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Hello everyone, my name's philippa, I'm the chair of the yorkshire Foundation training, surgical society, and we're doing a talk this evening about research and surgery, specifically getting into research, and we've got some fantastic speakers tonight, kicking us off, will be Katie, who is a General Surgery trainee who's got lots of experience and gives a very exciting talk and then we've got talks from uh george, who is a s. T three General Surgery trainee and also be, who is one of our fantastic medical students. Um If you have any questions pop them in the chat, I'll be keeping an eye on that, passing them on to ask because as we go through great, thanks for the introduction, so hi, everyone I'm katie uh Today, what I'm going to talk about is um getting into research kind of starting a journey into research, I'm gonna mostly talk about tips, tricks, and pitfalls to avoid uh These are all things that I've learned from my experience, so I'm hoping that you don't repeat them um So there's a little bit about myself, um I want to tell you about my journey to surgery because it's the definition of you don't have to have everything figured out or uh in Med School, so I graduated Med School in 2017. I had no intention of being a surgeon, I was a middle of the road student, I wasn't sure I even wanted to continue in medicine, had no publications know, presentations know posters, no case reports nothing to my name. Um I finished f two in 2019 and I loved my surgical job and my a and e job and I decided to take an F three year and decide what I wanted to do so. I loken done any for six months. I thought that was a career for me, and I applied to ANDy you then that year and um then I started a trust grade General Surgery job in leads, which I actually ended up staying in for 2.5 years. I uh when I started that I realized that I didn't want to do a. A and e and I rejected my job offer for that year um from about 20 twenties when I started to get involved in surgical research, um I had a few posters from F one and uh I had my name on a publication, but I didn't have much else and I started to really develop an interest in this time. Um I uh I applied in 2020 for course surgical training, and I didn't even get a interview offer. Um I was rejected from my portfolio alone, uh and I think I had something like 36 points out of 72 in that year um in 2021 I was encouraged by my supervisors in leads to apply for the academic program alongside my core surgical application um, and I got accepted into that into the a c f programme and leads as well as um uh the court surgical training pathway, so I think I had something like 58 points that year out of 72 um For those that don't know the a cF program is academic clinical fellow uh It's an integrated academic and um clinical training pathway and essentially 25% of your time is dedicated it to academic work um and uh the aim for most ACS is to prepare for your phd, so you want to be coming out within 2 to 3 years to have you know funding ready for a PhD program, so most of the two years is spent building a portfolio developing your kind of your question, applying for grants, and you know proving that you're an expert in this area um For the a c f program, you apply alongside course surgical training and you have to benchmark for quarter a surgical training to get your a c f. So that means you have to be benchmarked is kind of good enough um So most people tend to go into the a cF program from the AFP program, but not everybody does, I didn't, I didn't do the AFP, so I'm the walking outfit for that. Um a cf i'd say is not an easy route to getting your n. T. N. Or your national training number. It's uh it's probably the hard and more convoluted route, so I think if anybody's interested in it just because you think that it's the the way to get into whatever training pathway you want to that's probably the wrong reasons to apply for it. Um You know when you think about it, you have to you have to meet all of your clinical training requirements in the same time, but you have 75% of the time that everybody else does and you're competing with them and you have 25% of the time that full time academics have in order to academically, so it's a lot of nights and weekends that you spend doing work and you might perhaps want to be elsewhere. Um. So yeah I want to tell you a bit about myself because like I said I am the walking advert for that you don't have to have it all figured out as long as you don't want to be a consultant by the time you're 30 um So a little bit about my research and my interests. I'm at the stage of my career where you know, I'm still fairly early in research, but I have started to develop kind of my own niche in my own interests um At the beginning, I just say yes to everything and I just say yes to any project that anyone through my way and I think that is a good way to get your foot in the door and you know that's absolutely okay because every experience that you have helps you when it comes time to formulate in your own research and deciding what you want to do so um At the moment, I'm developing my interest in environmentally sustainable surgical practices um and looking at how this might develop into a phd for myself. Uh Here's a few things that I've done in the last year or so, that I'm very proud of as part of the team that won the Green Surgery Challenge and leads at the back end of 2021 um for our entry, which was a sustainable appendicectomy, and I was invited to write the article for the bulletin based on similar things, um the a c. F program and research has allowed me to do sort of fun things outside of clinical practice um So here, I am in the uh anatomy lab using an innovative device that is created at the University of Leeds, called the retractor for abdominal inflation. This surgery um got to operate on a cadaver and use this device. So you know you do get you do get to do some fun things. It's not all just writing manuscripts um. So before I give any of my advice, I'm just gonna kind of say, I'm by no means an expert, I'm still learning and you know I am starting to have more control over what I do, but and these are these are some of the things that I've learned along the way that I hope can help you and in your start into research um So training in academic research, certainly where I went to university was fairly poor. Um You know you have a little bit of experience, but you don't really understand why you're doing it. You don't really understand if it'll be important for your future. Um I think it's really important to start getting experience with a supportive team who will be able to help you and kind of give you guidance along the way. I start with my first point which is incremental learning, try not to run before you can walk you. Know if, if your reach, if you don't feel like your research, experience is, is that great, then it's best to get involved in established team, who can help you and support you along the way, so most people tend to start doing smaller jobs within a research project, so maybe data collecting collection, which is although tedious, doesn't require a huge amount of prior experience um, and I think that's a really good way to start, so you might feel frustrated because maybe you're not getting what you want from it initially, but actually