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| Of course making it bigger doesn't help |
While this was an endeavor I undertook several months ago, I wasn't blogging so much back then. So in light of the upcoming Resident's Day, I will on occasion recount the frustrations revolving around research, and discuss new ones as they arise.
It all starts with a question, an interest in a particular subject. This is pretty difficult as a first or even second year resident. Suppose I run across a particular clinical or surgical situation, usually more than once in order to inspire questioning for possible research. You can immediately design a research project to maybe answer the question and get right to work. Or, you can do the smarter (and often more frustrating) route and do a literature search for any prior addressing of the subject.
I ask a question. I go to PubMed to do a literature search. What do I find? The issue was addressed, maybe as far back as 1961. So then I tweak the question to perhaps explore a different aspect of things. More searching reveals this too was thought of, but maybe only as far back as 1995. I try to tweak the question some more, but then find myself really only splitting hairs and ultimately addressing the same things. So ultimately a new question has to be found and the process starts over. I go through all these questions I have, only to find I really just don't know the things everyone else already does.
But it's supposed to be a learning process, right?
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