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I think, OK, that's fine. Um The screen wasn't showing but it's all good now. Um So we had some events recently and probably the biggest event in the BNA would be the BMA M SE conference. And so that would be like an amazing way to kind of establish policy. And so you can establish issues of basically anything this happened. I think it was last week I myself attended and they have an amazing motions that have been passed. We've had period poverty, we've had, had a i medical education. I myself, I passed a policy on Black and Asian maternal health disparities and that was part of that debate. That means that being able to taking that on and thinking about ways to basically lessen that gap and the ways were through women's health initiative, making sure that Black and Asian women uh actually, um in these conversations, making sure that we get some sort of uh education and recognizing that racial bias does play into the Black and Asian health disparity currently and that's currently MSC policy. Um King's also did pass another motion which is about the environment and the NHS and the impact the NHS has on the environment currently and how we can work on ways to reduce that. And that's just really small pocket of like different ideas that the BM AMC conference really brings up. And so one really figure was paid poverty. So if you're not aware of that campaign is currently pa and tampons are now free in schools and hospitals. And one big way that was implemented was because it was brought to ABM AMSC conference. And so a medical student noticed at her university that paid property was a really big thing and she worked in it locally. She got a lot of support locally for that BM AMSC conference. And now we have 33 ones with an products everywhere. And there's like teaching opportunities available for students who do have these kind of issues. So that's a really big, like ideal, a really big way to get into BMA like nationally even locally, just suggesting things like, I'm not sure if you realize that the local said your are done in proper. That's a really good way like keeping up to your faculty or your BMA rep and be like, hey, this actually um should be fixed, it should be changed and then walking you away locally from there is a really good way to really get into this organizing a local grassroots power, which is what the BMA is really about. So local organizing and grassroots and making sure you guys are being up and we're always being essentially listening to other medical schools. So recent RS have been included like the Bursley. So that's been a 3% increase and also increased eligibility for the for that there's been a medical student robbing checklist being launched across the country. And it sounds small. This essentially means we can basically standardize across the country for all medical students. Essentially meaning that if something is being like sub medical school to go to medical school and be like, hey, the be is just XYZ and we don need YZ. Therefore, it should be changed. And local support. For example, here at things you had to do like a portfolio like 100 and 50 words, that was seemingly ridiculous. 150 words a day for every day for like six weeks for each block um would just not be sustainable. And so that to myself, the ba rep as well as a medical student trying to open letter of saying, hey, you just aren't going through this. It's unfair and that was potentially revert. There's also been other local wins, for example, um funding for WP students 1000 lbs after the N HSS um is implemented because as you guys may want to know at things after you no longer receive um student finance and you see NHS be, you don't receive any sort of funding from him. And so living, you don't get the hardship fund you don't get and there's a thing probably I'd probably want to work on next year. But those are things for example, which are impacted locally. But as you can see if other reps and other being a societies are doing this across the country, that means that we as a self can also put pressure on our UN university and be like, hey, other people are doing this but we're not doing it. Therefore, we should be doing it. Um So just from my last talking about how to learn more about the DNA plus you get a membership. If you get a news with it, you get the MJ resources, you get support with that, you get 24 7000 and it's really good membership to have, you can read up on, on news and opinions tab on the da website, you can get the recent news. I think the, the top one is doctor strikes that will affect all of us as you graduate. Um But we move from a really, you know, by positions private people out of 12% that like few percent in a couple of months. And so this actually may be uh that is basically been progress being made along the way. Uh Another way to really get involved is if you're at Kings, there's a fe to give you society membership is currently not open because of the election still happening next week. But beyond that, you have membership, you have events, you have things going on, you have open letters, you have basically going on basically all the time. And then if you want to be ABM AMA C rep like I myself with this year, the elections are also open that way. And so the BMA um make us unit committee every year about this elected to are elected. And so these nominations are closing on the 30th and then we, we start voting next month for a month and then get elected that way to man unit committee. I myself, I am running again next year. But if you also want to run, have any questions, do let me know um I'll be in this chat and also our email and on Instagram is BMA A at gmail.com or just BA A GK. Um but yes, that's my kind of general talk about the DNA. I can get involved with these medical students and basically why you should be part of it if there are any questions, I'm happy to answer them, but if not, I'll just start this on for the next week. Thank you so much. Ahi. Um That was amazing. Um Anyone have any questions before we move on to our next speaker. N OK, feel free to um send a message anytime I'm just gonna invite the next speaker to the stage. So the next speaker is Karen Williams. Karen is currently 1/4 year medical student at UCL and completed his integrated year in cardiovascular science. Karen has presented and published his research into the accuracy of smartwatches to estimate cardiovascular metrics in various conferences and has won the best oral presentation prize on two occasions. Karen also has experience as a coauthor for a systematic review. Um Can you hear me? Yeah, we can hear you. Nice and clear. Cool. Thank you. OK. Showering might take a little while but uh uh I think it said to share the entire screen. That's OK. Is that sharing? I, yeah, I can see that. OK, cool. Um All right. Just let me know if the slides don't change or anything definitely will do. OK. So yeah, today I'm gonna just ex basically present my experience of research so far. So just a bit about myself to start. So I'm currently 1/4 year medical student at UCL. Um I'm still on my own research journey. So it's not like I've got 100s and 100s of publications, but I'm gonna try and just give you guys my experience of things and hopefully it will help. Um So at UCL, we have a mandatory integrated year and I chose to do mine in cardiovascular science. And as part of that, we had to complete a research project. So this was actually like my first real experience in research just as part of the degree. And thankfully, that's allowed me to publish the work. And as was mentioned, I've been able to give all presentations about it at conferences. Um I think it already was mentioned, I was able to win the best of all presentation prize on two occasions. And then I've also helped out as a co author for two systematic reviews and I'll talk more about that in the presentation. And then currently I'm about to start a meta analysis and I'm working with quite a supportive clinician to sort of help me on that process. OK. So the first slide I'm gonna talk about is should you ate just because that was my first sort of experience doing research. So I know that this has become an increasing debate. And I think specific challenges that people might face is that it can be expensive. For example, especially if you're applying to do an insulated masters versus just a standard bachelors. Sometimes people have to get funding to do those things. Um It no longer contributes to the specialized or academic foundation program. So before you used to get points for doing an integrated degree, so you had your research experience, but it also contribute to any application that you would do, but there's been some recent changes. So obviously, it doesn't directly contribute. But I'll talk about why I still think it's beneficial if you are considering it. Um It's not if it's not routine in your medical school. So it's not mandatory, then of course, it means potentially leaving people in your cohort and you'll be graduating a year later. And I think that can be a bit scary for some people and then you actually may able to be a sorry, you may be able to gain research experience about doing one. So again, I'm here to show you all the options and for some people, I think it might just be a good option to do it on the side of just clinical years or even get involved right from the get go in medical school in terms of some of the benefits, I think a year out of medical school can be great in terms of putting your full energy into, into a project that you choose. Because something that I've experienced this year is when you have to go into placement, for example, or if you have a day full of lectures, then it can actually be a bit difficult or tiresome to then complete research on top of that. But in my experience anyway, during my year, I had a lot more free time from days off and that made it easier to put my full energy into the project. And I think that that's linked to making the process easier in terms of producing really good research that then looks good to present and is easier to get published. The timetable is a lot in less intense. So you can genuinely take a break. So again, I think that also helps because if you're stressed and you're just trying to do all of the research, it's going to be difficult for you. It's gonna be a really stressful time. I think a key thing is and one of the best things about it is it's an excellent opportunity to build a relationship with academics. So I think one of the biggest issues that medical students struggle with when trying to get involved in research is essentially who do I go to? Who do I speak to? How, how are people getting published, et cetera? But from my experience, because you spend such a long time during the indicated year working with a supervisor, providing that that experience is really good and you get some good quality research done. First of all, that supervisor is good because they may have other connections or know other people that they may be able to help you in the future. Regarding research, they're also able to act as a reference for you if you want to work with anyone. So I think that that benefit shouldn't be understated. And then I think I've already touched on it, but that increased amount of time does impact your ability to produce high quality work, I would say, and you can complete your own full project, which again makes your project look good when you're trying to present it. Um I thought I'd give an overview of my project just to show you the type of work that you can do. I wouldn't spend too long on this, but I actually had the opportunity to investigate an interesting topic of the accuracy of smartwatches. So I investigated the ability of a Garmin smartwatch and its accuracy, measuring resting heart rate, heart rate, mobility and oxygen saturation. And as part of that process, II was able to choose the project. So it was quite self directed. I had to choose it out of some options, but it was self directed in the fact that I could choose it out of a range of different choices. It's part of that process as well. I was the person recruiting all of my participants. I was the person measuring all the data, whether it be through the smartwatch or on an portable ECG device. And I was also able to develop skills and analysis. So I had to use a tool called MAT lab to analyze the data. And I know of other students in the cohort, they were able to gain experience using a software known as R and I think that's good because it means in, if you go and do research in the future, at least you've had exposure to using some of these tools, I think it just makes your life easier. And again, if you are speaking to a clinician trying to get some research opportunities, if you can say on my indicated day, I had experience using this or that I think it does make you a bit more well equipped to go and do the research. It's gonna take you less time to have to learn these skills for the first time. And I just included like some of the results that we got. So you can see the resting heart rate, there was quite excellent correlation. And this plot down here is known as a blunt almond plot. And essentially it just shows you where you'd expect 95% of the differences to fall. And you can see there's quite a narrow what they call limit of agreement. So it shows that 95% of the differences that you'd expect between a smartwatch and an E CG device should fall within that narrow range here of negative 3.9 and 2.9 beats. Anyway, that's just an overview of the type of work you can do. But there's also lots of other work that you can do. So I'll go into what I think if I knew in advance what I'd do differently. So what are the things that you should do? So when choosing a project, I think you should always think about the type of experience that you'll gain. So for example, are you going to get experience working in a lab? So with my project, whilst I did collect all of the data myself, I didn't get any lab experience and had I gone back, I might have considered that because I think in general it's a lot harder to get lab experience, especially as a medical student when your schedule is so busy. So that's something you can consider or equally you can think. Do I want something that's convenient for me? But I'm still going to be able to produce work that could get published, for example. So would you prefer to simply analyze data from a large database? It could be monotonous, but at least you wouldn't necessarily have to commit lots of hours into doing a project. Test. Your lab skills really depends on you or you could simply think, do you wanna collect the data yourself? So, as I said in my study, I wasn't working from a database per S ei had to actually recruit my participants and I had to measure all of the data myself. But I think it can be a good experience. It just depends on what you want essentially and what experience you want to gain. I think you should also ask yourself if you'd be interested with the outcome of your study. So this sounds really, really self explanatory. But for some reason when I was choosing my projects, I wasn't thinking so far in advance, I was just thinking, you know, what's seemed interesting to me. But I think with research, the two things you wanna think about is can this have an impact? So is there a gap of knowledge where your project can sort of solve something? Because