all of these things are really important and really good ways to start learning how to how to do research and you know start figuring out what kind of research you like as well, um I always call research a Pyramid scheme and it kind of is that because everybody is trying to get out out of it what they want, so you might have an s. H. O, supervising you and they're getting out of that that they're supervising you and they're teaching you and helping you and then you have the registrar and any of the consultant, perhaps who is the top of the Pyramid scheme and they have their name at the end of the paper, you know they kind of oversee it, but not not really the day to day practices, um so, so that's where I mean about incremental learning is to kind of try smaller things and build up in that way, so sort of small uh small steps and eventually you're you're suddenly writing your own ethics. You know ethical approval and uh suddenly you are where you want to be my next point is about starting early now, everything in research is slow. Um If you're looking to have publications and time, for course surgical applications, which come around october november, roughly every year, then you need to start thinking a few years before um projects can take time, and even if you complete a project, it can take months you know to get a response from a journal that you sent it into that response might be, know they might ask for adjustments and you know it can take months and months and months before you actually eventually get a yes um and uh and it might take even months after that then to get published, Although it is worth noting that most applications now except a publication in print, which is um which is essentially that you've had an accepted publication, but it's just not been uh it's just not been uh published yet. Um My third point, I think is one of my most important points and it's don't do research because you think you have to, because you think everybody in, in surgery is doing research. Um If you don't enjoy research, there is no point giving up your time to do it um don't do it because everybody tells you you have to so. I would say that research looks like an important element on applications, but actually you can do much quicker things on your application that would get you those points, So for example, you know two posters is nearly equal to 11 puff, first author publication, so you know you can do case reports. Q eyes, audits, you can get two posters at a national presentation, and that takes you know a significant less amount of time than research, do research because it's something that you actually want to do and it's something that you're interested in because if you're going into it for the wrong reasons, then you're probably going to fail at the first hurdle when you suddenly realize that you're on the 14th draft of the manuscript and you you're trying to finish it for a deadline um. And I think that for me is a really important point and you know one that I've definitely seen people, people do, but just because they have to uh I know plenty of registrars who have no interest in research, Don't have any pub met i. D. To their name and they've made it that far. Um My third point is find a good team. Um I think it's really important to find a team that is supportive of you don't try and be a one man band doing everything yourself because the consultants asked you to it's really important especially in the early stages of your academic career to find a team who will be there, you know on the end of the phone when you need help and you're you're suddenly going through the data and you don't understand what you're looking at um somebody that you can go and have a coffee with and chat about you know hurdles that you've met. Um. I also find that when you're in a good team, you know a team that is publishing and it is producing um If you impress them, they'll ask you time and time again to come on board with them and that then you you know you get your foot in the door and you get the ball rolling and my final point is to always make sure that you get something out of it, so if you start doing a project and it looks like it's actually not really going anywhere and perhaps you're not going to get a publication out of it. The data is a bit crap and uh you know every uh and everyone seems to be bailing out of it, make sure that you get something if be all, be that you know poster presentation somewhere, uh an oral presentation something to have in your c. V. For the time that you've put in for it, There's nothing worse than trawling through data than you know, looking at systematic reviews, and looking at previous reports only to have absolutely nothing come of it and you just spend your time doing nothing um So tricks, these are just little things that I've found along the way that should be able to help you, so, I left mass firmly behind in year 13 stats absolutely terrify me, but they don't have to they, they're actually they can be more simple and there's a lot of powerful tools out there that will help make them simple for you. Um I use this website called Open epi. It's um it's quite a basic stats website, but essentially it's good for kind of two you know two tables and things like that that will help you uh just create like nice diagrams. It comes up with all the things you might want you still have to put the data in yourself, but then it will you know tell you the confidence intervals and all this other stuff, so it's it's if I can use it basically you can as well um and it's quite useful. I would also say don't have your heart set on you know nature or b j s. Is your first of your first publication. Uh You know fair play to the people that do get in their in their first publication. Um The chances are it's not going to be you because it's a very low chance um aim for kind of you know you don't need to aim for the publications with the highest you know, kind of uh impact factor, aim for publications that have uh that are kind of achievable um and have a higher chance of publication, so especially for applications. If that's something that you're worried about any pub met, I. D. Is a good pub met, I. D you get the same points, no matter what article you've published in where and so when you start to become more involved in research, then you can start thinking about impact factor and what journal you're going to do. Um My third point is a phrase that I think everybody needs to learn at some point, consultants, love to think things that are important to collect once you've already spent hours trawling through data. They'll come to a point when and it's it'll come to a point when it's important to say you know good point and I'll think about it, which is a very soft. No learning to say, no is really important, learning to say when enough is enough, is really important because you know, it's quite easy to be a people pleaser and just say yes and then have you find that you're looking through data for the 3rd 4th 5th time, when and actually that's not even used in the final product. Um Learning to say no is is quite important because that allows that boundary between your own time and the time that you spend on on your research. Um Fourth point is probably telling people stuck eggs, but I'd like to find a study that I um you know I want my my research kind of emulate