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All right. So let's get started. Hi, everyone. My name is no less Chatterjee and I am the lead for this intro did research series that mind the bleep er now running. So, thank you for joining us today. Um With me, I have, well, I'll give a bit of a background about myself. Um I'm a med student currently at ST George's University and I've previously done a phd and joining me today are Doctor Jesse July who's also completed his phd recently and we have Michelle many as well was just about to complete her phd and just to give you a brief overview of how this session will run. I'll first go through just the aims and objectives of the session and why it's important for people to learn about this and we'll do a quick mental meter quiz after just two and then one at the end of the webinar as well, just to have an idea of how much you've gauged and learned from the session. And throughout this point, feel free to ask questions or type questions in the chat and we'll have time to go through those at the end. Just so the flow of the presentation works a little bit better. Um And if you have, yeah, if you have any questions just put in the chan. So let's begin with the quick little learning objectives we have, which is just understanding how you go about applying for a master's or phd and what type of funding is available for a home in international students because it does vary. And yeah, I'm sure you already knew that because it's pretty much in the name of the webinar. And a lot of you might be wondering especially the med students here, why that's even important, why do you care about um applying for a phd or masses or even doing a postgraduate degree? And it's really because research is ubiquitous in medicine and you're going to need it at some point or the other, you can see a lot of my points, a specialty points. And although you shouldn't really think about it in these terms, um it is really important for specialty points and also for research as you go along in the future. During your medical career, there's many different points you can do that. So during medical school, you can intercollegiate for a BSC masters or even a phd uh if you want to go that far at that point, but you can also do it during clinical training. And a lot of the questions you asked before we started was to do with clinical training. So for that would be really good if you join the next webinar because that deals directly with doing a phd during clinical training where this is more about applying for it. So if we now just go and do a quick little mental meter quiz, let me just share that screen right now. Um I just have a look all righty. So if you guys just go to menti dot com and join using that link, once there's a few people joined in, we can, we can start the actual quit. It's very short. So I'll wait for some people if you have a mobile device. Um it would be much easier on that as well. So I'll give this a couple of minutes because I know it takes a bit of time to get it going. Okay. This at least means you can see my screen, which is always a good start, give it a couple more minutes to get a few more people in. So one thing important with the questions here is that all the answers will seem correct, but there's one answer which is more correct than the others. So have a go for those ones. It's completely fine if you don't know the answers right now because you're not meant to. Um And hopefully the one after we'll do a bit better. Okay. Just a few more people wait for them to join in and just um a warning right now, we may overrun slightly. So I'm really sorry about that in advance, but hopefully not by too much. Okay. We'll get started in a second and when the answer options show up on your screen, you'll have about 10 seconds to put in the right answer. Okay. So let's begin. Yeah, there's no time rush here. So have a go. Yeah, you're doing really well guys. Um, majority answer. So let's move on to the next one. You'll have a chance that we'll go through all of these throughout the presentation as well. So, don't worry if you didn't get that one right? Or any of the ones right now. Mhm. Okay. So we'll chat a little bit about that. Um So let's move on to the next one. Yeah. Good work guys. Well done. So now we can jump right in. I just show the slides again. So the person who's going to be talking about the masters slides is our very own. Michele Meng. So Michelle, if you want to run mute and we can begin. Okey dokey sounds good. So, in terms of applying for a master's degree, so for me personally, I did a master's in pharmacology. It was a one year master's and it was split between a taught aspect which is um uh dealt with using lectures and Practicals. And then the other half was a research project. So the first step that I would advise when thinking about doing a masters degree is whether you want to have a completely research focus masters, which will involve a nine month or so research project where you write up your thesis at the end of it or if you want a taught element to it as well. Um, there's a wide range of different masters, um, that do different types. Um, and the main ways that you can find the applications are usually through the university websites. And for me personally, I just went on find a master's dot com and then I searched up pharmacology and then I looked at the different ones that were available. And then um those took me to the university websites where