there's no gap in knowledge, it's probably not the best project. So that's something you definitely want to be thinking about. And then you also want to think with a stranger, listen to you speak about this because ultimately, you want your research that you produce to be welcomed really well. You want it to be interesting if you're presenting it to anyone, especially if you've only got five minutes to do. So, which is what you usually get in a presentation. But even other types of presentations, like posters, I think the more interesting your topic actually is the better it's going to perform. And then also in terms of us utilizing your time, this doesn't necessarily directly relate to research. But I think if someone does decide to take an intercalated year, I think it's the perfect time to have a leading role within a society. You can attend lots of conferences. And the reason I've put that there is, I think one of the best ways to essentially find out about research opportunities is to just actually attend lots of conferences this year, I've seen that there's been many conferences just from a variety of different medical schools as well as professional conferences. And if you're going to those places, you're going to be meeting lots of people that have done research, they might be older students than you. And you can also ask them how they went about going and acquiring research. You can also ask if they can recommend any supervisors or if they know of anyone that's willing to work for medical students. So I wouldn't underestimate just attending lots of conferences for a variety of specialties, connecting and meeting people, talk with consultants as well. They might be offering opportunities for medical students and genuinely you can just find out what you enjoy and what sort of project you might like to do. And then also another thing is getting involved in research. I think if you want to build up some skills, something you might want to consider, especially when you're earlier on during your time in medical school is research internships. So these are things that you just have to search for. Some of them are applied. Um Some of them are created by like the Medical Research Council. I know that they do a few but there will be lots of them, you just have to Google them, apply to them. And because there's longer holidays in the earlier times during medical school or during an indicated year, usually you may be able to actually get experience of research and also consider smaller projects that don't take as much time such as audits and Q I PS. OK. So I thought I'd talk specifically about oral presentations because that's something that I seem to have had some success in. As I said, II haven't done loads and loads of research, but the research that I have done has been quite beneficial for me and I've really enjoyed it. So I think all presentations are a great way to participate in conferences during your time in medical school, the way I see it is going to a conference is great as well. But if you can also present at a conference, you're doing two things in one. And you know, that's basically the best way that you can use your time. So I would, if you have done some research, don't be shy, I'd say always put yourself out there, go for it because you don't really lose anything and it will eventually give you confidence or build your skills anyway, just in terms of presenting your work, there's also as I said, lots and lots of conferences. And I think this is really, really good because it means that there's less pressure when you're applying for these things. Cos there's always going to be another one. So don't be disheartened specifically. If your abstract isn't accepted, just try and apply to another conference. And hopefully you should apply to places where your abstract really meets the theme. So you'll notice that with lots of conferences, if there's an abstract competition, there will be a specific theme and my personal experiences, I actually applied to present at two conferences in February. They were both related to cardiology. For one of them, my abstract didn't even get selected to present. And then in the other conference, it got selected for me to present and I managed to win the conference overall. So you can see a lot of it is just subjective. So I really don't be disheartened and just apply to as many as you can. I would say that you meet the criteria for in terms of how to stand out just from my limited experience of it. I would say that you want to practice saying everything within the time limit. So these are easy things really you can do by yourself. But you'd be surprised how difficult it can be if you haven't practiced it when you want to say a lot about whatever research that you completed. So make sure that you're good at fixing on the important things I would say, make your presentations visual. Because when you're talking about people, they want to focus on something, whether it's an image or diagram or graph. And I think that helps you to capture the attention of the audience and keeps them engaged and finally choose an interesting topic. So I think a lot of people don't think about this really. But I honestly think that it's the topic that really helps you to stand out if people are really, really interested in what you have to say or what you've found. Ultimately, I think your presentations are more likely to do well. And I think for example, with my project, which focused on the accuracy of smartwatches, the users of smartwatches is growing. Some people may have a smartwatch themselves, but not many people actually know the accuracy. So I think it's a topic that people are genuinely interested to find out a lot about. And I do think that that's partially contributed to me doing well in these things. So always consider that from the moment you're even picking a project. OK. How are presentations assessed? So what is the mark scheme? So again, this is again from my limited experience and what I've done is drawn on what I've seen has been marked from my presentation essentially. But you have the clinical goals. So what's the aim of your research? And did you address it clearly? Did you have a hypothesis? Did you have a clear methodology? So that's things that you would wanna in your presentations. Did you have a good quality of visual aids? So this is why I was saying graphs, diagrams, figures, all of these things can help you to highlight important points. And was your presentation clear and precise? What was your thoroughness and quality of research? And this is where for example, doing an actual project through maybe an installation where you have more time is obviously going to increase the amount of time you can give to a project. Therefore, you're likely to have more in depth research, it's going to be more thorough and they look at how many sources did you use? And are you aware of the multiple approaches to solving a research question? They also assess your skills. So do you actually understand the principles behind the methods that you use? And there's also creative ability and ownership. And again, that's basically assessing your personal involvement and how much you've contributed to the student from a student perspective. So if you're only involved, maybe just in terms of like a systematic review, they are very good pieces of research to get involved with because they usually don't require too much input. But then you're likely to have less personal involvement per se and then timing and response to questions. So usually at the end of an oral presentation, they may ask you questions on your work. So it's just being confident about answering them in a clear and easy to understand way. OK, so finding a supervisor and mentor. So again, I think this is a commonly asked question as a medical student. And in my early years, I wasn't even really thinking about this. So the earlier, the better I think if you are already in your clinical years, you have the advantage that you're likely to be on placement probably every day. So you're gonna have access to seeing many doctors. Now, not all doctors are going to be involved in research, but there definitely will be some particularly people who are not even consultants because many people who are training, they want to boost their professional portfolio as well. So I think it's all about introducing yourself explaining that you are interested in doing some research. And I think that's the best approach to find a mentor or supervisor. You should also always clarify your commitments to any product in advance, discuss the possibility of you being an author because you don't want to be exploited or used. It takes time, especially if you're on clinical years, you have a busy schedule during the day, you're likely to be doing this in your own time. So always establish these things before you commit to anything. But from my personal experience, there can be some really helpful clinicians, especially that I've met that are willing to try and support you. So this is definitely a route to take. And I think in preclinical years, it might not feel like you have as much time. But I would even argue you might have more time than someone who's in clinical years. So I think it's the perfect time to start getting involved, first of all, and second thing is you may be able to have a lecturer that can support you in terms of research because many lecturers are just academic clinicians who are interested in research. And the best way to approach this is either just speaking to them at the end of the lecture, especially if it's in a field that you're interested in, or you could simply email them with an introduction of who you are, what work you'd like to do, attach A CV with any previous experience that you might have. And this is basically the best way to go about it. Um never also underestimate the value of having a good supervisor because that's another thing that I took from my in intercalated year. I know that people do have varying experiences with supervisors in terms of how helpful they are. How much do they contribute to their project? How much guidance do they give? I think it really does help you if you have someone that definitely just wants to see you do. Well, so definitely don't take this lightly and then you choose someone that you know, is going to be committed to helping you. Ok. Um I thought I'd talk a bit about systematic reviews. So currently, as of I'm speaking, I haven't led my own systematic review this but this is something that I'm currently working on now, but I have had experience in the screening process for systematic reviews and have been submitted as a co for twice pending a publication. So why do I recommend getting involved? I think the main advantage to them is that they can be worked on from anywhere. So even at home, really? Because a lot of the work is just done on your laptop and that's my personal experience of it. You don't necessarily need to be going in or doing anything that takes too much time from my experience. The second thing is that if, especially if you're just a co author and you're not leading, the screening process is usually not very, very complicated. And again, if you're someone that's early in your medical school career. This is definitely the type of work that you could get involved in straight away really with not too much knowledge because really you're just following an inclusion and exclusion criteria that's usually set by the person leading the entire systematic review. The screening process is by far the longest part, usually because you have to start very, very broadly and narrow all of your selections of your studies down until you basically have what you're gonna focus your research on. So obviously, that can be dealing with thousands and thousands of papers. And as a result, this is where people lead in a systematic review will usually recruit people to help them with the process. So that's something I'd definitely recommend everyone here if you're interested in getting involved, that's something you should do. Because from my experience, you just have to allocate a bit of time each day and just crack on for it. And the more you do, the more you start to know the inclusion criteria, the quicker it gets. And again, I think if you know, you have a group of friends, you're all really motivated and trying to get involved in research. It's basically a good way to allow for teamwork of your peers in order to help you guys decrease all of your workloads together. So I can definitely recommend it. And then finally, there's other smaller projects. Sometimes it's not like considered formal research, but audits and Q I PS can be published as well. So they're a lot smaller, but they usually require a bit more work in terms of you might need to go to a hospital, find out patient information. For example, if you're doing an audit quality improvement projects, I've put an example of how you go about them before. So there's like four main steps. Again, this is not something that I've actually done, but I'm aware of these projects that medical students definitely can get involved in if you want to. And the reason why they're good is because there's usually always going to be an opportunity to do one and you just have to ask to do one essentially. And even in terms of whatsapp group chats, we've had doctors say that they're recruiting medical students to help them with an audit. A lot of this research work is essentially just piecing together lots of data. So anyone can do it if you're willing to put in the time to do it. Case reports are another project to consider, especially if you are in clinical years. And you've seen a particularly interesting case on placement, I don't have any experience writing one. So again, I can't really give much advice in terms of how to write one, but there's definitely going to be people that have done them in the hospital that can advise you. So I think a lot of getting involved in research is just how proactive you are from my experience people aren't necessarily going to be advertising that they're doing research. But if you're the proactive medical student that knows roughly how much time you can give to something and you're willing to go and introduce yourself to clinicians. Explain that I do think that you'll be able to find yourself doing some projects and just remember, don't allow yourself to be exploited. So establish how much time you have and establish authorship before you actually commit to doing it. And I think that's the safest way to go. Um So yeah, just a summary. So my exposure to research was first free installation. And in my opinion, it's probably the best option if you want to go and complete a full research project of your own, that's original research and not something like a systematic review. However, it is important to note that there seems to be a decreasing reward for doing them directly. So you'll still gain all of the research experience, which is obviously a positive, but it might not be contributing to points in terms of an application to foundation program or speciality training. Once you have completed a project, someone advised me to try and maximize its value as much as possible. So apply to present it at conferences, be conf confident, submit it to academic journals and just because you presented it at one conference, doesn't mean you can't present it again. So I would say the work