or a study that I think I really like and kind of copy it, so I'm not saying to copy the data, but you know, copy the headings kind of copy what you know what data they've recorded what data they've uh they've collected because then if you want your final product to look something like that, then you've got the bare bones, my final trick is something called cy hub, If you've not uh if you don't know about psi hub, it's the best thing on earth. Um psych hub is essentially a website where you can get any any article. Any study. You want free you just put in the pub met, I. D. Is not technically legal, but it's a life saver rather than trying to log in, find a free article log in through your open athens and then lose it and then log in again, so I have, is amazing and it saves an awful lot of time especially when doing things like systematic reviews, so I'm going to finish on pitfalls things to avoid uh every doctor has heard these words. Um I have this great project. I have this, I have this great idea and it's something that all consultants will say to you and it sends absolute shivers down my spine. Usually, if a consultant says it, he means, I have an idea, a very vague idea and I want you to execute it now, you're at risk here of nothing ever coming of it except you spending hours trawling through useless data that you realize isn't going to go anywhere um always kind of enter these with, with you know with your eyes, wide open, and and make sure that uh back to one of my first points that you get something out of it, If you do decide to go down that route and work with them uh My second point is that there's no such thing as a quick project. It kind of leads on from the first, if somebody says oh I got this really quick project that you know you can jump on and it'll definitely be a publication. Then, again kind of have your eyes open that actually it might not be that and it might be a lot more work than you think it's going to be. I've touched on this already, but don't be a one man band especially when you're starting out in research. Make sure you have a team of more experienced people behind you and people that you can go to and you know they're on what's happened there. On the end of the phone, you know, consultants are really useful, but they will often not get that involved in the nitty gritty of the research you know, they like to leave stats behind quite quickly as well, so they might not be able to help beyond things like that um So that's kind of the end of my talk. I hope you found it useful uh These are my contact details. If you want to get in contact me and I just like to say that I have a really great project that I need uh so many some help on for transcribing, transcribing some interviews. So if you are interested in my very quick projects, then please get in touch. Thanks, thank you very much katie, that was brilliant, and I'll make sure to put your contact details in the chat bar as well, if anybody is interested in helping you with your projects, which are often quick and very productive. Next up, I'd like to introduce be, who's one of our medical student who's going to talk to us about her experience of research and surgery. Hi, everyone I'm just gonna share my uh screen uh oh sorry, so can everyone see that that looks great, big okay, so hi, I'm be I'm a medical student and my presentation is specifically geared towards medical students, um Although I guess some of the advice I will be giving is applicable to most people anyway, so a bit about me that's me in the bottom left. I am a current medical student at King's College London. I finished my first three years of medical education, I am inter collating this year, I am a master's student at Queen Mary and I'm specifically doing laparoscopic surgery and surgical skills. I currently have six publications that are published, indexed, and I have six further manuscripts that have been sent for review and hopefully a few of those get accepted. Uh I'm an upcoming speaker at the schizophrenia International Research Society conference in Toronto candida, uh where I will be presenting um a case control analysis, where I was the project lead, um but apart from that, there are other things that I obviously enjoy doing um I love hockey, it's one of my favorite things uh I love music, I collect records, I also like going out with my friends, spending time with my family when they're here um. And I love all things related to surgery, so why get involved in research as a medical student um It counts for your c. V. Now um. I'm aware that when applying to the foundation program, um inter collating and publications no longer count for those extra two points, but I don't think you should be discouraged either way um because if you plan on staying in the uk, it does count for your core surgical portfolio but also if you ever want to practice medicine abroad for instants um in the United States or candida or Switzerland, they really really value um students and trainees with previous research, so that can be quite helpful um It's I think a good opportunity to learn about what you like and what you don't like uh by getting involved in research, I've actually figured out some of the specialties that I think would be very interesting to pursue uh, and it's kind of what sparked my very first interest in surgery and it's why I ended up deciding to actually inter, collate in a surgical subject, so it's been hugely helpful for that opportunities to present your work at conferences um. Now again as our previous speaker has stated, you might not always necessarily get a print publication of your work, but presenting at conferences is a very gratifying and very satisfying way of actually having something to show for all your efforts and hard work um And honestly, sometimes it's just more fun to actually be able to talk about your research rather than spending hours trying to type it up. And again presenting at conferences, looks really good on your c. V. And it's just um a good life skill to have knowing how to present and argue something uh connections and relationships. Um When you work with a good team of people, you get to know them better, you get to talk to them more if they're impressed with how you work, uh they might introduce you to other people who can help you explore your interests um and it's just interesting to me you know experts in the field and to go to some of their conferences and such a good challenge, Sometimes it's just good to challenge yourself um that's not to say that you should torture yourself, please don't ever do that, but um I think it's a good way to kind of stretch the boundaries of your knowledge and to really give yourself a good learning curve, which brings me on to my last point transferable skills uh Research can be incredibly tedious and annoying um I absolutely hate stats. I think they're disgusting but understanding how to overcome these challenges, learning how to figure out what an all the ratio was. All of these things. Have kind of tested my tenacity and tested my persistence uh and by being able to overcome certain challenges, I've directly used these skills that I learned through research and apply them in my day to day life. It's also a very good problem solving exercise. I think so what type of research have I done um so the ones that are already published. I have one