You are a cardiology trainee (or you want to be one) and you’re contemplating your future career development. You’ve just noticed that cardiology is on the competitive side, and you want to maximise your chances of getting ahead. You light on the idea that you might do some research, get some publications, and that this might stand you in good stead for the future. Well …
From the outside, it might seem that research is quite glamorous – flying to conferences in exotic places, wining and dining with the great and the good, delivering lectures to rapt audiences in large halls … sadly, the reality is quite different, particularly at an early stage in research.
How to win friends and influence people
Absolutely never assume that research is, in some way, an easy option and that you can just knock off an MD in your free time. If you ever give a potential supervisor the impression that this is what you are thinking, you’re very unlikely to be given a generous hearing. Everyone with a higher degree will bear the scars, and will take great pride in their achievement. To suggest that you think you can just breeze through in six months or so, may well be interpreted as breath-taking arrogance.
If you’re thinking of simply trying to get your name on a publication or two, then a different approach may be helpful. Do some research! Find out who is doing what project. Volunteer to help. Try to think through what the primary investigator is going to think about your involvement: can you really do something helpful? Are you genuinely helping to get data collected? Is what you are able to provide making a meaningful difference? Are you going to be involved through the duration of the project? If the answer to all three is anything other than ‘yes’, you cannot reasonably expect to be included as an author.
If you’re serious about doing original research and have a higher degree in mind, then you need to be prepared to take at least two years out-of-programme to work at it full-time. The trials and tribulations of getting research projects planned, funded and navigated through the seemingly endless tiers of approvals, can mean that even a simple non-interventional trial can easily take a year to set up.
The sheer repetitive drudgery of data collection at the coalface can be a challenge to even the most dedicated. However, if you’ve approached someone, persuaded them to supervise you and started a project, you have signed up to see the project through to completion – on no account should you abandon the project unfinished, or, worse, finished, but not written up, or unpublished. Your supervisor has agreed to support you on the condition that you complete; any patients involved have consented to go through trial proceedings (and may have placed themselves at risk); and an institution has agreed to sponsor your activities. Failure to complete will not go down well, and may even be unethical.
So, with all that in mind, if you’re still determined to go ahead, how can you maximise your chances? Just remember that pretty much everyone who does research is regularly approached by trainees wanting to ‘do some research’. Almost invariably, the trainee picks a time to suit themselves to approach a potential supervisor – at the end of a particularly trying ward round, or half-way through a clinic, or just before an important teleconference; the trainee will never have read a paper, will have no idea what their potential supervisor is interested in, and will have no idea what sort of research project might be appropriate… don’t be that person.
Getting taken on
Most importantly, be certain that the potential supervisor is someone you like – and preferably admire – and who likes you. You will be working closely with any supervisor, and it is vital you enjoy each other’s company. If that isn’t the case (on either side) then the experience will be, at best, unrewarding, and at worst…
Make an appointment
Don’t be the one who interrupts the boss’s post-ward-round chat with the nurses declaring that you’re in a hurry and can you talk about research. This would not be a technique recommended by Dale Carnegie. Remember that you are the supplicant – you are not doing the boss a favour. Most consultants still have a secretary: make an appointment and specify what the appointment is for. Don’t spring it as a surprise. Ask for half an hour or so.
Do some research
Find out what your supervisor is interested in. Look them up on PubMed. See what their last five to 10 publications were about, and what themes link them all. Read them. Find a present research fellow who works for that potential supervisor and find out what their experience has been like. Contemplate whether you might actually be prepared to do research in the relevant area yourself. For example, there is little more annoying than approaching a heart failure cardiologist and saying you’d like to do interventional research.
Generate some ideas
Do not be the person who expects to have everything laid out for them on a plate. If you’re going to do research, you’re going to have to demonstrate self-starting behaviours, so get in early and be armed with some ideas. They might not be great ideas; they might not be something that gets done; but you are demonstrating seriousness of purpose.
Think about timing
If you’re contemplating full-time research for a couple of years, you need to have a plan for it, preferably starting at least a year in advance. The biggest single challenge is getting yourself funded – grant application takes a long time, and decisions after submissions can require several cycles. Getting a research project off the ground realistically involves a year of set-up time: try and get as much of this out of the way before you start your funded research post.
And remember…
Doing research is richly rewarding. There is nothing like the frisson of discovery that comes from executing a well-planned study that moves the field forward, even very modestly. Don’t lose sight of the fact that neutral studies are every bit as interesting and important as the positive ones: you are adding to the sum of human knowledge and happiness. Good luck!
Conflicts of interest
None declared.
Funding
None.