that you do produce always try and use it to its full capacity. Systematic reviews are a very convenient way to get involved even if it's just initially helping out with the screening process. And I think that's a good way to see how they work, understand the process that the leaders take and then move on to leading your own eventually. And then don't forget to consider smaller projects like case reports, audits and Q I PS, all of which are a good way to also build relationships with clinicians. He may be able to support you later with any other research that you want to complete. Um And yeah, that's everything I have to say. If anyone has any questions, then just let me know. Hi Karen. Thank you so much. That was very, very interesting. Um And we can't wait to ask you some questions for the Q and A. Um But before we do, we've just got a few minutes before the next speaker comes up. Can you tell us maybe what was the most interesting part about doing your um integrated BSC with that research aspect? Um I think the most I import like the most interesting part for me was really just being able to complete research into smartwatches. So I didn't know that obviously, but when I chose it that that would be something I could do. So having used lots of smartwatches myself, I actually was actually interested in this research just for myself. Just I wanted to see, are they very, very accurate? So I did like the fact that I could choose that project and actually measure people's EC GS get involved, measure their other metrics on the Smartwatch. So I felt like I was very much involved in actually measuring the data, which I enjoyed and then also just seeing it all pieced together because it was like interesting to see the results and what I got cos I didn't actually know if it was going to be accurate. So I think it was just an interesting process to be involved, right from measuring the actual data on people and then seeing how it all turned out in the end. Very nice. Amazing. Thank you. And um I look forward to your responses at the Q and A. Thank you. Let me OK, thank you already. I'm now going to invite the next speaker onto the stage. The next speaker is Doctor Yang Myong. Ma Ma graduated with honors at medical school and has since gained a wealth of skill and experience across across multiple specialties with a particular focus on plastic surgery. As the current burns research fellow at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. He continues to be involved in research and education, committed to delivering evidence based care. Doctor Me has published widely and highly esteemed peer review journals as well as presenting his work at various international and national conferences, winning multiple prizes and awards in the process. He is continually engaged in education, regularly, teaching health professionals and students and has been awarded several prestigious qualifications for his dedication. Thank you very much, doctor. Me too. Right. Right. Hi. Thank you. You can see you and can you hear me? Yes, great. Um How do I share my screen? Um She, she just gonna copy that. There we go. And everyone see this. Yes. Good. And everyone see the full screen. I can donuts. No. So let me check the chat. No responses. But I think no response is a good thing. It's always a good thing I think. Yes. Ok. We got a Yes. Yeah. Fantastic. Right. Um um I don't really know. Oh, well, thank you. First of all, my name is Yang. Thank you for inviting me to this. Uh Well, uh talk. Um and thank you for visiting me um as somebody who is able to give something of value to uh uh to the medical students with regards to research. Um Yeah, just to begin. Uh just a disclaimer and kind of like who I am. Uh I am currently a burns research fellow uh and will be undertaking a ACF plastics post in August of this year. Um I founded the Him's Plastic uh plastic reconstructive and aesthetic Society in, well, back when I was at medical school and I am currently, well obviously an aspiring plastic surgeon. Uh I guess the reason why I've been invited, perhaps one of them is the fact that I managed to publish 3030 papers. I think all of 20 of which II recently counted 20 of which were started at medical school. Um All 30 I've had to write myself. So I've not been kind of like coauthors um where II haven't touched the manuscript at all. I've touched all of them. Um So it, it's what, what I mean by this is basically you can, everyone can achieve it. Um Everyone, every medical student can achieve it just need to be focused and I will be going through kind of who, who, what, where, when and why. I think it's on the next slide. Nope, uh who, what, where, when and why and what kind of person focusing on what kind of person really um benefits or undertakes research and benefits from obviously taking um the these opportunities to take ACF posts uh in the country that are quite prestigious, right? So what is research? The, it's basically a question and answer thing where you establish, you ask a question on a observation or kind of uh an interpretation of a data or information that you have and then you try and find out through various techniques on how to answer that this um question. The most specific thing that I like to inform everybody with regards to research is the fact that you are adding to re uh adding to science, you're adding to this database or data of science, science where you're constantly, which is constantly improving, constantly updating. And as you know, well aware that 50% of what, you know, in 10 years time will be absolutely obsolete. So you're kind of adding to that or obsoleteness or adding to the new, um age or new era of evidence. And what is research, it comes in various shapes and sizes with expert opinion at the bottom, with systematic reviews and meta analysis, er, at the top. But the important thing here is two things um research can never be done alone and it is uh requires a lot of skills with regards to teamwork and leadership and organization that you guys have been probably been hammered throughout medical school. Uh It, it is very much important because if you have the AAA very poor team, none of your publications or none of your um efforts in publishing is going to be fruitful and you're never gonna, you're never going to be able to cross that line uh with that in mind. A teamwork always means that it is going to be a long term process. There's no short, quick fix to publications and no short, quick fixes to research. Everything takes time and everything takes consideration. So it's something that you need to consider. Um Am I a kind of like, do I work well as a team? Um And am I quite a patient person is something, can I delay gratification? Is what I'd say? Is that something that II is a quality that I have. Um, yeah. Oh, yeah, as promised, just going through who, what, where, when and why I'm gonna keep this as short as possible. So I could answer as many questions as possible. Uh, rather than, you know, it's a One man show rather than a one man show. Um, so what kind of person does it? Um, it, I think in my personal opinion, working with a lot of medical students, it's a coat kind of personality. You do have to be very uh curious. Uh You do have to want to know a lot of things and ask a lot of questions in research. No question is silly, no matter how small and no matter how big because it working in a team, it means somebody somewhere has missed out on something or could have missed out on something. So asking the right questions and clarifying the right questions or clarifying any questions is very, very important with that in mind. You do have to be organized and what I've been by organized is most important. Importantly, sticking to deadlines if you do not make your deadlines and if you personal deadlines as well as group deadlines, um you don't make personal deadlines as in like a data to finish, for example, data extraction or data analysis at a given time, then um people are relying on you to finish that and if you don't finish that and everybody, then every everything else gets delayed and the long term game, long term game becomes even more uh more of a long term game. So you need to be organized as much as possible. The other thing, the other two ardent and thick skinned, I think the mo out of the two, the most important thing is being thick skinned, thick skinned. You will be rejected at every stage, especially in or I've been rejected personally by myself in terms of ideas. So I uh propose an idea to a lot of my supervisors and um they said this is not a very good idea. Um You, you have to not take it to heart and not take it so personally and move on to better and greener pastures pretty much um all the way to being your paper, which is you've been working on for months and months on end being absolutely rejected. Uh because you're not adding anything or they think they're not adding anything of value to their journal. Um So the important thing is here, your value of your work, the value of your work may not be appreciated or may not be to people, but it is, it will be valued somewhere. Um So keep on going two. I hi doctor, sorry. Um We're finding it difficult to hear you. Yeah, it just Oh perfect. I think it's back. Can you hear me better now? Yes. Yes. Um So the the greatest story for being thick skinned and understanding the value of your work is basically, I think there's a story where, um, a father and a son went, you know, a father wanted to show the value of something uh, to his son. Very young son, took out a really old Toyota and went to a Toyota garage and asked for its value. And the Toyota people are told them, you know, it's a very old car, it's probably worth about 2000 lbs, obviously dejected. Both of them came, well, the son came back home and the very next day, um, the father took his, took the son to a, a vintage car dealership and, um, to the son's surprise, the Toyota car fetched about 200,000 lbs. Uh obviously teaching the son that, um, it is not the, well, the car, that's the problem. It is where you go and the value that your work or what you have holds in the eyes of another person. So that's something I wanted to tell you. Um, don't give up. That's basically what uh is the outline on whatever work you are pursuing right now. Uh See it to the, see it to the end, be organized so that you can get it crossed over the finish line. Um, uh I think I presented this last Saturday as well and some of you may know the answer. Uh Does anyone know the person on the right? It's a pretty easy answer to the question. The president should know. She was in the presentation last week. I do know. Should I say the answer? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, please. The one on the right is Mary Curie. And do you remember the person on the left? I don't remember his name but I know what he did. Ok. That's good. That's good enough. Uh, so his name is Joseph Mengele. Uh, do you know what he did? Can you tell me what he did what to do with World War where he um created? Is it the mustard gas? Yeah. Well, he didn't create it himself, but he's a, he was a scientist uh working at Auschwitz. Um So he did all the uh human experiments at Auschwitz there. Um So something bad basically and the person on the right Mary tie obviously won two Nobel Prizes in two different distinctive categories. So benefit to kind, what I'm trying to say is you can be a cook kind of personality. But obviously, the, you need to be heading towards the right direction, you know, trying to improve human, human life, human quality of life rather than uh uh the person on the left. Uh what um is research or what do you need to do? Um With regards to research, you really need to familiarize yourself with the hierarchy of everything that little triangle I showed you at the beginning, you need to know what a case report is. You need to know what a meta analysis is. You need to know what a systematic review is and you need to um and what I mean by familiarize yourself with the rules is, you need to know how they are written and what they are strut what the structure of it is like. And the best way to do that is to read, read and read. Uh you need to learn the structure of systematic reviews, especially because that's kind of, I believe the foundation of, of most research you need to because there's summarization of all the other case reports and um expert opinions out there and retrospective analysis and prospective cohort studies out there and you're putting it into one paper. So learning the structure, uh you learn, you need to learn the terminology, you need to learn how um they are written the flow and the fluency. Um and you need to adopt them in your own practice. And the only way, honestly, the only way I learned is through reading multiple, multiple papers just in my spare time. And that's what I would recommend as well. Um It's just reading, reading, reading if for those of you who um obviously ii have some of my dyslexic friends as well who are find it quite difficult to read, listening to podcasts and listening to what's called open papers. So they um authors discuss papers and read that this uh parts of the paper out for you. So you need to start listening to them and starting getting into that research mode. Um I have a lovely document, uh quite a long document on tips on academic writing and other form of writing, which I'm happy to share with all of you if you'd like. It basically goes through the basics of how to write formally, how to write academically. And it is um a relatively long list, but um it helped me um understand how people respond to academic writing and um help me write academically as well, which is a skill that you'll need for the rest of your life. Uh For those of you who are under, you know, planning on taking research to, you know, being professors and taking it to the next level, then this uh probably a document you need to read. Uh where can you do research? Um Basically the short answer is anywhere. Um And if you're going to do it anywhere, uh do it face to face, I think, face to face, meeting your supervisors, face to face no matter where they are. Uh So I, one of the stories that I like to tell is, um, there was a lovely researcher and lovely supervisor in Leeds. I went at medical school. Um, he was doing cutting edge research and hand surgery. Um And I thought, you know, I'm really intrigued and very interested in their, in their study. So what I did was took a train um, on Saturday, I think, because I knew they had to list and I went up there to see them, uh, see the team, see the Leeds Hands team. And, um, and, yeah, and shook their hand and asked them whether they had the, you know, that, that I was interested in their research. I'd like to participate in the research and then, you know, they gave me a couple of research there and then, so it's always better to contact them face to face, to go see them face to face rather than, you know, online and asking for meetings and ask, you know, sending checks and emails back and forth because they're, you know, they're busy clinicians. So you really need to go see them and you need to be willing to go anywhere to see them. Uh When I found this a little bit tricky, er, myself, uh obviously, or being organized, being part of that coach personality really, really helped and organizing your time management. Uh This is some of the things uh that I did um, and helped quite a lot. So during