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What type of research to do for CARMS


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Hi everyone. So I am trying to understand the CARMS process, and I recognize that research it is a very important aspect that is looked at, particularly more for the more competitive fields. Now I was wondering how they assess your research - Do they look favorably more at someone who has more publications (i.e Case Reports and Systematic Reviews which are easier to publish) vs, someone who may have done 1-2 projects (e.g. someone who has been working in a lab for months to get results, and much more difficult to publish this research, e.g. like clinical trials, etc)?

I know this one person who publishes many many Systematic Reviews, but is like the 10th author on the publication. Would they rather have someone who is 1st author and there are few authors on that paper (meaning he or she must have contributed a lot) or someone who is a review that has like 10 people on it - but that person has many publications like this. 

Basically, I'm asking if it comes down to quality or just shear quantity. 

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I did a literature review that was published and a presentation to the specialists in Canada in a particular field. I don't think this all was even considered in my CaRMS application. Anyhow, I was accepted into a surgical specialty where I did absolutely no research and this wasn't a consideration. My competition were gunners who did everything to become accepted for years prior. My application was a last minute decision where I only had one week of an elective and my soft skills got me accepted.

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8 hours ago, Monkey D. Luffy said:

From the residents and staff I've spoke with, there is a consensus that quality >> quantity.

Most residents/staff wouldn't know quality if it was set out on a silver platter in front of them. Most residents and staff I know do case reports, small reviews or chart reviews at the most. Very low on the quality scale, but realistically not easy for a med student or full time clinician to do much more than that unless they have dedicated time for research, which most clinical staff do not. 

For the most part, doctors do research, but are not researchers! Consequently, quantity > quality at this stage (unless it's ultra quality like nature, nejm)

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On 9/24/2017 at 8:33 AM, Monkey D. Luffy said:

From the residents and staff I've spoke with, there is a consensus that quality >> quantity.

 

20 hours ago, ZBL said:

Most residents/staff wouldn't know quality if it was set out on a silver platter in front of them. Most residents and staff I know do case reports, small reviews or chart reviews at the most. Very low on the quality scale, but realistically not easy for a med student or full time clinician to do much more than that unless they have dedicated time for research, which most clinical staff do not. 

For the most part, doctors do research, but are not researchers! Consequently, quantity > quality at this stage (unless it's ultra quality like nature, nejm)

Although the quality of an individual article is subjective, I think most people would agree that it is better to have a few 1st author publications than many 4th author publications.

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1 minute ago, OwnerOfTheTARDIS said:

 

Although the quality of an individual article is subjective, I think most people would agree that it is better to have a few 1st author publications than many 4th author publications.

Sorry my post was assuming 1st author only.  

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On 9/23/2017 at 5:30 PM, Bambi said:

I did a literature review that was published and a presentation to the specialists in Canada in a particular field. I don't think this all was even considered in my CaRMS application. Anyhow, I was accepted into a surgical specialty where I did absolutely no research and this wasn't a consideration. My competition were gunners who did everything to become accepted for years prior. My application was a last minute decision where I only had one week of an elective and my soft skills got me accepted.

*cue every gunner reading this getting anxiety*

 

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 2017-09-25 at 4:33 PM, OwnerOfTheTARDIS said:

Although the quality of an individual article is subjective, I think most people would agree that it is better to have a few 1st author publications than many 4th author publications.

Just to clarify, the quality of an individual article is not subjective.

You can conduct two educational randomized controlled trials, with the same sample size and have one be filled with bias and the other conducted methodologically robust (and it goes beyond blinding). Same thing with survey studies and questionnaires. There's a science and methodology behind good questionnaires and surveys. It's easy for med students, residents and even staff to not know how a sound questionnaire is constructed.

The majority of med students, residents, and staff do research as a hobby that they learned on the side from their mentors, but good researchers are formally trained in doing research - just like formal training to practice medicine. Research is also like a surgical procedure or differential diagnosis - most physicians don't do enough of it to be truly adept at it.

Whether the program directors and residency selection committee fully understand what good quality studies look like is a whole other story. Studies published in a high-impact journal are not "high quality". Prime example: Vaccine-autism study published in The Lancet back in 1998.

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1 minute ago, BoopityBoop said:

Just to clarify, the quality of an individual article is not subjective.

You can conduct two educational randomized controlled trials, with the same sample size and have one be filled with bias and the other conducted methodologically robust (and it goes beyond blinding). Same thing with survey studies and questionnaires. There's a science and methodology behind good questionnaires and surveys. It's easy for med students, residents and even staff to not know how a sound questionnaire is constructed.