I could find out more information about um the breakdown of the courses, how it's marked at the end of it. Um What sort of research groups are there? Um And who I could do the research project at the end with. Um So yeah, I would start looking very early. Um My applications I sent off around the January time and I started in um interviewing in January, February. So it is very early. So start making those applications the same time that you would when you're applying for your undergrad, I'd start looking around September time to see what you would want to apply to. Um It says to reply for as many as you want, but I would bear in mind that most of them if not all applications require you to pay a fee for your application. Um And that fee varies between different ones. So I think I maybe 50 to 80 lbs for one of my applications. Um So just bear that in mind when you're looking through which ones you want to apply for. Um Also you need to check your entry requirements. A lot of them will require that you have carried out a bachelor's or an undergraduate degree first before you apply to the masters. Um And also they will require academic references to usually 2 to 3. Um And it would be highly useful to have those coming from people with an academic background. So not a work experience sort of thing, more of a professional reference. Um And then the next step to applying is that you have to create a personal statement or a CV. And so this personal statement should be driven by your research goals and your research focus and what you want to get out of the masters. Um And also any relevant research experience that you have, that is what the personal statement should be focused on. Um and things that you've experienced and what you're interested and in terms of what sort of skills do you want to get out of the masters and why you're particularly interested in the topic that you've applied for? Two. Um It's always useful to mention any publications if you have any, whether it's a really small role or lead author role, um really put the emphasis on that as it shows that you've taken the lead in your own research and you know how to design your experiment and see where your research can fit into the field. Um and things like that. Um Also really important to look at the department where you'll be based and the different P I s and research groups that will be based in that department as the, as that's who you will be likely to carry out, carry out research project with um and see what their interests are and how they align with yours. Um And also yes, relevant extracurricular things. So, um whereas during an applying for an undergraduate degree, you might put more of a focus on things that are not directly related to science or research here. You want to keep that to an absolute minimum um and focused on your more of your academic achievements. Um Yeah, and finally, the interview. So uh for me, I can only speak personally from how my interview went, but it's very, very important to have a broad understanding of the fields that you're wanting to apply to um and read around different papers and things like that. So common questions will be which publication have you read within the last 10 years that you think has made the biggest impact in the field, for example, um and also criticizing relevant research that's been happening in the field. So it shows that you're aware of things that are happening recently. Um And how you would potentially make that research better. Um But as it says, here it is a conversation, they're not trying to test you or catch you out. They just want to know what your intentions are and how you're going to best fit into the degree um and into the course and what you would like to get out of it. Um So it's just good to do a lot of reading um in the literature. So you have a good understanding and you're not caught off guard. Yeah, thanks Michelle. And just to reiterate as well, it's not that you have to have huge amounts of research experience to go in to be able to do the masters. It's just you have to be enthusiastic and like we were saying, it's most important to have red around the field or the topic you're applying for because that's really what they look for in the interview as well because I know a lot of people were saying in the form that you filled in before that you don't know where to start and you don't think you might have as much research experience. That's not a problem. Okay. And just going back to the mentee quiz, we haven't, you wouldn't really include original ideas at this point because it is a master's degrees and the projects are a lot more structure. So that's why in point number three, you can see you talk about the, your interest in the research projects being offered during your course. Whereas original ideas are a bit more for phd and we'll talk about that um in the next couple of slides. So, yeah, put questions in the chat and I'll have a look at them later. So if we move on to apply for a phd degree, that's, it's quite a bit of a step up in terms of difficulty. I know a lot of people didn't said in the form they didn't know what to expect and how much effort it took. It is a lot more. It is three years, 3 to 4 years of your life of doing mostly research. Um but applying for it is not actually that different from the masters. So again, you should start as early as possible because um people are applying throughout the year for phds rather than masters, which can have a