the summer times, during the summer break, I'd always be working on one or two papers during that time. Um SSI P is special interests projects. I'm not sure if medical, medical schools still have this. Um, do, do they still have this? Um, we have something quite similar at King's called the CF? Ok. Interesting. Right. Um I'm sure all medical students or medical schools have some, something similar to this. So it's a designated project that you do throughout the year. They, you, you can either select your supervisors or um, um, or they select them for you. What I suggest is if you are interested in something, find somebody who is actively doing research and ask them to be your supervisor. Uh For example, I've been asked that because I went to Ha York medical school. Um, individual students used to reach out to me, like, even though when I was F one and F two because they knew I was publishing. Um So, uh they reached out to me and, and the medical school were happy to have me as one of the uh supervisors. So reach out to anybody who's approachable. It doesn't have to be consultants all the time. Um uh obviously, if they are consultants, they hold more weight and they can give you more um directions. Of course, if you meet the, meet the right person, meet the right mentor, you can ask them to help them, uh help you take your S IP, which is a mandatory time for you to take research. Uh But the bulk, the bulk of my work actually was in spare time during my spare time, every evenings, every Saturday, Sundays. Um uh, you know, whenever I had free time, you know, I'll be focusing on research because it is what's going to carry you if you are looking for ATF posts, applying for a FP posts, sorry. And ACF POSTS and, you know, doctoral posts or undertaking P hds. That's what they're looking at, they're gonna look at your publications, they're looking, they're looking at a variety of publications. So don't do, um, don't publish in one area alone. It's something I recommend. Uh, I rec I published in med tech Dermatology, plastics, I think, um, OBS and Gynae as well very recently. Um, hand surgery, um, and, uh, health and community things like that, like psychology as well. So if you have a broad uh broad publication um spectrum, they can ask you about it in your interviews, which is, which actually has helped me as well. So I would broaden your sphere and throughout your, throughout the school year, that's something definitely um spare time. Uh what I mean by throughout the school year is when you have a bit of spare time in your clinical placements. I remember I had a lot of GP placements because um all your medical school, you know, is renowned for making a lot of GPS. So during those times, whenever I had the spare time, you know, I was reading papers, I was writing papers and it's something you just need to get on top of just need to time manage and make sure where, where your priorities are. And that leads me on to the most important part on the slide. It really, really, you really need to place if, if research is something that is important to you, you really need to prioritize it and it needs to be urgent and that's what I mean by deadlines, you need to set your personal deadlines so that, you know, you, it could be as small as I'm gonna finish this by the end, end of the day or whatever. It's something that I do right now even now. Well, I'm gonna finish this paper by next week. Um So get those deadlines, see a little bit. Um why there are many reasons why you wish to do research. Um, because you love it. I think you do that for myself. Hi, Doctor Yang. Sorry. Um It's gone a little bit more. Yeah. Right. Can you hear me better now? Yeah, I can. Yeah, I think I just need to shout. Um So yeah, so there are many reasons why you need to, why you may wish to pursue research. Um, and the first reason is I hope most of you are tuning in because you love research or think you do at least. Um And the second thing is because it's what you're supposed to do most of you, for example, plastic surgeons or aspiring plastic surgeons. This is most of the time the case. Um because you need those points for, to apply for CST and ST uh because it's cool, hopefully. Um, and because you like a challenge and that's certainly the case for myself as well. Er, is very challenging because it is, it takes up a lot of your time, but I can say it has reaped more rewards than any other part of my CV. So it's something you need, you know, you need to hold on to very tightly and pursue. Um There are three kinds of uh t scientists. This is written written by Edward O Wilson, uh letters to a young scientist and basically a uh one archetype of scientist is the person who, you know, goes on the quest finds out the new information and tries to answer those questions. Um People who, you know, in search of the holy grail. So the only are interested in publications, only interested in the numbers basically. And the third kind of person which I mentioned earlier is the person who's who does research for to battle good versus evil. Um you know, to make a world a better place to be a little bit cliche. And I think all three is required uh to make a good researcher. Um The other why is because uh it complements the lectures that you have and you apply it to real life and it, it does really develop your critical thinking and problem solving and presentation skills. Uh The important thing is if you want to do more research, having, you know, having already done research, it allows you to network very easily. And by that, I mean, you can go to conferences and you can talk to people that you are interested in and you found their talk and you tell them, look, I found you talk really interesting. This is what I've done um with regards to uh research in your field. And I'd like to take your research further. And if you don't have that uh you know, background research, then you can, you can't really say those things. Um For example, yeah, basically um useful for job applications, as I mentioned, CST and ST is very, very, very, very useful. Um And it takes up a lot of your points as well. So it, that's why research is important. And most importantly, it is what makes you unique. You know, everybody has different interests, everybody has different um agendas, so, undertaking or undertaking or finishing a publication or finishing a piece of work on a particular area of your interest um makes you stand out because in the end, if you finish that publication on a niche subject, you are essentially a world leading expert on that particular topic. So uh which makes you unique. So you need to be a little bit proud of that. Um And um basically finish and uh start research as soon as possible. Um And I guess most of you are here to understand. Uh uh Well, this slide is probably most important how um to undertake research. And the first step is basically to figure out what you're interested in what area, at least if you're not, if you're not very sure about that, ask around uh gain experience. And one of the questions that I was asked recently is basically how do you know what surgical specialty I wanted to be? And what I did was basically spend two weeks per surgical specialty. Uh 2 to 3 weeks throughout third year and fourth year, um experiencing each specialty in depth like Saturday, Sundays. So four days in total in each specialty and then I found out uh what specialty was suited for me. So go out there, go to your placements and in your spare time and find out and then uh whilst you're there, contact your supervisors, contact your surgeons, your lectures, lecturers and professors and understand the important thing here. You need to understand what research they are into and what kind of teaching style that you are that they have because they might be a little bit more approachable and they might not be. So you need to understand that when you have identified these surgeons and professors, you need to compose a well or out email uh which is something I can go through, but in the interest of time I won't. Um but you'll, you'll know when you see one, when you write your own well or out email um and send it, you'll know because you get a response from them. The other thing you can do is look on the faculty list at university at, at K CL and UCL at any London University. There's a massive faculty list. And so look up for, you know, faculty list for med tech or uh or or other areas uh and uh contact them. Volunteer for lab work is the other thing. So clinical and wet lab ACL S are very well known for wet lab work to contact them and get primary research experience, which is something that you can bring up when you're networking and apply for research programs, which are always available in medical uh stu uh medical schools. And the most important thing is you need to be enthusiastic. You need to read papers, you need to listen to podcasts, you need to talk to people, uh ie your supervisors and talk to people around you. So people who are already doing research, your colleagues, your friends, you need to talk to them and ask them if they can help, if you can help them and they can help you. Um which is, which brings us back to the importance of uh Thank you for 25 minutes, right? So a couple of minutes for questions. Uh This is my contact details. If you have further questions, if you wanna contact me directly. Thank you, Doctor Yang. Um I do have a question. Um So sometimes you approach supervisors and they seem sort of willing to get involved and then it goes a little bit silent or it doesn't reach into publication. So can you touch a little bit on how to, I guess, identify a good supervisor or identify whether your project may reach publication. So the greatest, I think I mentioned one of the slides, the greatest indicator you uh it's very easy to just type their name up on Google um and find their research gate and find it all kit number. And if they are consistently publishing over the, you know, period of within a year, so the greatest indicator for me was like if they published two in one year, um you know, they are quite interested in research and quite interested in developing students and look at their publication list, um authorship list. Um If they are including medical students in their work, you know, they are cooperative already. Um If they are publishing for senior year brilliant, you know, you've got the right mental, you know, somebody who's already I told you that uh research and progress, sorry and progress you on to greener, greener passengers pastures. Uh yeah, just look at their authorship list, look at their scopus score, look at, look at their research. G look at their orchid, it's all there available in the public eye for you to figure out. Um and the best the other indicator to find out is go meet them, um go meet them because they might have a lot of things going on. They just might not have published them all because they haven't found the right people, which has been the case in multiple times. So I turned up and literally said, look, I know you're amazing. You're do you do cutting edge edge research? I know you're struggling to publish. Um Let, let me help you. I've got time, I've got skills. Here's my resume. Um Here's what I've written, I've given, I literally printed out what I've written. Have a quick read through. So is this the kind of style that you are looking for? Obviously the background to that is you need to read, you need to practice, you need to do a lot of background stuff, listening to podcasts, not stressed enough and I handed it to them and they were like, look, you can take all of mine um finish all of them for me. And I'm like, yeah, happy. So there are those kind of like silent killers is what I call them. They're, they're, they're doing some cutting edge research. They just don't have the people to write it for them because they don't have the time and a they can't trust anybody to do it. They can't just trust a medical students write cutting edge research for them. But if you show them that you are giving and show them, that's what they're looking for. They're looking for commitment, they're looking for people who are able to take it across the finishing line. And if you are that kind of personality, then you'll be able to do it and you just need to that. Thank you. I think the last bit, just cut out a bit. But, um, that was really useful. Um And then another question, um, how many times did you personally try to publish before you published your first paper? Uh uh Oh, yes. Very. Uh, my first paper was in Dermatology, believe it or not. Um, and I think I tried like, 23 different journals um, before it still happens now, like, literally it's still, it, it doesn't matter how much experience that you have in writing and how well you write, you do get rejected. It's because they just don't value your work. They don't, it doesn't fit in with their scope of uh of their readership. So you just need to submit it elsewhere. You and uh I don't think to date fingers crossed, I have ever m managed to not publish anything that I've laid my hands on. So it goes, it just goes to show if you're persistent and if you know where your value of your work lies and you could, you could pop anything is publishable in the right hands in the right team in the right journal. Yeah, so don't worry, don't worry, don't be, don't be scared. Uh It will get published. It just requires a little bit of um a little bit of help from your mentors, um a little bit of experience and a little bit of grit your family. Thank you very much. Um And then we'll now announce our next speaker. Thank you. Um doctor, let me invite our next speaker to the stage. Ok. So announcing our next speaker, Doctor, an uh an CAIA is a resident member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England American Society of Plastic Surgery, a SPS and the British Association of Plastic Reconstructive Anesthetic Surgeons that press. He went first in the UK Plastic Surgery National selection, The Match sixth in co surgical training and received an ACF an academic clinical fellowship offer from Cambridge University. Um He has 100 plus publications and book chapters with 1400 plus citations with press coverage in the Guardian ITV News and the independent 30,000 reads on a research gate and one paperback textbook as lead author and editor with 200,000 lbs plus in grant funding prizes, scholarships, a tho 100 presentations across three continents, 50 plus academic prizes and one patent. He has featured in major news outlets including the Guardian, the Independent and the ITP News. So we have a really good speaker today who tells us a lot about publishing and how to get involved with it. Let me see if I can invite. Thank you for joining us, Anchor. Hi, can you hear me? Yeah, we can hear you loud and clear. Fantastic. Um So let me just share my screen. Ok, let me know if you can see my slides. Yeah, I can see them. I'm just gonna go off. Thank you. Perfect. Um So thank you everyone, er, for joining today. Er, thank you aka to the, and the team uh for the invitation. Um So I'm not sure what's been covered already. Uh but uh the title of my talk is gonna be about how to publish, er, as a medical student. Um I'm gonna talk about uh various topics uh from how to select research topics to undertake, how you select supervisors, what you should be doing, how to upskill. Um And then we'll also talk a little bit about um how to um uh respond to reviewers