Medical education research aims to advance medical knowledge and skills by evaluating educational programs, policies, people, resources, culture, and students. Research helps build critical thinking skills, knowledge of academic literature, and connections in areas of interest. Involvement in research can strengthen residency applications and increase chances of interviews. While research is most important for competitive specialties, strong academic performance and clerkship evaluations are generally more significant factors than research alone. Research experience provides skills that are valuable for physicians, but should not detract from academic achievements.

1. Need of research in the field of
medical sciences
IRAM ANWAR

2. ROLE OF RESEARCH IN MEDICAL SCIENCES

3. Medical education research aims to advance the knowledge, skills, and
professionalism of medical students by understanding and evaluating educational
ecosystems.
These ecosystems include policies related to admissions and curriculum, people who
serve as teachers and mentors, instructional technology and other resources, the
attitudes that pervade a given institution or educational experience, and even the
students themselves. Ultimately, research in medical education is conducted to
: • address contemporary issues and questions in medical education
• design, evaluate, and supportcurricular innovations
• assess and reform the culture underlying medical education
Primarily, and perhaps most practically, research experience builds critical thinking
skills and fosters the ability to understand, synthesize, and apply academic literature
to patient care.
Secondarily, your research will help you build connections in areas of interest with
the potential to better understand - and add to - the knowledge of the field. Finally,
research experience can make the difference between having a strong or very strong
application.
When speaking with one OB/GYN program director, he mentioned “research is one
characteristic that strong candidates exhibit to garner more interviews. Try to get
some experience; the higher your overall rating, the better the chance for an
interview. Once you get your foot in the door, it further helps to promote and
distinguish your candidacy”. With the combined match and Single GME
Accreditation quickly approaching, research may become an increasingly important
part of a competitive application.
While the weight put on research experience varies by program director and the
specialty, broadly, 43% of Allopathic program directors cited “involvement and
interest in research” as a factor in selecting residents to interview, with a mean
importance score of 3.7/5. However, this ranged from 10%/3.3 in family medicine
to 83%/4.4 in radiation oncology1, with the importance of research roughly
correlating with the competitiveness of the specialty.

4. Interestingly, research tends to be more important in selecting which applicants to
interview, and less of a factor when ranking applicants. From this dissociation we
can see it is an important factor to differentiate you from the pile and get your foot
in the doorat programs where you otherwise may not have been considered.
While
Osteopathic programs historically put less emphasis on research activity, this will
likely be changing as the number of applicants increases with Single GME
accreditation. While research can be a great way to set your application apart, be
assured that strong academic and clerkship performance is far more important than
research involvement.
Your primary focus should always be on grades, board preparation, clerkship
performance, and strong letters ofrecommendation. Research ought to be something
that you enjoy doing and should not get in the way ofacademic achievement. As one

5. study from Academic Medicine noted in 2009, “Despite student perceptions that
research in medical schoolis an essential ingredient for a successful application to
residency, our findings indicate that research experience ranks low among selection
criteria when all specialties are grouped together.
The NRMP also found that research experience in medical school did not differ
significantly among U.S. seniors who matched in their specialties ofchoice and those
who did not. This was consistent across competitive and noncompetitive specialties.

6. Like privacy, health research has high value to society. It can provide important
information about disease trends and risk factors, outcomes of treatment or public
health interventions, functional abilities, patterns of care, and health care costs and
use. The different approaches to research provide complementary insights.
Clinical trials can provide important information about the efficacy and adverse
effects of medical interventions by controlling the variables that could impact the
results of the study, but feedback from real-world clinical experience is also crucial
for comparing and improving the use of drugs, vaccines, medical devices, and
diagnostics. Forexample, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of a drug
for a particular indication is based on a series of controlled clinical trials, often with
a few hundred to a few thousand patients, but after approval it may be used by
millions of people in many different contexts.
Therefore, tracking clinical experience with the drug is important for identifying
relatively rare adverse effects and for determining the effectiveness in different
populations or in various circumstances.
It is also vital to record and assess experience in clinical practice in order to develop
guidelines for best practices and to ensure high-quality patient care.
Collectively, these forms of health research have led to significant discoveries, the
development of new therapies, and a remarkable improvement in health care and
public health.
Economists have found that medical research can have an enormous impact on
human health and longevity, and that the resulting increased productivity of the
population contributes greatly to the national economy in addition to the individual
benefits of improved health. If the research enterprise is impeded, or if it is less
robust, important societal interests are affected.
The development of Herceptin as a treatment for breastcancer is a prime example of
the benefits of research using biological samples and patient records. Many other
examples of findings from medical records research have changed the practice of
medicine as well. Such research underlies the estimate that tens of thousands of
Americans die each year from medical errors in the hospital, and research has
provided valuable information for reducing these medical errors by implementing
health information technology, such as e-prescribing.

7. This type of research also has documented that disparities in health care and lack of
access to care in inner cities and rural areas result in poorer health outcomes.
Furthermore, medical records research has demonstrated that preventive services
(e.g., mammography) substantially reduce mortality and morbidity at reasonable
costs, and has established a causal link between the nursing shortage and patient
health outcomes by documenting that patients in hospitals with fewer registered
nurses are hospitalized longer and are more likely to suffer complications, such as
urinary tract infections and upper gastrointestinal bleeding.
These findings have all informed and influenced policy decisions at the national
level. As the use of electronic medical records increases, the pace of this form of
research is accelerating, and the opportunities to generate new knowledge aboutwhat
works in health care are expanding
Doing research during the medical years means that that student will have to take
sometime outfrom their course, making the already long 5 year course, even longer.

8. As it is extra time away from the course, it may be a financial burden, as it means
extra fees to pay.
It may also mean that they are detached from the medical course, which may require
readjusting to when returning to the medical course. Despite these negatives, doing
research still remains rewarding. Carrying out a research, while still a medical
student, provides an opportunity for them to study a discipline in which they are
interested in.
Research at an earlier stage, allows the student to think in a systematic way.
Research also enables student early exposure to ethics, which is an integral part of
medical research and practice.
Practicing medicine has now becomeevidence based. Therefore it is crucial that we
understand papers that are published and also understand the impact factor of those
papers. Carrying out research allows the student to critically analyse other studies
and hence, judge whether the papers have any clinical relevance. Statistical analysis

9. is a crucial part of doing research. It allows the student a chance to broaden their
medical statistical knowledge.
Research also helps enhance the IT skills as it requires the student to use various
statistical packages to analyse their results, carry out online literature searches, use
Microsoft Word to write up their project and use Power point to present the study to
various medical communities.
Research helps the student to develop characteristics such as self discipline,
commitment and determination in order to get a result in a short span of time, and to
write up the project. It gives the student a competitive edge over their fellow
colleagues, while applying for jobs, especially for those who want to pursue an
academic career. Not only does doing research look good in the CV, but it allows
them opportunities to publish and present papers on their study.
The research project helps develop life long skills that will be of assistance
throughout a medical career such as time management, IT skills, and understanding
ofstatistics, to name but a few. The medical world is ever-evolving and it is essential,
as a medical student, to keep up with these changes. By carrying a research work,
we as medical students, can contribute and make a difference, however small it may
be.
THANK YOU