deadline even though some do take applications on a rolling basis. But it's important to start barely as well because it's hard to find supervisor's willing to take you. So again, applications are done directly through the university website. Although you can find opportunities elsewhere, like find a phd and other such websites which advertise phds and projects directly. And this is the most important. First step is really to find a supervisor and find a lab which is doing something that you're interested in. So when I did my phd, I had my own project and I, I scoured university websites to find a lab group that was doing something even remotely similar. And if they were, I went on to the next step, which you'll see and like I said, be creativelive uh interviewers and P I S love to see that you have that initiative to try and be created. And although you might feel like you don't have the experience to come up with a new research idea at the moment, if you read around fields that you're interested in, like cardiology or pharmacology, if you read the papers, you'll come up with some sort of idea like, oh why aren't they doing this? And you can sort of build upon that and pitch it to your supervisor, which comes on to our next bit where once you find labs that you're interested in or supervisors that you think might be great to supervise your project, you send them an email. It's unfortunate. It's kind of like cold calling, but that is the name of the game. Unfortunately, you have to formulate a really nice email which someone you think would be happy to read and willing to reply to. And the body of the email should be similar to a targeted personal statement. Like why they're lab is perfect for you and why you are a fit for their lab in terms of research and also interest of the lab. If you go on the university website and lab website, it'll also have social things and outreach endeavors. So you can talk a little bit about those as well and you want to send just one email because you don't want the supervisor to have to read through multiple emails. So include your CV in the email as well and your original research idea as a proposal if you have that and we'll look through an example of Jazz's phd proposal in the next slide anyways, which he'll talk you through. Um And you should always try and conclude the email by inviting them for a meeting on teams on Zoom or in person. Um I would always say in person is better, but that's just my bias. And then the last bit, well, the second to last bit is actually meeting the P I and there's a few questions that you should really ask them. Um And we'll talk about a bit more about that in a later on slide to do with interview tips and tricks. Um But you should ask them whether they'll support your application to the university because although you apply to a university, they're the ones who are going to be monitoring you and managing what you do your project. If you need any help, they'll be the ones you go to. So it's really important and you're much more likely to get in if they directly support your application when you make it. And yeah, the most important thing is asking for funding and we'll reiterate that later on as well. So once you've done that you've emailed 10, 20 labs, maybe three of them have gotten back to you about a meeting that's, you might be demotivated by that, but that's pretty good. Um, I remember emailing at least 15, 16 labs and I think two of them got back to me and what one of them took me for my phd. So it, it, you don't need 15 out of 15 to reply. You just need the one. And then yeah, the last step is actually doing the application um filling it in at the right time. Um Yeah, if you just follow the steps and think of your personal statement, think of what makes you suited to do research, how original you are any previous research experience. Um Like I was saying before, including relevant work experience. So as we said for the masters, but all that's important to phd as well, something that maybe shows organization or resilience because you really need that through the entire process. Or think all three of us can tell you that and you'll hear more about that in one of our future webinars, you need to be able to show them your resilient um and you can organize yourself. So the next lead jazz is going to talk about it's a little excerpt from his research proposal. So you can just give you a quick overview of that. Um There's a lot on the slide but just, but don't worry about the actual details. It's more about the headings and kind of stuff that's important to include in your phd proposal in the email. So jazz if you want to take over. Yeah, and I am so my path I was very similar to meals. So I came up with a project idea and it was kind of a blend of what I've already done in my past, my undergrad and where I wanted my career to go. So I want to go into industry and I kind of bridged all the things I liked and where I could see original research beginning and the tip I got from my undergrad, a supervisor was supervisors are very busy. People. So you want to make their lives very easy and all the information they need needs to be concise. So CV wires, chances are you don't have much to add. So two pages normally sufficient and should be able to have a concise until you become an academic where you have multiple pages. Uh and the same with a phd proposal. So my proposal was two pages plus a third page where I put the gun chart. So that bottom