The majority of med students, residents, and staff do research as a hobby that they learned on the side from their mentors, but good researchers are formally trained in doing research - just like formal training to practice medicine. Research is also like a surgical procedure or differential diagnosis - most physicians don't do enough of it to be truly adept at it.

Whether the program directors and residency selection committee fully understand what good quality studies look like is a whole other story. Studies published in a high-impact journal are not "high quality". Prime example: Vaccine-autism study published in The Lancet back in 1998.

true - but in many cases CARMS in particular has volume overload - the reviewers likely won't be reading your papers or at least not that many of them. Ha I just completed fellowship interviews at ivy league US schools for radiology in specialties where there were a handful of applicants (which is common) and they STILL don't have time to actually read everything or even anything. I mean you can have a lot of papers in many cases - I have 9 in residency which is a bit high but not that far off I think for some research focused people. Even that amount would take a lot of time to look through. Point I guess is while we all can evaluate paper scientifically, for CARMS they probably won't be in that detail and heuristics may be brought in - first author, impact factor, randomized trail vs case report etc in a lot/most of cases overall.

The fact that occasional crap gets published in even high quality journals show how hard that screen even is for the best editors/reviewers there are. Plus the vaccine paper could be argued that is was a "quality paper" in the sense that looked like good research and made no technical errors - the content though was pure fabrication and thus nonsense that killed people (there is a special place in hell for researchers that do that sort of thing.....)

 

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2 hours ago, cookacola said:

is there a general consensus of which specialties favor strong research?

The ones with certainty are derm, plastics, ophthal. These are programs where I have seen them state on CaRMS that "those with graduate degrees are especially encouraged to apply." Basically some research required except in rare cases.

Some programs like genetics and neurology do like research, perhaps more than most on average, but not a necessity.

Some smaller surgical programs like ENT, Uro and neurosurgery may put some more interest in research, but probably more from the perspective that it lets them get to know someone who they'll be working with for many years rather than the actual research. 

For other programs, I'd say in general the smaller/more selective the program, the more it matters, for either the research itself or to get to know you. 

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  • 2 months later...

I would do research if you are interested in a competitive, academic, small or surgical specialty or you are interested in schools/programs that put an emphasis on research. You don't need much, anything will do. Many programs ask residents to do research regardless during residency. If it is something you hate and would make you miserable, don't do it, but if its something you are neutral about, try it.

Often times in the beginning you help out with ongoing research which can get you published, or you work on a case report/lit review/systematic review.

Also, there is a decent reason why they encourage doctors in training to dabble in it, it isn't purely because they need labour to get their work published and it certainly isn't because you are doing anything practice changing (rare exceptions), it is so that future doctors even if they aren't involved in research (most aren't) can appraise scientific literature themselves (nothing beats that by doing some research yourself). 

 

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  • 1 year later...

Does anyone know if having a Master of Public Health (MPH) degree helps with Carms? I just graduated from the MPH program and I will be starting medical school soon (class of 2023). From research I did during my MPH Practicum, I will be publishing a public health article in the fall (2nd author), I have an abstract approved for a conference in Ottawa in November, and I have a report (just an evaluation of a public health program) published on a health agency website. I realize I’m listing off my CV, but does anyone know if this will help in the match? The timeline makes it seem like I did it all during my first year of medical which is lucky I suppose. 

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Just now, runmed said:

Does anyone know if having a Master of Public Health (MPH) degree helps with Carms? I just graduated from the MPH program and I will be starting medical school soon (class of 2023). From research I did during my MPH Practicum, I will be publishing a public health article in the fall (2nd author), I have an abstract approved for a conference in Ottawa in November, and I have a report (just an evaluation of a public health program) published on a health agency website. I realize I’m listing off my CV, but does anyone know if this will help in the match? The timeline makes it seem like I did it all during my first year of medical which is lucky I suppose. 

I mean it won't hurt ha - CARMS as you know is pretty variable - different schools/programs look for different things. Some schools do value graduate degree quite highly

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  • 8 months later...
On 8/10/2019 at 12:37 PM, rmorelan said:

I mean it won't hurt ha - CARMS as you know is pretty variable - different schools/programs look for different things. Some schools do value graduate degree quite highly

Hi there,

 

Just saw your response to the question asked earlier about whether MPH is beneficial or not. I was wondering if you can let me know whether you think doing specialized courses such as Epidemiology in Public Health Practice Specialization course from John Hopkins via online platform like course era needs to be included in the carms  or you can leave it out?

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  • 2 weeks later...

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