in various aspects. Um I'm very happy to take any questions as well as we go along. Um And uh yeah, hope hopefully this is useful. So I'm gonna be covering er why? Firstly, you should think about publishing. Um Then I'll talk about how to get involved. I'll share a little bit about my experience um to give you a flavor of um how you can get involved in research and uh what are the hurdles er that you may face, how to approach a supervisor, uh how to take any project from the design conception stage all the way through to publication. Uh We'll talk about what, what is your role as a medical student and as future junior doctors who will be engaging in research, uh we'll talk about how to select journals, how you respond to reviewers. Um I'll talk a little bit about academic productivity. Sorry. And um we can't see your flights? Oh, ok. One sec. Ok. Can you see my slides now? Mm. No. All right. Ok. Just give me a second any luck now. No such luck from my end. Uh I'm not sure it says the screen is being shared. Ok. Um let me just see if this has anything to do with. Ok. Yes, now it's sharing. Ok, it's on. Yeah. Ok, perfect. I think you need to stay on the, the powerpoint page and then we'll share it. What about now? Yeah, that looks good. Ok, great. So, um, yeah, so, uh we'll talk a little bit about academic productivity. Um, and, um, I also run um, an education company called High Yield UK. So I'll mention a few of the upcoming courses that we have for anyone who's interested and, uh, I'll take questions as well, uh towards the end. Um, so just to introduce myself, uh, my name is Kuria. I'm a plastic and reconstruction surgeon in training, um, based in the UK, er, based in London. Er, I was fortunate to rank first in the, er, plastic surgery national selection. Um, and I've also had academic roles both at, er, Oxford and in college, er, and, er, published and presented, uh, my work internationally. Um, I also sit on the editorial boards, er, for systematic reviews journal, er, as well as the plastic and reconstruction surgery journal. Um, and I've had other academic roles at, er, er, empiric College, er, as well, I'm passionate about education. Um and I was fortunate to win the Asset uh Silver Suture Award uh in 2022 and have been nominated for um other teaching uh prizes also. And finally, uh I'm a clinical entrepreneur as well. Er and er working on a new patented er medical device, er as well. So to start with uh why should you publish? Um So this is a question you should ask before undertaking um or starting your research journey as such. Um And there are several pros and cons so, pros uh research is fundamental for um healthcare advancement um to pursue um and to advance your specialty, it provides lifelong intellectual stimulation, uh provides a lot of variety. Um And one of the best things about it is the autonomy. So um when you work in, especially as a doctor or as a junior doctor, uh life can seem a little bit mundane. Um but research gives you an outlet to uh think and be creative, come up with new ideas, test new hypothesis. Um And um from that point of view, it's, it's very stimulating. It also helps to inform your clinical practice. Um And you can really become an expert in the field uh through research and being involved in research, I would say is a prerequisite to becoming an expert. So for those of you who want to be uh invited to panels at conferences internationally, you need to be publishing your work um and contributing to the field for those of you who are not particularly interested in going down the academic route, you still need to have academic skills to be able to uh remain up to date with the latest, er, innovations and, er, and the literature and you need to be able to appraise literature because patients are becoming, er, very savvy now. So they often come to clinics, having read research articles and they will ask you questions about what do you think about this treatment or I read about this, what do you think about this? And you need to be able to appraise that evidence um and um make an informed er decision um er in conjunction with the patient uh research also helps with career progression and we'll talk about that a little bit later. But those of you who are thinking about the specialized foundation program um or um going down the academic route in terms of a CFS ACL S or those of you who are thinking about um uh just higher training, uh research will be integral part of any application. Um So the more high quality uh publications you have, uh the better your chances will be at scoring more highly in portfolios and advancing into the career that you want. Um And as I mentioned, in terms of international meetings and panels, if you don't publish, um you simply won't be invited to those on the flip side. Um there are some downsides. So you do have to split your time between clinical and academic responsibilities. Um And that can be particularly difficult for something called craft specialties. So these are specialties that require you to um undertake a number of index procedures or operations. So things like surgery, um interventional cardiology, interventional radiology, those sort of things. Uh competition for grants is also fierce. Um You can be writing a 50 page grant and that gets rejected at the end. Um, and you're back to square one so that uh is something you need to bear in mind. Um, and it can take a long time before you see output. So you'll have to go through revisions, er, respond to reviewers and you can have rejections. Um So you've got to bear all of that in mind. It's, um it's not simple and um obviously the more, er, experience you have and the more skills you develop, er, the easier that path will be. Um, but, um, uh you know, it's not simply submitting a paper and, and it gets accepted first time. Very rare. Um Not all trainees want to take time out to do a phd uh or a high degree. Um, and definitely needs perseverance and resilience having said that on balance, I think it's an amazing thing to get involved in. Um I think you'll have a very um uh fulfilling and um refreshing career. Um you'll be able to contribute to your specialty. Um And you'll get to become an expert in the field. So how do you get involved? So, the first thing I would recommend is really to identify your clinical and research interest. And for some of you, this may come very naturally. You may have um you know, friends colleagues um in a particular specialty and you've been exposed to that specialty more. Um or you may have very personal reasons for going into a specialty. Um, for example, uh, but for many of you, um, it will be, um, it's not something that will come to you, you know, very easily and you have to be more proactive to go out and seek what your interest is. Now. What I mean by that is a lot of students come to me and say, um, oh, I'm, I haven't had any exposure to plastic surgery. Um, you know, how, how do I know if it's an interesting specialty or, you know, something I should pursue. So, in most medical school curriculum, er, curricula, um, plastic surgery, not well represented. So when I was in, er, my third year and I had my first surgical, er, posting, I went to different surgical theaters to explore um, what these specialties were like. So I remember going to neurosurgery, uh plastic surgery, general surgery, urology. Um, and, you know, I wasn't kind of scheduled to go into those theaters but I was just proactive and I just introduced myself and went in and tried to establish some sort of relationship with um with the consultants. Um and to really get a little bit of exposure in terms of what day to day um life would be like um in, in that specialty. And that is really important. If you haven't done that already, I would seriously recommend you do that because it's a big decision. Um You know, you'll be undertaking that specialty for, you know, um 3040 years potentially. Um So it's such an important decision and it needs to be an informed decision before you, you know, pursue that specialty. And that will also help you in terms of developing your research interest because the best way to um get involved in research is ideally in the specialty that you're interested in. Um So that everything is aligned in terms of you're doing research, you're doing audits, et cetera and all of those are in the specialty that you want to pursue. Um You also need to identify a suitable supervisor. Um So I think this was mentioned by the previous speaker. Uh but um someone who publishes a lot, uh someone who is used to working with medical students. Um and I've got a slide coming up in terms of uh what makes a good supervisor, you also need to challenge dogma and what you read and hear. So a lot of the times um especially when you start working as well, the consultants will pass down information that they, that has been passed down from, from their seniors and, you know, none of that is evidence based. So, really challenge everything you're told, even the stuff that you read in books. Now, some of the books that you may have are already outdated in terms of, you know, how we manage a particular condition or how we investigate something. So we look at the latest evidence in terms of, um, in terms of er how er things are done. Um And, and when you hear something or consultant say something to you challenge them and say, you know, why is it done like this? You know, um I read about this uh piece of evidence. How does it kind of fit in with the current model of how the patients are being treated? The next thing is uh one of the fundamental things I take home from uh this presentation is develop academic skills. Um Again, I don't know what was mentioned in the previous talks, but it is so important to um develop your skills as early as you can because firstly, um supervisors, especially busy, clinical academics are very busy and they have finite number of projects and uh a number of uh students slash post do slash uh master's students all wanting projects. So they simply cannot give projects to everyone. So the way to um to get in essentially is to come with some academic skills. So to have said, you know, I have been on the statistics course and I've learned how to do XYZ. I want to put these skills into practice. Do you have a project for me? You're much more likely to get a yes than someone just saying, or sending an email to say um II want to do a project. Do you have a project? Um And, you know, this is something that I did uh quite a lot in medical school. So I attended a number of courses um through um uh one second. Um So, uh so, you know, this is something I did throughout medical school. I went to lots of statistics courses, academic writing courses, and this really helped me to then subsequently get projects published. Um And by the time I finished medical school, I had 20 publications and I really put it down to developing academic skills um very early on in medical school, understand your responsibility um in terms of um you know, what's required. Um you know, make sure that if you do undertake a project, you really see it to completion. Uh No one likes um a student who signs up and then, you know, doesn't finish the tasks on time or simply quits um build experience, um define what your goal is as well and attend conferences, network as much as possible and some unique ideas will come from those conferences to. So, in terms of supervisor who should you pick? Um ideally you want someone who publishes a lot. Um So have a look at PUBMED, uh usually a good source to see um what sort of papers are being published and how many and by whom you want? Someone who is um relatively influential in the field, someone who has a track record of publishing with medical students, um research you're ideally interested in. Um And uh also someone who can help you um not just from a research perspective but a, as a mentor as well in other parts as well. Um And I'll put that the SRA research fellowship. So that's a program that we offer. Uh it's a 12 month program uh to develop a lot of these skills. And I'll mention that towards the end for anyone who's interested. So what's the responsibility of you as a medical student? Uh I've said they bring the heat. Um you really have to come, er, motivated driven um and work um hard and work quickly as well. So um speed is very important in academia. Um You have to get your paper out um before the other research groups and be the first to publish it. Er, but er, while speed is important, the quality is, is a prerequisite. So you can't compromise the quality with speed, you have to do both together. And again, this comes back to developing skills that will allow you to work quickly. So naturally when you start research or doing research, you will find it tough and especially if you haven't developed those skills, it's gonna take you double or three times a time to finish a particular task, developing those skills, attending courses, upskilling yourself will make you faster and faster and allow you to finish projects more quickly, take on more projects. And this is how you get um multiple, multiple publications, ensure high quality work don't make, make any excuses. Um And really take uh the projects from start to finish, also make the life of your supervisor easier. So, um you know, I often used to say to, er, supervisors, um you know, uh do you have anything that you're currently working on? This is already when I've established a relationship with them to say, um you know, um I'm able to, you know, take on some work and finish it quickly. Um and they would like the fact that I would turn the work around quickly to a high standard to a high quality and it will really advance uh their project. And this meant that they would give me more projects and um it would allow me to, you know, publish more and more. Um make sure you've read up the work that's been published by the supervisor before you approach them. Um Aim high and consistency, keep putting in the work, keep developing your skills and all of that will compound over time. Uh So, developing academic skills, uh as I said, uh a fundamental er, aspect that you need to grasp in medical school. Um A lot of people leave this very late um or try and do this, um, you know, er, or try and do research without, you know, any prerequisite skills coming into it. Uh which I think is um not fair on you or uh the, the research team that you work on work with. So make sure you develop these skills on how to read and critically appraise papers. Um You know, also look at different journals and publications and appreciate different writing styles, things you can do quickly. Um So identify and write up interest in case reports, series, narrative reviews, commentaries, these are easy publication types and will help you to get your foot in the door. Um Attend courses, invest in yourself, this is a long term investment and it will help you at every subsequent step. Um So, you know, a lot of uh colleagues would ask, you know, why am I attending statistics courses as a third year medical student? Uh But actually, um from those courses, I got projects which I, you know, published. And as I said, I had 20 publications when I finished medical school and I was then subsequently always ahead at every subsequent application. So I then scored full marks in my uh course surgical training portfolio as well. Um It helped me with my plastic surgery national selection where I ranked