right, figures again chart. Um And I was just there. So, you know, people like to have figures, it just makes it easier, they can make their analysis out of it. So I just put that in there just for show and effect. Um But the proposals are quite simple. They're quite similar to research papers. So you have an abstract. So for me, it was a research overview, essentially the summary objectives. So the supervisor knows okay uh for about things methodically uh methodology. So this is just equipment to kind of see does my plan fit with what the lab has? Um is it feasible and then research impact and significance? Um And this is where it shines to say that actually, I've looked around, I've identified a gap and this is where this significance would lie with your lab. Um That should be relatively simple to do because most PIMS will have some sort of abstract on the university webpage or department web page and that will highlight what they're doing. Um what the papers are, any publications they have and you should kind of be able to slot yourself into that quite nicely. Um And then just a few references I had at the end I think as well. Uh And the potential funding as well. Um Because if you're proposing an idea, the chances are there's no funding attached to it, you have to apply externally. So I also put in two lines where we could potentially get funding. Um It didn't take me that long, but I would say mostly get someone to proof read it because what mine looks very simple to you. Uh someone else to read and be like that makes no sense if you agree very something that isn't nothing Um But yeah, very similar to what you did look at projects, submitted it. I think I submitted about five people, very similar project. The first thing that replied to me first was the person I wanted to work with and did my phd with. So I was quite fortunate that way. And then I had a quick interview about 30 minutes over Zoom. And then, yeah, just kind of steamroll from there. So that was it. And I'll speak about funding later on. How did that? Yeah. So thanks Jazz. Um And yeah, you can see from here that although it looks complicated and you, you might say that, oh, I don't know any methodology. I'm, I'm a clinician or I'm just a student. How am I going to write a method section? It's, you don't need every individual experiment written down. You need a broad overview of what you think you're going to do and you can always look through the literature and see people who've done similar things to what you want to do and look at how they've done it and incorporate that in your phd proposal. And then you can put that as a reference as well and that really makes it shine. It'll show the supervisor that you've read through, like you've not just randomly invented this thing, there's a scientific foundation for it. Um So if we move on to the next slide that's a bit more to do with interview tips, which Jazz and Michelle are going to talk about. So I'll just open this up. Ok. Dokey. So, um in terms of the interview, so my process for my application was a little bit different to Jazz Neil's. I applied to a project which was already funded, the project title's already given and there was already a 3 to 4 year plan because it was an industrially um sponsored project. Um And so for my interview, um I was interviewed by a couple of P I S in the department um talking just through some of my previous research. Um And again, it's a conversation. It's not a grilling. So they asked me why I went a particular way in my research. Why did I not run this experiment over this experiment? How would I take it further? How would I criticize my own work? How can industry get involved in my research and take it further things like that? So it's a very technical interview which happens for a phd. But the thing that I really wanted to focus on um for the interview part isn't the questions that you're going to get asked, but the questions that you should ask your future lab and your future P I. So one big thing which I really hope every single P I does during an interview is that they leave you alone with current members of the lab. So that gives you an opportunity to ask about the lab without the P I standing over you. So you don't feel pressured um to ask particular things that you might be scared of asking in front of them. Um And that gives you an opportunity to really find out um what the current lab members really think about the P I, whether they're good to work with? Are they easy to get hold of? Some students won't see their P I S for months. Other students will see they're pas every two weeks. So that's very important to know how often you'll meet with them and then also get a vibe of the lab. So be shown around the lab, see all the different equipment and talk to current members about their own research and what they do on a day to day basis. So it's important to find out what you yourself will be doing on a day to day basis. Will you be running the same experiment over and over again every day? Or are you going to be given the opportunity to branch out and learn lots of different technique from? Lots of different people also finding out who will be in charge of your day to day supervision within the lab? Are there postdocs in the lab that's very important as well or is it just phd students in the lab? Having postdocs in lab is very valuable as that's where your supervision, your everyday supervision is going to come from and that's who's going to teach you um