editorial, one systematic review, one audit, and three letters to the edit, er the ones that are seem to be published, so there is a case control analysis, where I was a project lead, uh and it's the one that i'm presenting in candida in may. I have two meta analyses and systematic reviews, one literature review, and two observation studies. I've done an orthopedic surgery. I've also completed a three month lab internship at the University of pennsylvania last summer. More specifically, I worked at a cardiology lab at the Smile Oh Center for translational research. Um I have contributed uh significant data to that project just by working in the lab. Uh The trials are still ongoing, but I have been informed that once the paper does get submitted for review. At the end of this year, I will be a middle author. Um I have just shared a quick screenshot of my first ever publication that I got last summer in july, it's an editorial. It's not actually real research, but it is a publication uh and published. I ds whether their research or just editorials have the same, waiting, so this is actually what I'm quite proud of. I submitted it to the student BMJ um and the student BMJ is actually quite a lovely platform for medical students wanting to get published because they accept opinions and editorials, where you as a medical student actually get to have a say on what you think is relevant, so um I feel quite strongly about um you know self expression and identity and being able to be your authentic self and medicine, and I thought maybe it might be interesting for medical professionals to see this lens through the opinion of a medical student because medical students obviously have different opinions to consultants, but everyone's opinion matters and the student BMJ seem to agree with me. They like my draft and they published me, so I guess what I'm trying to say is if you have something you're passionate about even if it's just an opinion right to the BMJ or any opinion magazine or any sort of journal that has an editorial section, You might be pleasantly surprised just by how interested they are uh and these are the things that I've actually published so. Um This one uh the first one effective time of diagnosis to surgery and outcome including long term neurodevelopmental outcome in advertising, intro colitis um was the first actual surgical um piece of research that I have contributed to and published, and that's the one that actually made me realize that um general surgery is quite an exciting and evolving field and that it's something I want to seriously consider as you can see not all of these are actually um surgically related necessarily, I mean I've got the opinion piece obviously, um looking at you know, academia and medical school and improving mental health, but um I think it's good to have a mix of subjects even though surgery is now something. I've set my heart on. Um If you are a medical student, don't say no to a project, if it's not necessarily in the field that you want to pursue because again it's still a publication. It's still research experience you can get stuff out of it uh you might even enjoy it and also uh the transferable skills that you learn in one specialty for research can easily be applied to the other. It's still stats, it's still writing up a lot of boring stuff, it's all stuff you can use, regardless of which specialty it relates to, and these are just some of the title's for um papers that haven't been published yet or that is all the papers that we have sent for submission uh. So again it's not entirely you know surgical, I do have some surgical stuff. I have uh one in vascular so long saphenous vein harvesting. We have a meta analysis about uh mitral valve and valve and valve and ring implementation but we also have these two related to psychiatry, so looking at um psychosis and cannabis and honestly even though psychiatry doesn't interest me as much as surgery, I have to say these were some of the most interesting projects I've done uh and I will get into how I actually decided to go for these projects in the next slide okay, so the big question is well where do I start, so if you're in medical school, the good news is you actually have a bunch of different ways to to get started in research or ports. If you will the three main categories, I would say would be directly through a medical school, directly contacting academics either within your medical school or outside at national student organizations. So through your medical school, you have student societies, look out for surgical societies, look out for medical societies follow their instagram. Subscribe to any newsletter, they might have and specifically pay attention if they're offering mentorship schemes or uh to partner you up with someone for a research project because often times, they actually do that and sometimes they actually do deliver inter collated degrees um You don't need to inter collate to do research uh. That's obviously a very personal decision uh if you do have a subject, that you're quite passionate about or if you just need to take a year out of medicine and inter collated degree is fantastic both to just broaden your knowledge, but also to get extra research in. Because you're dealing with such a concentrated subject and experts in that field, you can always reach out to lectures or module leads within your intergrated degree, and they can um either ofri projects that they're working on or they will probably have contacts at whatever teaching hospital they're based at and so they can kind of help you liaise with those people um also modules like the students selected component, quality improvement projects, and the scholarly project, um the systematic review that I did in pediatric Surgery that was published was actually a scholarly project module that I took last year in year three um So definitely, um when you do have those modules in medical school and if they let you pick try to go for the clinical research ones uh and if you have a good supervisor, definitely you know, maybe don't push them but just definitely let them know what you want to get out of this and that you want to get published and more often than not, they will be really enthusiastic and willing to help you lectures and clinicians um seriously like stay behind after lectures. If there's a luxury, particularly like um that is actually how I got involved in uh the psychosis and um cannabis project, the psychiatry, one because even though psychiatry wasn't something that really appealed to me, I just had this absolutely fantastic lecturer um called Doctor D 40 who's like one of the leading researchers in you know cannabis related psychosis and I just thought she was the loveliest most enthusiastic lecture and after one of her classes, I came up to her, and I asked her if she had any availability for a project where she might need the help of a medical student and she actually instantly agreed and said yes, so this might not always work, but it's definitely worth it most of the time. I found that lectures will actually be happy to help the worst they can say is no but it's always good that you show your enthusiasm uh weekly student newsletters, so this will differ from medical school to medical school, but um at King's at g. K. T. I have actually found that um at the bottom of every student newsletter, there's