first. So you can see it's such a great investment and especially when you have time in medical school, it will help you at every subsequent step um in in your journey and not just you know, up to higher training after that as well in terms of consultant jobs, in terms of fellowships abroad. Um um it, it will help you at every stage. Um and yeah, develop skills and statistics as well. So for those less experienced start with uh case reports, case series, uh narrative reviews, um uh letters to the editor, uh these are easy publication types. Um Some journals also publish video articles so you can have a look at those and ask your consultants if there is anything interesting that you can write up uh help collect data from more senior colleagues. Um Again, this is a kind of a right of passage. Um I've done it and um you know, you will probably start uh with some of those projects as well. Um And there's the er notion of collaborative research uh with large collaboratives. Um Again, you know, uh interesting things to look at but just be mindful of the fact that you will probably be one of uh 304 100 collaborators on, on the paper. Um And a lot of programs like I think the UK FP O previously said that they don't count uh that research in turn of point. So just be mindful of that um conception to publication. Um So er ideas er in terms of generating the ideas early on. Uh you'll mostly rely on others er, to get those ideas and then when you become more experienced later on, er, you will start to come up with your own project. Ideas. Learn how to define your research question. Um You need to determine the most suitable study design for your research question um by performing a quick literature review initially to see what the current body of literature is like. Um Also need to learn how to submit um IRB and IRS application. Uh This is for research ethics. Um and then also identify the team and allocate the roles appropriately based on your strengths, then start writing the manuscript um at the data collection stage. So this is one of my tips er to all of you. Um don't leave the writing right. At the end, I start, I start the writing straight away um for any project. Um And the sequence really is you start with the methods, then you do the introduction, results, discussion and finally the abstract uh determine the authorship, start collecting data, um understand variables. So you need to understand, you know, same as anything, you know, if you're learning a language or you know, you're talking about finances, et cetera, you need to understand the basic um language and the vocabulary. Um So you need to understand basic things like variables, categorical versus continuous parametric versus nonparametric statistics. When do you use? Which um terms like the Shapiro Wilk test should be quite comfortable for you. Um before you, you know, think about undertaking research. Um and then obviously think about figures tables and supplementary files too. How do you select journals? Um So determine the quality of your er study methodology and the results. Um So, you know, be realistic um if you've done a piece of work that you think is good, but it's not truly, truly groundbreaking. Um probably not the best idea to submit to the New England Journal of Medicine or the lancet. Um So select a journal with, with an appropriate impact factor, you can also do a presubmission inquiry uh by writing to the editor beforehand and just checking the scope of that paper and that will save you months of peer review time. Um It's one of the best tips I can give you today. Uh look at factors such as general peer review time, number of er issues published, er whether it's open access if there are any fees involved as well. Um And then uh understand what um we mean by H index and citations as well. Uh So that's just a demonstration here. So citations are basically when others uh cite or reference your work in their work. So you can see here um uh these are my citations um and you can see how a single high impact paper uh can uh can be highly cited. So this paper that we published uh previously has now been cited 432 times uh already how to respond to reviewers. Um So you generally write something called rebuttal letter. Um And uh you try and uh address their queries in a point by point manner. Um You can challenge the review too, but generally it's a good idea to just uh comply with what uh um what they're suggesting. I include line page numbers and one of the best tips I can give you as well is to use different color text and make it absolutely clear to the reviewer where you've made the changes and make their life easy. So I I'm a reviewer as well for a number of journals. Um And um if it, if it's really difficult for me to uh you know, see where the changes have been made, I often, you know, prioritize that paper lower and I'll move on to the next uh paper that I have to review, which is easy. So if you make the lights of reviews easier, um you will find that your turnaround time is quicker as well in terms of the peer review. So as an example, um so uh the review of comment was in yellow. Um and I simply replied, uh we've added this table below as advised and that just satisfies their point and this paper was accepted. OK. So with the research, um you know, obviously people will see the success uh when, when you have publications but, um, as I'm sure, you know, all of that, uh, you know, er, stuff is, um, is what people don't see so hard work, late nights, projections, et cetera. But all in all I think it's an amazing experience. Um, and uh, it will uh serve you really well in the future. So, uh a, I don't know how we're doing for time. Um, I had um, some slides on my academic path, um, which I'll just quickly brush over and er er then go on to talk more about uh CV building and um er other research components. So, yeah, this was my academic path. Um As you can see, I started very early. Uh my first research experience was at the end of my third year, but I had started developing skills, er at the beginning of third year, I did a randomized control study er at er college. Uh This was published, presented internationally. Um I then wanted to experience some basic science research. So develop your portfolio widely um you know, undertake basic science clinical research as early as you can also for you to see what you enjoy. Um So I did uh some basic science research in Tokyo Japan, er investigating cancer stem cells um and looking at the interaction uh of glioma stem cells er with normal host er cells which are astrocytes. Um So I investigated using different techniques. So I used and learned how to do cell culturing um RT PCR, I was also fortunate to do mice work. Um And we transplanted some uh cancer cells into the brains of mice and which allowed the tumor to grow over several weeks. Uh We didn't sacrificed the ice. I took the brains out um and uh created slices and to investigate our, our hypothesis um which came up to me uh true. Um And again, this was um I won't go into this, but essentially, um the conclusion was that the cancer stem cells could change the expression of the host cells to uh invade and uh migrate um the tumor. Um This for this work, I er was awarded a first prize at Imperial College for my Bachelor of Science degree er in surgery. Um I also won the uh prize er at the SARS meeting at the University of Cambridge er and the findings were also published. Uh This was my supervisor in Japan and one of the other great things about research, it allows you to travel. Um So I've uh you know, presented my work internationally and uh you make collaborations and of these were my other colleagues who I traveled with at this time. So you can see um in medical school uh first experience of research at the end of third year, then I did the Japan um fellowship. Um and then um I also started to develop skills in systematic reviews, meta analysis statistics, as I mentioned throughout medical school really. But sort of third year onwards, mainly started to take on those projects, publish those projects. Um And that helped me to uh finish medical school with 20 publications which really gave me a head start. And uh I was also then able to use that uh output um to um actually get a fully funded uh scholarship to um do my elective at Harvard Plastic Surgery. And that was based on all the, all the publications, all the academic work that I had managed to do. I did the academic surgery program as well at Imperial College. Um And again, it's an amazing program that allows you to have protected academic time, but it's also about how you use it. So I did all these things uh during my protected time, did some plastic surgery research investigating a novel flexor tenon repair technique. Um and also did some medical education research and had the opportunity to travel. This was in Borneo and you can see, um also I had the chance to visit. Um Yeah, Bone, which was absolutely amazing. Um And these were some of the other outputs. So you can see um with the protected time. Um And uh just being um focused and all the skills that I developed during medical school really helped you to be more productive in research. Um And I was able to achieve all these things including writing a book. Um And um and I continued to attend courses um during that period as well. So attended more statistics courses and then clinical courses as well. And this helped with getting a scholarship at Oxford um and also ranking first in uh plastic surgery um in national selection now to also show you the benefits of research um and having skills. Um So during the height of COVID, um me and a lot of my colleagues were redeployed to intensive care and uh we saw the impact uh COVID was having on the mental health of healthcare workers, especially um especially nurses. So with the skills I had, I designed an international um uh cross sectional study looking at the impact of COVID. Uh this was published and I was invited uh by a number of uh news outlets um to uh share the findings. And I'm just gonna play a short clip to just show you um how research can really uh branch your career in different ways. Let me know if the sound doesn't play Aqua will do. OK? Anything I can't hear the sound? Is there no sound? You might have to go back and share the, there's an option to share uh no sound. I think you might have to unsure and then reha with the and it should work. OK? Don't worry. Um I think I'll just move on. Um But yeah, this was uh an, an interview with our ITV news, discussing our research. OK. Um So before I go further, I'm just gonna share um a little bit about uh my education platform um that I founded back in 2015. Uh it's called high Yield UK. Um I'm and I know our current uh a few other members have already been part uh of some of the programs that we offer. So our mission statement is really to help um medical students, doctors and international graduates rank highly uh in programs in the UK um and match in residency programs in the US. Uh We also support undergraduate postgraduate exams and one of our main um arms is in research, research training and helping developing portfolios. So this is through courses, mentoring online education. Um And till date, we've had over 1000 successful candidates. Uh we've gone through our programs, these are some of the programs that we offer and um just want to bring your attention to a few of the research programs that we have uh that some of you may be interested in. Uh So this is the website so which you can check out just highyield uk.com. Um And for those of you, social media um do follow us uh with the QR code. Um The handle is just high yield UK. And this is where we will post about our webinar series. Uh We have an ongoing uh free anatomy series that is uh currently happening uh biweekly and we're literally covering head to toe um anatomy. So if you're interested in that uh do follow us on this page and you'll be able to sign up to that as well. Um Everything we do is evidence based. So we collect a lot of data from our training programs and you can just see um some of these publications that have come out uh supporting our training programs and feedback as well. So we've had 100s of successful testimonies um over the years and these are just uh some of the successful candidates who have gone through our programs. So uh from a research perspective, uh one of our flagship courses is the Systematic review and meta analysis course um which is uh a course designed to help you to learn this fundamental skill, but also not just provide you with theoretical knowledge but also a project, a mentor um and support all the way through from conception to publication and presentation. Um So you also get um over 15 hours of video content. Um Each student also is allocated a project and a mentor. Um And this is really a course I wish I had when I was uh first starting out, it would have simplified the process so much. Um The course is led by myself and other colleagues from the US. So Harvard Mayo Clinic as well as from Imperial and Oxford. And our past delegates have gone on to present their work internationally uh and uh published in high impact journals including as first authors. So if anyone's interested uh here is the QR Code um where you can get more information. Uh otherwise just highyield uk.com uh where you can get all the details. Uh These are learning objectives. Uh This is our faculty, the prime faculty. Um So myself, um as well as uh Doctor Vas who's um a consultant, plastic surgeon at Harvard, um may have clinic trained um as well as uh doctor Reddy, who is a academic cardiologist at the Imperial. Um So, yeah, those are the fundamental aspects of the course that I mentioned. Um our next cohort is starting on the first of May. Uh We opened up a few more slots if anyone's interested. Um uh and the deadline to uh enroll is tomorrow. So we're finalizing the projects and, and the numbers tomorrow. So if anyone's interested uh do sign up to that. Um And uh for those of you who've uh joined today, you can use the code K CL um for a discount as well. These are some of our alumni uh who have come through our programs. And again, uh you can see these testimonies on trust plot. Um So all of these guys have uh published, presented their worker internationally. Um And uh some have published their first paper with us as well, which is very pleasing to see. Uh these are just some of the recent publications as you can see uh in high impact journals. Um And uh yeah, uh I won't play this now, but uh this was one of our um uh previous candidates who was an international graduate from India. She came with zero research experience uh published two papers from the course. Um And actually used that experience to land a research position at Harvard. Um So, um yeah, that worked out very well for her. Um The other thing that we've added now is uh access to five monthly live research meetings as well. Um So we have a fellowship program as well. So you'll be able to join the fellows um to uh share ideas and also to see what the ongoing projects are. Lots of project discussions happen. And it's a really collaborative um uh meeting that happens uh once a month uh with all the projects that are ongoing. So um that's also included within the program. Uh Lastly, uh we have the 12 month research fellowship. So this is really to uh upscale quickly and uh produce a lot of output. Um So, as a fellow, you'll be allocated new and ongoing