all the different techniques and how to troubleshoot things. Um if things go wrong. Um And then the lab die nabbing as well, whether people work together on different projects or everyone's very separate. Um What people's working hours are, how often we meet as a lab. If we have lab meetings every week, every other week and journal clubs and just the social side of things as well because all of these things you might not think of, but this is what you're going to be doing every day. And these are the people that you're going to be with every day. So it's very important to try and get a feel of the lab and how that is. Um And then in terms of research opportunities, it's good to ask um perhaps how many other phd students yours supervisor has supervised in the past. Um And then you can get an idea of how experienced they are and how frequently the students in the lab published, where do they publish with our two? Who do they work with? Are there different collaborations either within academia or within industry? Um And those sorts of things are all really important in the interview. So not just having the supervisor ask you about you, but also you asking the lab and the members about their work as well and just seeing how you're going to fit in and in big bold letters, we have asked about funding, which I'll let the others talk about. Yeah, thanks Michele. Um I say ask about funding and that actually takes us on to the next bit, applying for funding and we'll go through two different more common venues. And then jazz is going to talk about how he funded his phd cause that was crazy. Um uh So to start with, there's, yeah, like I said, two main areas. So the first one is societies and you might be thinking, what's the society? Well, they kind of almost charity groups set up who have money to provide the researchers looking to carry out a project that's within the remit of that society. So you have cancer research UK, for example, that's a society that provides funding for cancer research. So they can fund you in different ways, they can fund the course itself. So there's special courses that are fully funded that you can directly apply to, which doesn't go through the whole emailing supervisors. It's just a course you apply for like the B B S R C D T P program in Cambridge. And so the funding is all there for that. You don't need to stress too much, but the disadvantage is it's only for home students um that can apply for some of these courses, although there are some open to internationals as well, but they can also fund a lab through grants. So, and a lot of these grants have funding for phd candidates, which is why it's so important to ask your supervisor whether they hold one of these grants and whether it already has funding for a phd student because that, that's your ideal situation where you've knocked off your phd interview and your funding all in one go. Um, it's a bit rare but you should definitely ask your supervisor and the last bit is a few common societies that you might be able to look around and see what sorts of funding they had. So how jazz was saying he included some places where they could get funding for his project. The one he proposed, you can look at some of these societies and see whether what you're planning to do falls into one of their criteria. And then you could suggest that as a grant to get funding for your project. So some of the ones people may have heard of are the crux of Cancer Research UK and the Welcome Trust which give out huge, huge amounts of money for different types of research. There are other funded courses as well called One plus three programs where it's four years and you get a master's and a phd along with it and they're usually funded by societies as well. But all of this, you can find, like we said in the previous one of the previous slides directly from university websites, but you can also look at the society web sites themselves because they may offer phds that might not directly be based in the university, but in a research institution like the Crick Institute. So that's one way of funding the other ways, actual scholarships and there's different types of them. So there's the scholarships provided by the university itself and they're usually open their opportunities for both home and international students. So it's quite lucky for phds and masters. There's international students do get funding from the university uh depending on which university apply for, but most tend to have these options available. Uh Some eggs, I put some examples there. I wanted to put a list of all of them, but they're constantly changing and their, their monetary monetary values change as well. So it wasn't really feasible. But for example, I was on the Harding scholarship and I was lucky that my scholarship had well, a small consumable fund that came along with it, which a lot of uh a lot of these scholarships don't come with. So that's another reason why it's so important to ask your supervisor during the interview whether they have funding because you might be able to get funding for, you know, for your university fees through the university. But that's still not enough, which is why it's so difficult because you need money to actually buy the material. You need to do your experiments with on a day to day basis. So it's best if the supervisor has funding for that or you could look to a society for a lab grant to get some of that as well. Um And then there's also country specific