always an opportunity section and they have actually advertised audits and quality improvement projects where they need collaborators to work on them, so um you might have to fill out a google form or something do it, you never know if they accept you or not, and there's a good chance they might, so. The second one is directly contacting academics, so um the bet your best bet is looking at some of their work, finding their work email and contacting them and just directly expressing an interest to work with them. Um Another interesting thing is checking if your university has any partner universities abroad, so for King's uh they actually have an exchange program in place with um u penn and that's how I got my summer internship, and I reached out to a lab that I thought was really interesting. I sent them a copy of my c. B. And um the next thing I knew they offered me a summer internship, so uh a lot of this is just being kind of savvy, being smart and just reaching out and seeing who takes you. And the third one is national student organizations. I've listed all of these. I can send these through later if people are interested, but these are all student organizations that I thought are really helpful and that often have research opportunities advertised for students. They're quite a safe bet. Normally, they always get published uh and they tend to deal with audits or systematic reviews most of the time, uh but definitely make a note of these. They are quite useful, okay, so research outputs, what can I expect again as a previous speaker has said not all reason, work is publishable, but again there's oral presentations, poster presentations, and just publishing your abstract at a conference and honestly they are quite as valuable as having a pub met, i. D. So for instance, um if you are applying for you know medical jobs abroad, like in the us uh an oral presentation and a poster presentation have the same value as a pub mitt i. D. Article, so don't be discouraged if it's not going into a journal, definitely consider presenting it. It's a great opportunity okay, so these are my personal tips and tricks that I have used as a medical student as far as reaching out to academics, clinicians, and professors, is concerned, So as I already said, if there's a lecture, you quite like, uh if there's a professor who you think is you know quite friendly, stay behind after a lecture and just directly ask them if they have any opportunities, uh I would look up their research profiles on research, gate, um or basically any academic website, even your universities profile just so that you kind of know what their research interests are, so that you're not blindly asking them, and the third one is reaching out by email, which is how I have contacted most people thus far, so here are my tips for reaching up by email, be specific. It is definitely worth mentioning one or two papers that these um researchers have done obviously no don't summarize them, but just be like oh I read this paper of yours about x. Y. Z. I really like these findings. I really like this work. Do you have anything similar or something in this field where you might need the help of a medical student be honest, um Never lie about having more experience than you actually have because it will be quite obvious and you're also not doing yourself any favors. Oftentimes, it is just enough to say you know, I don't have a lot of experience, but I'm super enthusiastic, I really want to get started and um a good researcher and a good lecturer, will always be happy to take you on and to show you around you might not get first or second authorship, but you know you might get middle authorship and you will get that experience, which will then keep building up and which will then keep helping you in the future and finally be persistent. Uh I've gotten tons of rejections in the past and that's fine sometimes, I just got flat out ignored. Sometimes you know they would say we can't take on medical students, we need more experienced people or you know, we're just a little bit too busy at the time, that's absolutely fine um It's nothing to be taken personally, just move on to the next person or even better yet. Um maybe ask the person who rejected you if they know someone else who they can refer you to if they say no that's fine do your own research, um but be persistent, don't be discouraged, rejection happens all the time okay, so this slide don't take it at face value. I put quick publications in quotation marks because there is really no such thing as a quick publication, but let's say you really really really really want to get published like that is your bucket list. Goal you need to get it done before applying for a job. Um. There are certain types of studies that tend to get published more quickly than others, um and these will more often than not not be primary data, so systematic reviews, um so systematic reviews are just looking at all the available evidence and papers on a certain question, you're not creating new data you're just using a set of keywords to include and exclude papers and you're writing up a study on secondary data. Um Generally speaking, uh if you get involved in systematic review project, uh your team will try and get it done as quickly as possible, so again, it's not a quick publication per se, but it's quicker than primary data uh case reports tend to be relatively quick just because you're dealing with one patient and you're writing up a unique case study on them, uh, but again they still take time you're not going to get published in the span of a month or something. Um It's just that historically they tend to take less time than primary data, letters to the edit er commentaries and editorials uh letters to the edit er are actually kind of a very good hack, If you're a medical student, I've just attached the names of medical education journals that I think are quite good and that are quite kind towards medical students uh In fact, I have been published in two of these so um advances in physiology and the medical teacher. I will just quickly gloss over the whole letter to the edit, er because I think that is a very understated research, hack that we don't talk about enough. It counts the publication as long as there's a pub, but i d, it's a short response to a specific article in a journal uh and it's meant to be an article that's no more than four months old typically and basically you're just either agreeing with the points, disagreeing with the points or both, or just offering you know some of your own viewpoints, it's a great way to practice your analytical skills and to dip your toes into research um. And I specifically listed those journals beforehand because they tend to deal with medical education, So things like you know online learning, hybrid learning flipped classroom. All that, and because as medical students were constantly being exposed to new methods of teaching. I feel like we have a very fresh set of eyes on what types of educational content works for us and what doesn't so you know If you see an article on these journals, saying that you know, VR simulation is good for learning anatomy and you agree with that you can easily right a 300 word you know article saying yes. I agree at my medical school, we use neuro stimulation as well, and it's helpful because x. Y. Z. And you know worst case