What was the most important advice you were given as a new researcher?
To be patient! Research takes time and there can be a lot of “one step forward, two step back” experiences. You need a lot of patience.
Why did you want to do an intercalated research year?
I was always interested in research, but wasn’t clear about how to get into it. In my third year, when most students at Leicester who are going to intercalate apply, I wasn’t really ready to interrupt my medical training. Once I had started gaining some clinical experience, I didn’t want to stop. But after my fourth year, it felt like a good time to take a break from my medical studies and do something different, but something that was still productive and relevant to medicine. I talked to some registrars who had done some research and it sounded like an ideal way to take a break from the medical course.
What has been the most important factor that has helped you succeed in your research project?
Support and encouragement – especially from my project supervisor. He was really enthusiastic. Other people in his lab are experts in different areas and they were really helpful and supportive too. One of the postdocs there showed me round when I arrived and I spent the first two weeks learning techniques before I started on my project – that induction was really helpful.
I also had a mentor during my intercalated year, who was a vascular surgeon. It was really useful having some one from a medical background keeping an eye on how I was getting on too. The Intercalated Committee was really supportive too and brought things like conferences we could go to to our attention.
What were the most useful training aspects of your intercalated year?
I gained so many skills that are also relevant to medicine. As well as the laboratory skills I learnt, I experienced working independently, planning and conducting experiments, keeping accurate records, analysing results, using software for data analysis and producing graphical representations. I had to present and explain my results to other people and deal with both positive and negative comments, and I wrote abstracts and had a taste of writing papers. I also spent time searching databases for relevant scientific literature. That’s something that you don’t get a lot of time for as a medical student and it was a really useful experience.
I think for most medical students, there is not enough awareness of research. Every drug we use is there because of research, but a lot of students don’t realise how the evidence base in medicine is created. There’s not a lot of time during the medical course to really find out about research
What is the next thing you want to achieve in your career?
Passing my finals in May and getting a Foundation Year 1 place. I want to go into surgery, but would like to combine it with academic work too. Once I get to registrar level, I hope to spend some more time doing research again. I am not a hundred percent clear how that will work right now, but my priority at present is to concentrate on my medical training.