scholarships which applied I intended this more as for international students if there's any of you among us, because we know it's super expensive for international students to come abroad, to the U K to do a phd or even a masters. And countries tend to offer some scholarships. For example, the Commonwealth countries offer this thing called the Commonwealth scholarship where you just apply for it and you have to prove, provide evidence that you're going to improve life in your home country when applying for it. But there's quite a few of them available and it's where master's and phd. So there's definitely you should look into what your country has to offer as a scholarship. And a lot of these countries specific scholarships are also advertised by the university. So just scour the university website for funding options for supervisors, for available projects and phds, all of that is through the university website itself. And yeah, so there, every university has their little niche scholarships like Cambridge, for example, has colleges and each college also has many scholarships for people. Um and those are constantly changing. So it's good to look at those options as well. There's a secret third option to fund your phd or masters which jazz did. So I'm gonna hand over now to Jazz just, just for him to give us his story. Yeah, just before I do that. With new ways mentioning about colleges in Oxbridge, there's some funding that's locked to certain demographics. So if you're from a certain background, um certain ethnicity or you're doing certain subjects, they are locked up, so do look into those because they won't be as competitive because the only target a small amount of people, but it does offer quite good grant and it means you'll be linked to a college is quite nice. Um So the third option, which it's not very feasible for most people, but as this audiences, healthcare related, um and most of you will probably professional by the time you do phds, you probably could be viable. Um And also you need to be home schooling for this work is that there's the post doctoral alone. So it's through student finance, England. So the same as you would do an undergrad degree and you get student finance loans and basically it pays for your tuition fees and then you just have to kind of sort out how you're gonna do maintenance. So that's your living costs. And as I'm a pharmacist, that wasn't too bad, but it just meant that where most people would have their weekends, I would be working in a pharmacy to like pay my rent and food, which is fine and it works. But as I say, that's not really an option most people can do. But if you're, you know, a doctor or a dentist, probably a nurse as well. Chance that if you're low commission you could probably get away with that. However, I do stress that you do one at a time because if you want to try and get involved in societies, um, meet friends, just kind of get involved, the university lifestyle, you probably don't want to be kind of wasting your weekends or evenings away working when you don't really need to. Um, so that was, is an option if you're really interested in lab and your projects good. And you know, money isn't too much of a problem and you've kind of budgeted. Okay, chancellor, you probably do what I did but don't if you can. Yeah. Thanks Jazz. Yeah. So he took quite a different route and yeah, it is, it is difficult and you lose a bit of that university experience like he was saying, so, not recommend it, but definitely still possible. And I know uh for healthcare professionals actually going to research, there's also NIH are funding which we'll talk about more in the next webinar where we have our uh consultant anaesthetist coming and he did a phd while doing clinical training. So hopefully a lot of questions, we have an answer right now. He'll talk about that. Um So yeah, for a lot of these scholarships, you need a separate personal statement to show why it's going to why you deserve the scholarship pretty much and how you're going to benefit the world because that's what people want to give money for is if you do something that improves lives, which everyone here hopefully wants to do. And yeah, so I'm going to have a look through the chat. Now. We've gone through actually pretty quickly and we'll answer some questions and then go on to the post webinar mental meter quiz. So just post something at whatever you want to ask in the chat box. Right now. We have a question. Let me just, I'll just read it out loud. I'm looking to apply for a master's program. I have minimal experience in the research field, but I have knowledge of clinical research in general. How can I strengthen my application in order to be short shortlisted for programs and in order to get an entry into a specialty training program is one type of research better than the other course based versus thesis based. Okay, is the funding only reserved for thesis based research research programs and phds or is funding available for coast course based research programs as well? Okay. So a few questions within that one big question. Um It's it doesn't matter if you have minimal experience in the research field to strengthen your application uh for your masters program that you want to apply for. Play on your strength. So explain your knowledge of clinical research because researchers research at the end of the day, there are transferable skills throughout all the different types of research like data analysis, experimental