if it gets rejected. These things aren't very long to type anyway, so it's not like you spent a bunch of time, but if they do get accepted, it's satisfying and it's a publication. Other quick tips learn how to code. Um So you don't need to be um asterpro grammar, god, knows, I'm not one, but if you're working with primary data or if you're doing a meta analysis, you need to know how to do basic statistical calculations uh and so are is a software that I use if you don't know how to use it, Boot camp is a great website that teaches you how to there's also stay to and s p. S s, which um are free to download. I think with most university licenses and they're not actually that hard to use once you learn kind of a few basic programming hacks, um It's it's smooth sailing from there, but it does make your life so much easier in terms of um you know data analysis and if you can put that on your c. V, it looks pretty good that you know how to code basic stuff uh Don't take on more than you are able to. I think that speaks for itself uh show your passion and commitment uh because if you deliver on your promises, if you keep up to date with all your deadlines. If you show that you are willing to learn and happy to help, uh people will notice this especially if they're more established researchers and you know academics, they will notice that and they will offer you other projects because they will think that you are reliable, so it's okay to fake a bit of enthusiasm every now and then do what you got to do ask your university about summer Externship and student ships, ask your head of stage head of department um and ask your friends in the older years above and also another tip is check your universities, article publishing agreements with journals, an article publishing charges basically, um how much you have to pay a journal If uh you want your article to be open access, but some universities actually have agreements where the university pays for that fee, and because of that it might make your research work more favorable for publication in that journal, so definitely check your universities policies on that social media. That's one that no one really talks about, but um you know just if you go on twitter and if you search hashtag, med twitter or academic twitter, If you go on instagram, If you look for research groups on facebook, A lot of people actually advertise you know projects where they need extra help and um something that I found quite surprising was that most of getting into research as a medical student is really just directly asking, communicating and just knowing how to network um and seriously don't be afraid to ask. Um I don't think that you're not good enough or not experienced enough, you will get experience and starting as a medical student is a very good stepping stone, okay, so a couple of takeaway points, I don't want to keep yammering on for too long, be proactive and reach out first, uh talk to people, talk to everyone. You know your lecturers, consultants during placement, friends in the year, above heads of stage, heads of department, anyone in your medical school is fair game use social media uh set aside extra time to commit to your projects. Once you get accepted for a project, you do actually have to put in the hours relaxed. Um There was a lot of time to start your research journey. I didn't start until my third year of medical school and I didn't get published until for the first time until a few months ago and you know I've got the ball rolling and it's just going quite well from there. So yeah any questions, please message me in the chat and if you have any questions, you can always email me, thank you. It's fantastic and loads of really good tips about different ways to reach out to people and how to start. It sounds like an absolutely fantastic portfolio um I wish Mine was a medical student or now um So next up we've got george, who is one of our lovely court um, s t threes and fours in in bradford, I'm just gonna upload his presentation um and then george will take over can you hear me ok pat yeah, we can hear you and your slides already great. Thanks everyone um and thank you. Katie and b I apologize for joining on my phone. I thought I'd be super organized and stay at work and then do the presentation from there, but nhs wife, I had other ideas as did eh jerome. Um Hello, my name is george, Greenlees. I am a general surgical registrar, I'm currently out of program between s t three and s t four uh and I work as the medical education fellow in uh bradford teaching hospitals here in west yorkshire, and I'd just like to talk for a few minutes, really about my own research interest, which is in research and medical education. Um Much of it is very similar to what Katie and be have already talked about, but obviously there are some things that are a little bit different. Um I've managed to do a bit of a workaround, so PIP is in control of my slides, so I get to use the nice chris, we uh do my best chris whitty impression uh who am i I'm george, I graduated in 2016 from the University of birmingham uh and I went on to do an academic foundation program in medical education in Sheffield. As part of that, I did a postgraduate certificate in medical education and did some independent work on fy ones and their preparedness for work uh and then after my foundation program, I was a teaching fellow in the West midlands for a year, whilst I was doing that, I did a postgraduate diploma in medical education um, and whilst I was doing that, I did some independent research on uh the hidden curriculum for undergraduate medical students and how they choose their uh their future specialty, and I also did a little bit of work based around my job, which we're looking at preparedness for practice in fy one, again which we managed to get published, and I got appointed as a general surgical training back in 2019 here in yorkshire, and I worked solidly clinically for three years through the through covid um and then I've taken what's called an out of program year, so when you're in higher training, so above, st three you're entitled to up to three years out of program where you can do a mixture of stuff, so a common one is katie alluded to is to go out of program to do research or a phd. You can also go out of program for experience, which is what I'm doing working in medical education, but as part of that, I'm also doing my masters in education for healthcare professionals um in which I am looking at performance, anxiety in surgical trainees um So this is actually the first educational research I've done that's really that surgically themed um surgeons have come up, but a lot of my research has been sort of more cross disciplinary than just within my own specialty. Um My long term career aspiration is to have a senior educational role a long time a, alongside a clinical career, So I suppose I consider myself uh someone who does a bit of research rather than uh an academic um which I think most surgical trainees would probably describe themselves as but it's okay to adjust the level of research interest you have to what you're interested in, so you can have the next slide. Please pip, um so you might not know very much about medical education, research and that's absolutely fine because I feel like it is not particularly well discussed and it is not particularly high