value of this extracurricular?

[magicant]

I was wondering if anyone could provide any input in regards to the following extracurricular I do. I used to volunteer at a hospital for a summer a few years ago and I was assigned to help a researcher (has a masters, is now a PhD candidate I believe) who was currently doing cancer research work there. The individual afterwards asked if I would like to continue my work with him beyond the summer sessions indefinitely and I said yes. However, it is not really "hands-on" research I do where I am in a lab conducting experiments, it mainly consists of editing manuscripts before their submission for publication, as well as contributing small sections here and there in other manuscripts that also will be later on published (in those cases I am given a rather large amount of articles to read in order to gain a solid background understanding of the topic being discussed). A number of manuscripts have been published in legitimate scientific and medical journals and the researcher has agreed to have me be co-author to a couple of them so far, however I was wondering just how valuable this experience is as it is not necessarily "traditional" research work. Sorry for the long post!

[Head Squeeze]

all i gotta say: 1 in a 1000

[magicant]

sorry, I know this is probably a really stupid thing to ask, but is that a good thing or bad thing?

[anon1234]

something is better than nothing however, if you find a better opportunity (and you should be seeking one) you should grab that. if you have nothing else going on research-wise and it would be hard for you to find something, still keep doing this, it's something at least. and if you really do get a co-authorship, you are super lucky, so don't walk away from it.

[future_doc]

^ absolutely do not walk away from it. You are reading, learning and evasluating current important medical research material. This is a good thing. I never did research and if I had the time, I would have enjoyed this experience......enjoy.

[tooty]

sounds like a fantastic gig if you're enjoying the process. you learn a lot about the research process and the critical thinking involved in reading and writing a paper. on top of that, it's exponentially more valuable if you're interested in that field of research.

 

i'm trying to pump out publications for carms and i'm dreading the literature review mainly because i don't have much experience.

 

a lot of lab experiments are mindless monkey work anyway. critical thinking happens at the desk.

 

and you don't have to do much to sell yourself here. being 2nd or 3rd author in several papers would speak for itself.