design, things like that. So if you include all of that in your personal statement and show how maybe if you designed an experiment or you figured out a way to analyze the data, what bits of the research you were involved in that would really strengthen your application in speaking about specialty training programs, it would be better if, if you attend the next webinar where uh uh the speaker who has more experience with specialty training programs can talk about. But I don't believe there is too much of a difference between course based and thesis space just from my current knowledge. But course based research programs tend to be more masters. Whereas thesis based there are thesis based masters. So M R s and research based masters, but those are mainly uh those masters and phds as well. So of course, some are going to give you more of an edge because they're longer, they take more time and they're a lot more difficult. Um And the last bit of your question is funding reserved for thesis based or course based programs. So for master's funding, it applies to pretty much all masters. But you should always check depending on the scholarship of funding you're applying for because some of them do have some restrictions. For example, if your master's program doesn't fall within the remit remit of a society, they regardless of what type of masses it is, they might not really want to fund it. Whereas uh the one I did the scholarship I had, we're happy to fund course based or research or thesis based programs. And also there are some phds which are slightly more structured like the one plus three program that I was mentioning and those are all fully funded. So there is funded, there is funding for course based research programs as well. Um It's just about looking to see what you can find. Uh So are there any more questions? I'll give it a couple of minutes. People are shy if you have any more questions, um I could add to a Neil said. So when I submitted my C V, there was a section, I call it a skill section. Um And in there put laboratory techniques. Um so I just went from undergrad, laboratory book and just picked techniques that were relevant to the project I was submitting. So, you know, everyone would have done laboratory experiments but just like listing some of the key words just makes it easier for the P I to say, okay, like he kind of knows what he's doing. Uh Like he knows these phrases and also kind of jogs your memory. So if when you do have an interview, you can kind of plug these things out and say, oh yeah, I did this experiment and just elongate it and regarding the ST program, so I want to go into industry and so I work as King controls pharmacist. So my phd project was pre clinical studies essentially where it was. So if you kind of have a rough idea what you want to go, do you know whether that's like be a principal or chief investigating trials? It's like, it's like your long term goal, you can probably like Ghira program towards that and that way in the future, you can kind of use that as a backbone. Um but that would be my device for that. Great. Okay. So another couple of questions here are phds based on our, their phds based on clinical research for overseas doctors. Yeah, there definitely are. It's all about just finding them and you can do that once again through university websites because a lot of clinical researchers are sort of tethered to a particular university. But it would also be good to look through your NHS Trust website because they have the current research that the trust is carrying out and who to contact. Um even if it doesn't say that they're taking phd students, it's a good chance to, it's a good idea to just email them because chances are they'll be happy to take you there. Everyone needs some help with research P I S are usually quite open to take on a student. Um Next one, uh if a massive involves a dissertation, do you recommend completing a systematic review or a primary research study? And would you say masters enable you to do whatever research topic you want as long as it's related to the masters, Michelle, you want to answer that one. Sure. Okay. So all masters will involve you having to write a dissertation at the end of it. Um It depends what your intentions are coming out of the masters. So if you wish to complete a phd after the masters, then I highly, highly recommend doing a wet lab based research project as you will have then have months and months and months of experience and expertise, which you can then use to apply for your phd. Um Whereas if you're just completing a masters because you want to have a further understanding and um in a specific field, um then doing either a primary research study or a systematic review, I'm sure be fine. However, it is unlikely for a master's dissertation that you will be able to complete a systematic review, it's going to most likely be a primary research area or question that you've come up with that you have to look into a systematic review, I'd say is more of an undergraduate or a bachelors and research project. Um So that's the first bit and then say masters neighbor used to whatever research topics you want as long as it's related to the masters. Um So that's up to um the supervisor that you apply with. So if you're doing an MRI, as I'm sure if you talk to the supervisor who the supervisor will have an idea of what the project era would be, for example, it might be in um information in osteoarthritis in the