profile within our own specialty of surgery. Um It covers a real actual, quite a broad range of stuff, my own personal experience has been in the field, qualitative research, um which a cynical person might describe as just words, so most of my research has been interviews and focus groups, um and I'm primarily interested in those squishy things of thoughts and feelings, which sometimes make surgeons a bit apprehensive um I did do some more quantitative research that involved a little bit of number, crunching when I was a teaching fellow, but I don't really like numbers, which is one of the many reasons why I really like educational research because my interest has always been in the humanities as well as in medicine. Um Medical education research is kind of a lot more social science and humanity skewed than some of the more commonly encountered research in a surgical career, and I would say it's quite independent. Most of my work has either been something I've done for um qualification, so my my pg, certain my diploma in my masters, or it's come as a bit of a spin off of that. Um There isn't really as much of a clearly defined structure with academic departments as there is for example in clinical surgical research or basic science um So some of it you kind of have to get up and do yourself. I don't have six pub med publications, I'm pleased to say, I've got a couple uh one of which has come off a project, I did back when I was a teaching fellow, but I've also got some national international presentations um at medical education conferences, uh I did a postgraduate certificate when I was an f f two and then I did a postgraduate diploma and now I'm obviously doing my Masters that's becoming an increasingly common pathway for people who have a career interest in medical education, but it's by no means compulsory. One thing I would say is that education is becoming increasingly professionalized, so if you look at senior figures in undergraduate and postgraduate medication now it's very unlikely that they will have a postgraduate qualification in medical education, but increasingly that's becoming the expectation so if you do think maybe you want to do something have a senior role in postgraduate educator or undergraduate education in the future, it's something to think about so kind of people who will be heads off heads of a subject at medical school heads of department. They will now probably need to have some form of postgraduate qualification often around the level of a pg sir or a pG dip um I think as I said, I quite I got into medical education research because it's generally a bit more humanities and social sciences um based, but there are some really quantitative opportunities, So I know somebody who is doing their master's project on differential attainment in medical students, ritual cries crunching the numbers for all the exam results for the last 5 to 10 years. Um So if if your interest is particularly in an area around say, assessment, um there are plenty of opportunities for you to do your box plots and all those other things that I know people who like numbers love doing. Um. Next side, please uh so why research in medical education because you are interested in it, as with all research because you are curious about the world and want to find out more often. I think a lot of people think that a load of stuff in in education and training is just made up, but actually the best teaching and training is often based on on evidence, so we do research to help inform our practice in the practice of people in the future um because you want to make a case for something or make things better, So the reason I'm doing my project for my master's on performance anxiety, and surgical trainees is because I'm a surgical trainee who has experienced performance anxiety, I'm not convinced that that is an uncommon problem, and I'm also not convinced that surgeons who are trainers necessarily have the tools to deal with that so that's why I'd like to find out a little bit more and also as I'm sure most people do you think that education is important and we're finding out a bit more about next slide. Please um I I suppose what are the negative things I've had along the way. Um Probably the main one is dealing with other people's prejudices, but I'm not particularly bothered about that um a lot of people, kind of know now that medical education is my thing and that's fine. Uh I was asked by somebody last year when are you going to do some proper research, um that person's own research, heavily involved cells, and I can't really see the real world relevance of a lot of what they do um but that's fine you do you um I think you know 11 thing I have been told obviously is those who can't teach and those who can't teach do medical education. Again that's absolutely fine, it's becoming increasingly popular. I think on websites like Twitter and read it to blame lots of the problems in education on educational ists, who are these sort of shadowy figures who uh sole job is to ruin doctors lives. Actually a lot of problems in medical education due to the lack of engagement by doctors um and that includes both in the gathering and synthesis of evidence and also being involved in the creation of policy, So my personal view is actually medical education is really important and one of the reasons we can develop problems in medical education is because doctors don't take it seriously enough just to echo some of what Katie said. Uh It has many of the problems of traditional research and actually one of the big problems of trying to do a lot of medical education research is that there isn't the formal departmental structure or formal pathways um that are well established for more clinical or scientific research um And sometimes you just need a bit of get up and go, but also sometimes you can find that project send in a dead end, It can be difficult to get people to supervise you. It can be hard to see things through to completion um and the usual caveats about trying to avoid people. Um You know trying to uh avoid getting dragged into a project, that you know you you possibly can't finish um as I said, it's perhaps less prestigious than other types of research, so funding can be a bit tricky especially if you're doing something really big and complicated or you want to go and do a phd in medical education, and I think quite a big problem in medical education, Research is a lot of people think it's easy um and there is actually quite a lot of low quality research out. There say my favorite type of my least favorite type of medical education research is we did some teaching for students and they liked it, which isn't really research as such, but this kind of stuff does fill up things and I think a lot of people think medical education research is It's easy cause. It's all just waffling and having an opinion, but actually if you go to a conference like the Association for Medical Education, there are people who do full time medical education research, who are not of a clinical background. They are social scientists or psychologists and they take what they do very seriously so whilst you might be able to bluff your way in front of a load of consultants about your you know project that you did um If you present it to a specialist audience, um they will tear it apart um in the nicest possible way, so it's