projects with mental support. Um Each fellow is to publish 5 to 10 papers or more um as well as to submit to international conferences. Um One of our uh current fellows who's uh Kian is uh 75% through the fellowship. He's already submitted uh eight papers. Um And uh he's about to submit a lot more. So he's going to end up with way, way more than 10 publications from the program. Um You also get 12 month free access to our SRA video program as well as a CT P, which is a conception to publication video program. Um And you have mentors from um mentorship from myself and colleagues from Oxford, Harvard and Imperial. Uh At the moment, we've just opened up one more spot. So if anyone's interested uh just email high O UK at uh gmail.com and uh one of the team will send you uh the details for it. And usually I like to speak to the candidates uh beforehand as well before we take them on because we want to make sure that you're committed. Um And uh you really will um you know, uh take all the projects that you're allocated um to, to publication. Um Yeah, this is just a testimony from Kian which we can see on trust plot. Uh And then this is a conception to publication course um which is a video course. Uh These are the 10 lessons over 40 videos on really the fundamentals on um and stuff that's really isn't mentioned in books. This is all from experience in terms of how you start your research project fundamentals or data variables, statistics and then four sessions on actually how to write effectively one of the key skills that isn't really taught. Uh So introduction methods, results discussion, how you submit to a journal, other manuscript types and then um a bit about research productivity as well, which I'll cover um in the coming slides. Sorry, I've probably run over slightly. But um um yeah, academic productivity, key take homes are developed skills, uh developed skills and systematic reviews as well. Er because it allows you to publish remote research. And uh yeah, this paper that we published, I've mentioned previously, uh you can have standalone high impact publications with systematic reviews. This has been cited 432 times now. Uh in terms of academic productivity, it all comes down to skills. So the more skills you develop, the more experience you develop, the quicker you'll be able to get through things, the more projects you can take on and the more you will publish, it is actually very simple. Uh also identify a good team, ensure everyone's hard working efficient. Um And um make sure you allocate uh tasks uh to based on uh the individual skills strengths. Uh If you're working in a lab approach, multiple research fellows and help them to advance their projects deadlines uh and stick to them. This is one of the best things you can do for being productive. Um Also have templates for journal cover letters. So uh all our fellows um and our systematic review uh candidates get access to uh templates that you can quickly use and this will save you so much time when submitting papers, et cetera, uh respond appropriately and quickly to reviewers. Um also share your paper on social media. Many um uh researchers will write letters to the editor based on your paper. Um And you can respond to that and um and reengage in dialogue and just be hungry and adopt an evidence based mindset. OK. I'll just leave you with this. So, um these prizes et cetera um have all come about in some way through uh the research uh outputs um over the years. Um And it's a very fulfilling thing to do. Um I would highly recommend it um and uh start developing skills, you haven't already get involved in projects, publish, contribute to your field um and uh travel um and, and present and share your work internationally, build collaborations. There is a lot to do and um and it's, it's very, very, very enjoyable. OK. Those are my details. If anyone's interested to speak to me um or message me, feel free to get in touch. Um probably best to just send me a, a message on Instagram. Uh That's my handle, the er Doctor S underscore Kuria. Um And yeah, that's the discount code K TL um available till tomorrow for anyone who's interested. Thank you very much. Uh I'll stop sharing my screen um And happy to take any questions. Thank you very much. That was really interesting talk. And um just to give a little um sort of background about why I invited Doctor Jaro to speak is because I joined his um systematic Review Masterclass. Um And that was kind of the first time I got to understand how to do a systematic review analysis. Um And then from that, I kind of was able to learn different skills. And from then I'm working on three projects on my own now and hopefully start a review next year as well independently. So it's a really good masterclass to get involved with, to kind of know what to do. Um So, yeah, thank you very much for speaking. Um I'm just gonna invite all the um speakers today to join the stage. If I can do that. I'm gonna like car him back as well. Ok. OK. Brilliant, nice. Thank you everybody today for speaking. Um I'm just gonna invite the event um attendees to submit some questions into the chat and I've also got some questions preprepared. So um just the first question is um what would you say is the biggest challenge any of you face when it comes to doing research and how can you overcome it? Uh I can step in and chime in um just give my two cents. Um So challenge wise, um I wanted to get involved in research um very early on. So I still remember as a second year medical student um listening to a professor um and then emailing that professor afterwards and you know, literally being like, I'm a second year medical student. Uh II really found your lecture very insightful. Um I'm really interested in this field. Do you have any projects? No response I did the same for 234 more, er, professors. No response. Um, and in that year I got no responses. So, you know, an easy thing to do is then just to give up, um, and just say, ok, fine, you know, no one's gonna respond to me and uh just kind of move on but uh really be uh persistent. Um, and uh you know, a common theme through my presentation was to develop skills. So, you know, in sort of towards the tail end of second year, I started to, you know, attend um you know, workshops courses to really upscale. Um so that I wasn't coming in as a complete novice. Um And then when I started to approach er supervisors, my email would be, you know, I've just attended this course or, you know, I've just done this workshop, I've learned this skill, I'm really keen on putting this into practice to have any projects and the response rate started to go up. So the best tip is uh upskill yourself. Provide value. So, you know, what are you bringing to the table? So it's not just about taking something from them, it's about you offering something in return. So can you help them advance their projects, you know, get their projects submitted, take some pressure off them, you know, you need to offer something in return and that's where skills um and being proactive comes in. Thank you very much. Yeah. Um I cannot agree more. Um You just need to be very, very proactive and uh very organized in uh how you present yourself to other people as well. Uh With that in mind, I think teamwork has been the most difficult part for me. Um Obviously I mentioned previously, but most research or most publications you're, you're not going to be doing it on your own. Um And you're working with a team with, with a group of people and if you select the wrong people and you are, well, most of the time you're not selecting, you're most of the time logged in, I would say. Um But uh when you get to a stage where you can select the team that you're working with, if you select the wrong people, you can never just uh getting that publication across the finish line is, is the problem that I face most of the time. Um So I guess a bit, a little bit cliche, but uh as uh as Mama Gan Gandhi said, be the person you wish to see uh uh change in the world. Yeah, if you, if you are that kind of proactive, organized person, uh you, you attract people who are just as organized and just as proactive. Um And yeah, that's where you, that's where it's easy to select your team. Um I agree with like what both of you guys have said. I'll just add that sometimes it can be difficult because I feel like no one is telling you what you should be doing. So I think this is why this event has obviously been really, really good because in my experience, it's not like the med school said, you know, you should be doing XYZ, they seem to really only care about placement. So I think for me, it's been difficult to know, ok, this is actually what I should be trying to do and then I agree just being proactive because no one's necessarily gonna be advertising that they're giving out projects, et cetera. But I've found that when you do ask, you'll find out there's actually quite a lot available for you to do, you just have to ask for it. Thank you. I think it's the reason why we kind of selected you three is because I guess you're all at slightly different stages of your career. So we have somebody who's a medical student, somebody who's doing their sort of fellowship kind of year and then somebody who's a registrar. Um So there's slightly different challenges at each stages which require, I guess, different types of perseverance. You know, when you're working, you have to balance work and publishing. But also as a med student, you kind of are trying to figure out what you're interested in and how to even get those skills. I think it's quite hard to reach out to um doctors and say you to be involved in a project when you have very little skills because I think medical schools don't really teach you those skills. So I guess for me, I would have liked somebody to, to tell me from first year, maybe try to get involved in AAA course. Um understand statistics, understand how to write a paper. So then by the time that I'm ready in my clinical years, I can really go in and make an impact. Um I do have a question in the chat specifically for Karen in terms of choosing a project. Would you prioritize how interesting the topic or the abstract is or how important a topic is? Like for example, diversity and inclusion of treatments for long term diseases. Um II think it's a mixture of both to be honest with you, like it has to be interesting, but you also want to make sure that there's a gap in knowledge and I think this is where your supervisor should help you like it. I don't, I don't, I don't have that much experience. So for me, I was guided by my supervisor. So I don't know how it works for everyone else. But when I was choosing a project, the supervisors would do an open house where they'd essentially talk to you about the project. And that means that's the time where you can ask them about the feasibility of a project. Potentially you can ask them about whether it's likely to be published. I would actually say to be honest with you that should be your number one sort of thought process because as much as you want to be idealistic, you don't have that much time. Like I think the time is precious. So, is it worth going through a huge project taking up all of your time? If it's not likely to get published? I think you want to actually identify different journals that you're there to submit to. Really, when you're going about choosing a project. That's what I would say from my experience. But I think a supervisor who's been publishing in journals, if they've been doing it before, then there shouldn't be any difference when it's your, I don't know if the others can actually help on that because I'm quite new. Really? Um Oh, well, I always say go for write something that you're interested in. Um If you're interested, it becomes important and it, and important for you. And if you're interested and it's important to you, it shows in how you write in your manuscript. Um You know, if it's not that important, I have worked in papers where I thought it wasn't that important to start off with as a massive bias. And I noticed at the end of the manuscript it didn't sound so convincing compared to other projects that I found a little bit more interesting and important. So yeah, just chase after something that you're interested in, then don't waste your time. Um If you're uh if you have a broad interest as well. That can be a bit of a problem. But again, um I think I bel I'm a strong believer in what's called lateral thinking where you learn a lot from uh various different areas and then apply it to whatever you want to apply it to. So, um broaden your interests, pursue after them. And as doctor Caura said, get it over the finish line, um make sure you're dedicated, m make sure uh you're organized enough to finish and publish so that there's evidence of your interest and then apply it to elsewhere. Yeah, I just want to add to that. So in terms of um in terms of topics, so a lot of students ask me, you know, um should I be doing projects only in this specialty because I'm interested in this specialty? And at the beginning, the answer is no. So, you know, it's about developing the skills and putting those skills into practice and taking a project from conception to publication. Um And that in itself is a fundamental skill that you need to learn and it doesn't matter, you know, uh which project that or which uh project that you're doing or what specialty um that project is in. Um you know, if you haven't got much experience, that's where you start to find any project, uh where you will be able to, you know, exercise your skills. And as you develop more experience and you get more publications under your belt, then you can start to be a little bit more selective in terms of, you know, choosing projects that with aligned uh to the specialty that you want to do. So at the beginning, no one really, you know, really looks at that. So, and that is reflected in the er application process as well. So as you go from, you know, er S FP to, you know, higher surgical training. So plastic surgery, ST three application, for example, you know, they look for a lot more, uh, publications in plastic surgery. How many first order publications you have, et cetera. But in core and, er, in s ap applications, you know, er, the, they can be generic publications in terms of nonspecialty related. So, yeah, thank you. Um, another question from the chat, um, it's kind of two folded. What specific skills does medical school not teach you? But it's highly important for the field of research. How would you go about honing these skills? And then conversely what skills does medical school teach you that are transferable to the field of research? Yeah. II would say medical school. So I did, uh, I went to empiric college. I did an integrated BSE, er, year as well. Um, but, and then, you know, I've done masters et cetera in all of these degrees. Um, there's not an emphasis on actually how to publish, they, if they teach you a lot of theoretical knowledge. Um, you know, even when I was at Oxford and um uh I was being taught by the center of evidence based medicine, you know, Cochrane collaboration, et cetera. Um We had like, you know, a little bit of teaching on uh systematic reviews, but you know what I developed in terms of skills was kind of by myself. So no one really teaches you the practical elements of how to take a project from conception to publication, how you submit to reviewers, how