specific cell type. But if you discuss with the supervisor, a specific way that you wanted to go particular techniques that you want to use in the lab, then you'll be able to have some flexibility around the topic that it is. Whereas um in a um lecture based 50 50 masters, um there will be a list of topics that you'll choose from and you will be limited to those research title's rather than doing whichever research topic that you want. Hope. That makes sense. Great. Thanks Michelle. And just the last couple of questions really quickly. Did you halt medical work to do your phds? And how did the logistics work? So neither of us can answer that question very well because neither of us halted um uh medical work. But from experience with my colleagues that I've talked to, you can do it either way. So the 11 of my colleagues in a research project a while ago, he was a registrar at the time and was doing clinics alongside his medical work. And he'll talk a bit more about that in the next webinar. But we also know medical professionals who've stopped, done their phd as an out of program opportunity and then come back later on. But the logistics of that is easier to ask the speaker in the next webinar directly related to clinical research differences between scholarship, student ships and fellowships, scholarships and student ships are very similar. They're usually directly offered by the university or some sort of funding body. And fellowships are more from grants that you apply for and you get funding for and then you call a fellow of the grant. But a lot of the times these words are used interchangeably. Okay. Yeah. And I think of fellowships also more often attributed to postdoc positions because then you become a fellow as Neil said of that particular funny body and it also comes often with teaching responsibilities and that sort of thing. So it'll be a fellow of a place um and an academic under that position doing not only your own research but also teaching and other things like that. Uh refer ships, you tend to be established a certain level. So it chance that you will have to be a postdoc. Um I would recommend trying against student ships. They tend to be doctoral training programs or BBS rcs there regardless student ships because they're quite substantial program. Um And they're quite bulked out with a lot of extra stuff that you don't tend to get where that's visiting other countries or visiting other labs, doing projects where scholarships tend to be just a lump of money that's just given. Um And you want some that's more substantial because you'll gain way more from it. Okay. And the last question, um interview tips, I think or general topics, people tend to ask about, I think what we said earlier about just reading around the field and just having the names or of a few papers that are relevant to your field or the master's or phd are applying for is the best prep you can do. But if interview tips is something people are struggling with, we can organize another webinar like a focus group type thing where we do some practice interviews and go through some questions that they may ask. And lastly will any chest cover masters scholarships if the masters was after medical school. So I would save that question for our speaker in the next webinar because I can't directly answer that one. And was I'm so sorry to cut short on time, but we'll stop with the questions for now and just go on to the final mentum. Yeah. If you just join in, we'll give it a couple more minutes for people to join in and we'll see if we actually learned something today. Hopefully we did. Okay. So we'll get started and it's the same rules as before. Answer. What you think is the best answer even though all of the options maybe correct. OK. So let's begin and again, you have 10 seconds. Once the option answer options appear on the screen, what would you look at that? Um Good work guys. Really good work. So next one, excellent. Yeah. So you would ask about all of them, but I would still say funding is the most important one that you should really ask about. And last one. Yeah, perfect. Sorry, just to throw. She hated how you did it. But yeah, it's we wouldn't really recommend that. Great. So just do the final end slide. So thank you all so much for joining. And if you want to sign up, I think a lot of you would be interested in the second webinar. That's the first QR code. And you also have, please do provide feedback so we can see how to improve for you guys for the next few webinars and whether you want any additional classes or focus groups or sort of interview tips sessions that might be helpful. If you give us that information, the feedback, we can really tailor how we run this program in the future. Yeah, I'll leave this open for a couple of minutes, but you'll also get updates on this directly from medal and you can see on the mind, the Blue Bleep Facebook Group. Um You'll get updates on future webinars as well. So stay tuned for those. So I'll give it to about a couple of minutes and then we'll end the meeting. Thank you for staying so much overtime. Um Very kind of all of you. So there's just a question saying which webinar will cover NHS funding that will be doing a degree during clinical training webinar. So if you sign up for that one, you'll get all the top tips for being a clinical phd student. Okay, great. So we'll finish off there. Thank you again, everyone and I look forward to seeing you at the next webinar. Thank you. Bye guys.