not easy as such, it does require a lot of time and effort, So Katie mentioned that she wants some people to help, transcribe transcription takes a long time and it's quite hard, so it's always useful to have someone to help um So if you are interested, I'm sure katie will do a great job of supervising you. Um Last slide, please I think pip, um so how do you get involved in medical education, as I say, it's a little bit more um indistinct perhaps than some of the other ones, a lot of people now do a postgraduate certificate because it gets you points on your application. Things to be aware of is that takes a lot of time and it takes money as well. Um I was quite lucky in all the posts that I've done, funded a postgraduate certificate and then a diploma and then a Masters, but that's a really important thing to be aware of when you're thinking about you know, do you want to do these things. I think if you do a p. G. Sir and you absolutely hate it, it's probably not for you because a pg sir is kind of more reviewing medical education, research and formulating some initial ideas and hypotheses in your, in your work about that, whereas the Diploma is a lot more about research methods and conducting independent research, So if you do p. G. Certain, you really don't like it. It's probably not for you, I'm remember as me, which is the association for the study of medical education, which has a trainee branch called tabs me um membership which is about 50 lbs a year. They also have a branch for medical student, called jazz me um and membership of that is about 30 lbs. Uh They do an annual conference every year and they do several other events, so they have a specific research in medical education conference, for which I know they offer student bursaries and subsidized places. If you're willing to help out with the conference itself, so I think that would be a really good place to start. Um As me also has two journals, the clinical teacher and the journal Medical Education, which are well worth a look um a bit later on, but as I mentioned, I'm currently out of program um and there are lots of opportunities to get involved in things which could be as complicated as a masters or a phd or as simple as working in a teaching hospital or in Health Education, England, and doing a project looking at a particular issue that trainees in a particular special to your region have um and as ever to record the eternal advice about research, stay curious, say yes to things that sound interesting and you think you might be able to finish and say no to things that don't. Um I'm not sure if it was a bit in the others, but there will be certain times in your career, where you just it's useful to just think about what you want to put on the back burner, and what you don't so, I remember qualifying as doctor and my objective for the first six months to f for f one was just to survive, so I was like I'm not going to do anything in this six month period that it's not work and likewise later on in my career, I've also had periods where I thought actually I really need to just concentrate on work or family or something else so as with everything you know is a complete sentence um and people would rather you turned an opportunity down and we're upfront about it than you, half asked something and then it all crashes and burns later on. Um you know we've all done it, there's no shame in it because that's how you learn uh and we're often people who like to say yes to things, but it's okay to say no. Also remember that your career is a long time and there will be lots of opportunities along the way and if this is all completely blown you out the water and you thought oh my main interest is in surviving the week and playing a bit of sport at the weekend, which was mainly what I was doing in third year that's absolutely fine you've got your whole career to work out what you're interested in. Um This is just to say there are options beyond cells. Thank you very much, thank you very much george that was really interesting and great two different specs of the different opportunities in research um what I'll do is I'll put uh Our speaker's email address is in. Um If you if you want to contact them about research projects like Katie suggested um that would be absolutely fine if you could fill out a feedback form that'd be fantastic and you also get certificate for attendance. Um One of the questions, if any of our speakers are still available, is would you recommend the websites or books about how to create a postal or presentation, um I'll just see if our speakers are still there, if they've gone to enjoy that, uh would you be happy to answer that, yeah, I suppose I would I'm sure you could find lots of stuff on the internet and I'm sure you can find lots of people now who are you know trying to churn out content in this field. Um I think a really useful thing to do is most departments will have previous posters stuck up somewhere so if you're doing you know, if say, for example involved in a project and you get accepted for a poster is to just say to whoever is supervising you can. I have a look at posters for similar stuff. Um I did my first when I was a third year medical student and someone was just like just do on power point and honest there's loads of fancier ways of doing that, but I'm fairly low tech, so I've just continue to do them on power point, so I'm sure there's a huge were after of information available out there, but I thoroughly recommend just asking people how they do theirs and can you have a look. Um My topics of posters are less is more when it comes to words, It's really like quite you know, overpowering, trying to read a huge amount of information, so you don't have to put absolutely every single piece of information from your project on the poster. It's supposed to be a summary. Yeah I second, but George says um Power point is the way to go. It's really nice and easy to use with text boxes and things it doesn't need to be anything fancy if you have been to any conferences in the last couple of years. Most of the posters are on like an online portal, which is like a really nice way to really quickly view is simply hundreds of posters and see what other people have done and it's really easy to see what stands out, which is less is more has anyone got any other questions. Thank you very much for answering that Katie and george, thank you very much for giving us your tuesday evenings. Um If you do the feedback forms, you'll get a certificate and we'll be sending certificates as well to our lovely speakers, will be doing more events as the yorkshire surgical Training uh Foundation Training Society. We're going to be doing a series on different surgical specialties, what the, what the registrars perspectives of their training pathway and why their specialties are the best ones will be posting those information links in the next couple of weeks, so keep an eye out and thank you so much for joining us this evening, I'll hang around for a couple of more minutes and if anybody else has got any um has anyone else got any more questions to just put on and I'll try to answer as best as I can the presentation will be available as a on our medal page. Once the live sessions ended, cool, I think that's everything thanks, thanks so much everyone have a good evening. Oh, thanks pep, cheers everyone. Thanks. Bye.