Skip to main content

Research for USMLE


Hey guys! Hope everyone's doing well. Quite a few people messaged me inquiring for research, so i thought of making a post.

Long post ahead.

When doing research:
You can do research, regardless of being an undergrad or post grad, doesn't matter.
The earlier you start doing it, the better. You can approach any professor/senior or anyone u know is into research and start working on a publication.
Before you approach any researcher, its better to have ground knowledge of research. So that your able to make a good impact on the researcher and also for the reason that NO ONE is going to spoon feed you from the beginning. You have the internet at your fingertips, use it wisely.

There are various types of research. Ranging from:
  1. Meta Analysis (Greatest Value)
  2. Cohort ( " )
  3. Cross Sectional.
  4. Case Series.
  5. Case Control.
  6. Case Report.
  7. Editorial (Least Value)

First decide a topic you want to research on. Then do literature review (looking up articles of your selected topic on the net). Secondly you'll have to make a research proposal, that'll include, your rationale, aim, objective, target audience, methodology etc.The proposal is basically a summary of how you are going to conduct your research. The research proposal is necessary to obtain an ERC Certificate/Approval. Now whats an ERC? An ERC (Ethical Review Committee) is a board that goes through your research proposal and decides if the research is eligible enough to be granted an approval, so that the research may proceed forward. Without an ERC u cannot do research, as when u submit your research to a journal for publication, they'll ask u for the ERC approval document. Once you get your ERC approval, you can proceed with your research to completion.

When selecting a journal for publication:
Now when you're done with your research, you'll have to send it over to a journal for publication. You'll have to select the journal wisely. The journal needs to have some reliable indexing, such as, Google scholar, Cross ref, Scopus, Scimago, PubMed. The more the indexing, the greater is the authenticity of the journal. The value of a journal can be determined by its indexing (What ive mentioned above) and impact factor. Now whats an impact factor? The impact factor (IF) is a measure of the frequency with which the average article in a journal has been cited in a particular year. It is used to measure the importance or rank of a journal by calculating the times it's articles are cited. For example, if there's Journal A and people doing research take reference articles from journal A during their literature review. The more the articles cited from journal A, the more will be the impact factor/authenticity of journal A. Impact factor, in simple, is the rating of a journal.
Publication is often costly, specially when you're opting for high ranked journals. BUT you can also opt for journals that publish FREE OF COST, such as, InfezMed. The journals taking no publication fee, often tend to be more competitive, as they r taking no funds from you, so they want quality publications in their journal.
Some top ranked journals: BMC, BMJ, JMCR, LANCET, HINDAWI and the list goes on.

General Research Stuff you should know:

Here's ICMJE's guidelines for authors/Co Authors /researchers. Look up the link below: http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html

A brief overview of basic research terminologies: Look up the PDF below (Research Basics).

Regardless of whatever point you are, its alright. Better late than never. Get in touch with researchers/seniors around you and start working on a research. It doesn't matter if the article type or journal of publication aren't that high ranked. What matters is a research publication in an INDEXED journal. The more the merrier.

I may have missed out some points/details or mentioned something incorrectly, apologies in advance for that. If you find something incorrect, please correct me. This was a very brief overview of research, just to give u guys an idea how to go about it. I've mentioned stuff keeping in mind the questions asked from me and information that you might all benefit from.
No favors asked. Please remember me in your prayers!
Good Luck and well wishes to all
https://lookaside.fbsbx.com/file/Research%20Basics.pdf?token=AWwxqSRU1kzgFPnFHOfC5kilyKpzHRB3CPPVRYZySHWFu-RPJHwaIUM3oWFObN799V5GyhTmKnUkk9fvQnauYwUYgghwOeqHsehWGmtsJvf1CuSPCWIcp-_9wdthj0ZsrZ8mtZvXdWad1YYk14f-P2cggASJln5U4eyZtT-NxO8smQ

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

MY Step 2 CK Experience 284 Medhat Farwati

Dear (future) Doctors, I am Medhat Farwati, a Syrian graduate from Aleppo University, Faculty of Medicine. Hereby I share with you my experience with Step 2 CK. 1. Score: 284 2. Self-assessments: UWSA 1: 273 (2 months out) UWSA 2: 276 ( 1 week out) NBME 7: 277 (1 week out) NBME 8: 280 (3 days out) 3. Preparation time: After I was done with Step 1, I moved to the US as a postdoctoral research fellow. As such, I realized it is going to be challenging to navigate my research du ties, US rotations, Step 2 CS exam, and Step 2 CK preparation. Collectively, the actual preparation time for CK was 12 months with an average studying time ranging from 4 hours a day for the first 10 months to 8 hours a day for the last 2 months prior to my exam. 4. Materials used: UW Step 2 CK (x3) UW Step 3 (x2) Kaplan Q bank (x1) Internal Medicine Essentials Q bank De Virgilio (surgery textbook) Up to date and Medscape Google, YouTube, and Siri 😊 UW Step 2: Your baseline. Most people preparing for CK rega...
1 comment
Read more

Step 1- 255

Hello everyone, I didn’t get an extraordinary score or break any records, but I did relatively well in very little time. So, I am doing this write up because most people spend 9+ months prepping getting their 260+, have fully matured Anki decks or have a high baseline. To most of you out there without a year of planning ahead, trust me, it can be done. 70% of STEP1 is properly reading and reasoning with a few basic points of HIGH YIELD™ knowledge. It’s all about mindset. I used a minimalistic and barebones approach and basically crammed for my step 1 exam in 4 weeks. I DID “0”, ZERO memorizing. Use this guide as an idea of what can be done in very little time, if you have more time to play with then all the more power to you! Firstly, I’m an average to below average student. Crammed couple days before 90% of my school exams. Never used First Aid. My Pre-dedicated Baseline: Our school makes us take a CBSE, my correlated step 1 score was 200ish. Like 100 questions MAX complet...
Post a Comment
Read more

Step 1-- 259

Almighty has blessed with much more than I deserve and could ever imagine of (Alhamdulilah). I’m from Lahore, Pakistan and took my Step 1 exam on 24th April, 2019. Was battling with thoughts of writing this up or not, however, in the end I thought I owe my share to the beautiful people like you who are reading this & are probably going through toughest phase of their life. Important message: I once saw a post on a page asking a question along with mentioning that only 250+ should respond. This broke my heart. It’s not in ones hands to go beyond doing hard work for months and then choosing a step 1 score of 250+. For me, it’s the worse form of mentality with which one can go into prep or exam. Yes you can plan, aim and then work on it. But, what if you make a goal of seeking perfection instead? In every aspect, from Physio to path and biochem to biostats and so on, trying to master everything you could & set a target not to lose a single MCQ? I think you...
Post a Comment
Read more