you respond to reviewers, a strong rebuttal letter, which is when you respond to a reviewer can actually be the difference between getting that paper accepted or rejected. OK. And I don't know any medical school that has any sessions on how to write a rebuttal letter. This is why I created the course, not that this is not a sales pitch, but this is generally why I created the course because these are fundamental things that you know, isn't covered elsewhere. And these are things you need uh to, to really help you to get that project over the line. And these are like, you know, marginal gains um by writing a strong robo a letter, the way you format the paper beforehand and before submission, if you can get these things right, you will cut so much time in terms of getting that paper over the line. Um So, you know, by just taking, you know, a week extra to address all of these things that a reviewer will then get back to you on and you know, it will basically save you 34 months. Um So it's just little things like that and also, you know, presubmission inquiry, no one teaches you that it has saved me months and months of research time because I submitted to a particular journal, for example. Um and the editor said, you know, this is not really, you know, kind of in the scope of the journal right now in 48 hours. So that has saved us a good two months of peer review time, which the paper would have been rejected and, and you know, because it's not in the scope, so it just allows you to pivot quickly and, and just be efficient, efficiency is one of the most important things in academia. Er you have to publish your work first as I mentioned. Um and that comes with, you know, exercising er skills uh but being proactive efficient through the process, having um um having frameworks uh for every project as well. So it's not, you're not doing any trial and error, everything is tried and tested. Um you know, everything is formulaic in terms of these are the steps that you need to follow and all the students I work with, you know, um we, we give a kind of timeline in terms of, you know, these are the steps, this is what needs to happen by this date. Uh You will have the mental support, ask some questions but make sure you're hitting these time points. Um And that's how the projects get submitted and, and published. Uh I don't know what the others think. No, I absolutely agree. Absolutely agree. Don't be efficient as possible. I think Doctor Coria said as, as well. I've got a template for everything like from uh from asking supervisors about their research, about uh rebuttal letters. I've got a template for that cover letters. Everything. Obviously you just need to tweak it a little bit every time because you can't be. There was uh there was a time where I asked all of my medical students to submit, well, write a cover letter using my template and uh uh she was trying to be efficient. God bless her and submitted it. But when I looked at the cover letter, um she didn't change the um, name of the journal and I was like, oh gosh, yeah, that was quite funny. Er, al although you have a template, you do have to read it. Uh So that's the point I tried to make. Um, it saves a lot of time. Er, but the core of it I think is uh you really need to learn and this is something your medical school may or may not teach you is high, medical school did not teach me at all, but you need to learn how to write academically. Uh You need to learn the terminology, you need to learn the fluency of academic writing is, is what I would say because a and that applies to when you're doing presentations as well, both oral and poster. Um This academic fluency is something that's kind of overlooked. But if you can make it easy for the person uh reading your paper or listening to you, uh to understand the points that you're trying to make in a very academically sounding important, importantly sounding way, then you've nailed the, uh you've nailed it on the head. Uh and that's something you need to practice and practice and practice. Um over and over and over and again. Yeah, that's all. That's really, I mean, I would just reiterate as I'm like, currently at medical school, not, nothing has changed as in, I don't think we've had any sessions and even during the actual intercalated year, the focus on the project was more just the project is something that you need to graduate. Like if I didn't even push to get the project published, it, it just wouldn't be, to be honest with you. It's not a focus point. I think you mentioned your presentations as well. The medical school doesn't encourage you to do presentations. Again, it's very much you need to know. Ok, this is what I need to do for my career. Potentially, these are the skills that I'm gonna gain by actually putting myself out there trying to get things published, trying to do presentations. And to be honest, I've been learning just from you guys about, you know, having a, um what could you say, even just having a draft letter for everything essentially just to make it easier. I didn't even have that currently, to be honest with you. So I think there's definitely a lot of information that the schools don't give you. Um um, as a rule of thumb, uh I wouldn't really, with regards to research, definitely. I wouldn't really um spend so much time waiting for medical students to hand anything to you. Um They, they won't um and been honest to God, uh they're quite useless. I think most of the faculty don't really know a lot about how to conduct proper research as well. I think going to high yield UK is even better, which is interesting, which is actually interesting if you think about it because all of medicine is evidence based research. So like, ii don't I like it, it baffles me sometimes but um you do have to do it yourself. And actually, no, I think that about you, it's not yourself. You do have to do it with people. Team. I can't stress that enough. Like are those who of your colleagues, your friends, um or people who are like at a superior position as uh as to you, they're doing something and it's just you go talk to them, you go network with them, um go tell them as Doctor Kuria said as well. Uh tell them, what you can offer them, er, in return or what they can offer for you. Um. Yeah, and that's pretty much how research works. It's under the, a lot of, under the table kind of stuff. But, uh, you've gotta be very presentable. You, um, you've gotta be, and they've got to know that you are. Yeah. Yeah, I just got two things to add. Um, so, um, the first thing is a lot of students recently, I'm, I'm sure everyone's seen the UK FP O changes with the S FP, et cetera. Obviously, it's a little bit disappointing and, you know, very discouraging for many of you. But, but all the students I've spoken to, I've said the same thing. Think of the long game. OK. Don't think short term. So everything you're doing from an academic point of view, uh all the output, et cetera, it's gonna help you at various stages in your career. So don't, don't just think s FP think long term higher applications. If you're thinking of going abroad, it's also gonna help you there. Um, and always think and have an international outlook to your career. Ok. So things can change your circumstances can change. You may have, I don't know, a, a partner uh uh from, you know, uh a different country and you may need to relocate and having a strong um academic portfolio and CV will actually help you, er, to land a job in other countries as well. OK. So don't uh limit your scope to just where you are at the moment, think internationally. Um And uh you know, do it for the right reason in terms of developing your, your skills and portfolio for the international medical community, not just, you know, your immediate next step. Um And then the second thing is um with regards to um uh what we were just talking about, uh you know, a lot of people will give you advice, but you have to take that advice with a pinch of salt. Ok. And I always say that, you know, you need to look at someone and say to yourself, do I want to be in their position in X number of years? Ok. If the answer is no, whatever the advice they give, you just take it with a pinch of salt and then, you know, move on and just say thank you. But you know, be selective in terms of who's giving you that advice. And do you want to be in their position in X number of years? Ok. If the answer is yes, really absorb as much information from them, um and really reflect on it, see what, um you know, um hurdles they had uh any mistakes that they made. So you can kind of follow that journey as well. But a lot of people will try and give you their advice or their, you know, two sense um when they haven't actually properly done that thing that you want to do. So uh just be mindful of that. Thank you very much. Um Yeah, I think the main thing I took away from, I guess this week and last week I was also a plastic conference with an oral presentation aspect was that collaboration is really important. I think the winner of the um oral a competition was um somebody who collaborated with a consultant. Um And I think overall it saves you time bouncing off ideas of each of other people can also make your final manuscript a lot better. So um yes, it's important sometimes to just go ahead and start independently and but also seek out supervisors, seek out people who you can bounce ideas off is also something to consider. Um There was one question for Doctor Yang, but I think you basically answered it was how do you first learn how to write a manuscript as someone who has published by themselves for the first time? Um Yeah, as I was mentioning the uh in my talk, I'm willing to um more than happy to share. I uh I think the document I made on how to write academic academically. Number one, number two, read, read, read and read. I can't, I can't recommend that enough. Um Yeah, I mean, you read medical textbooks and anatomy textbooks to pass your exams is exactly the same you read to pass life as a past life as a, as a, as a surgeon as a medical, um, doctor or whatever you wanna pursue, you know, you're gonna spend your entire life reading and investing now for the future for the long term games. Yeah. I mean, I, in, if I can put it into short words, war, Warren Buffett, like one of the richest men in the world. Um, all the other brothers read, like, read other books outside of his scope, like, outside of economics, outside of uh business. He, he reads, um, I think there was a list that he published. He reads like medicine, he reads uh zoology as well as a very odd but yeah, no, read outside and the more you read, the more lateral thinking that you can do. Yeah, thank you. And just one last question, sorry, how do you go about contacting clinicians to get involved with research if you're still in preclinical years and may not have even been into the hospital yet. I'll let doctor Kuria add to this. I'm, I'm curious. So with the sales pitch aside, um you know, obviously we, I run a dedicated research academy but uh aside from that, I think, um um as I said, you know, if you approach clinicians, er, and mention that you have, you know, learned or developed some skills, I think that will really help you. Um And you know, there is a lot of free resources out there as well. Um You know, obviously you have to sift through what's important or not. But, uh, you know, watching youtube videos or reading other books, et cetera. Uh, but go in with some prerequisite, um, you know, uh training or skills. So you're not coming in completely blank slate and just saying, you know, I wanna work on a project. Uh, clinicians are really busy so they don't wanna give a project to someone who is gonna take so much time and they have to invest a lot of their time to try and train you. Uh they want someone to just take it and, and kind of just run with it and have the occasional support when things are a little bit tricky. So that, that would be my biggest take home um to, you know, develop skills as soon as you can. Um, and then use those skills to then approach clinicians for projects um and then demonstrate your effectiveness to finish that first project that you get quickly to a high standard, get it through to submission, publish. And once you've done that once, then invariably you'll get another project from them and then you'll start to build your experience and then you can go to other clinics and say I've already got three or four publications. I'm already, you know, er, used to doing XYZ. Do you have any other projects? Then they will give you more projects as well? It's, it's like a and then it will snowball into getting more and more and more projects. That's, it's, it's actually quite simple if you think about it. It's a simple, it's not, it's not rocket science at all. Yeah. Um, and your latter question on may not be in the hospital often. Uh, yeah, your, your mandatory, uh, requirements takes you away from the hospital but you have spare time. I know you do. I know you have Saturday days. I know you have some days and you know how I know you have Friday evenings off. Turn up. It's, it's not like they're gonna turn you away from the hospital. Um, so just turn up and then go to the department that you're interested in or have an inkling of interest in. And, um, yeah, it's not illegal. So, just turn up and, yeah, ask, ask around. Yeah, I definitely agree on the turning up aspect of things. If things get canceled. I remember on my birthday I, um, the breast breast ci was supposed to be in, got canceled. So I went to d because I'm quite interested in like, dermatology and plastics. And from that I managed to get my society Patreon. He's a consultant, dermatologist on board. And now she, like, offers me audits and, you know, research opportunities just because I decided to go randomly because the clinic got canceled. So, just find, I guess serendipitous opportunities wherever you can and take the most of your time. Exactly. I can, I can't stress that enough. Um, yeah, just turn up it's like, it's like what it, what's the slogan for? Just do it, just do it. Yeah, literally rain or shine, rain or shine, just do it. Thank you everybody. So I'm gonna call this the end of the event. Thank you so much for and all the um participants you um send in questions if you guys are happy to send in the videos or any of the um resources that you said. Um Please send me an email. I'll be happy to share them to the participants. Um Thank you. Sure. Thank you for having me. Thank you much. All right, bye bye. Thank you. If all of you um who are still here can fill out the feedback form. Um And if you like to join our lounge live, which I'll try to send all the resources on the lounge. Thank you very much, everybody, the shop screen. So um if anybody would like to submit for our post conference abstract submission, here's the details. Um And a link will be in the ACMS link tree. Um I'll also be happy to share it also here and please scan our QR code for our lounge. This is where you can get all the resources such as the drafts that were mentioned um as well as some videos and here's our feedback form. Please scan the QR code or click on the chat which I've sent a link to the feedback form. Thank you so much for attending thank you for your participation. Um And that will be the end. I'm just gonna stay on for five more minutes. So if you, anybody has any questions they'd like to ask me. Um I'll still be here.