coming from a preclinical student, because it’s pointless just to tell people not to sound like a tool in their email.  The worst offenders generally have NO idea that that’s how they sound.

CALCULATINGinfinity - 14 April 2009 11:33 AM

When did you all start trying to get involved in small projects here and there? I imagine it would be extremely difficult to do once 3rd year rolls around. I also feel that approaching a random Neurosurgeon might be somewhat awkward. How do you get bridged in? Any first-hand experiences much appreciated.

May be difficult but not impossible. Although I can’t speak for any of the basic science gurus here, clinical papers (case reports, case series, reviews) are doable in third year. Winter break is a good two weeks to work on something. Lighter rotations (e.g., rotations other than medicine, surgery, ob/gyn) may provide some free evening or weekend time for you to work with residents and faculty on any projects that may be going on. It won’t be pretty since you’ll be forfeiting all your free spouse/friends/chill time, but it’s definitely more than doable.

galen - 15 April 2009 06:44 PM

It won’t be pretty since you’ll be forfeiting all your free spouse/friends/chill time, but it’s definitely more than doable.

This is definitely true. I would say my stress level so far in my career peaked around the end of 3rd year, trying to push some basic science projects to completion, make headway on multiple clinical projects, keep up with rotations, and then in the middle of it I suddenly found myself remodeling our bathroom, all of which kind of needed to be tied up at least somewhat before sub-I’s. Definitely was not pretty (not to mention the portable toilet and bucket baths in the basement!) I think I figured out the limit of how many things I can successfully(?) handle at once, and will probably work harder at delegating and saying “no” when needed to avoid pushing much beyond that point in the future. Nevertheless, I think it was a useful exercise (fortunately without a catastrophic affect on grades), and now the bathroom is by far the coolest room in our house