Research as a HMO

[thushan]

JUST CURIOUS!

People talk about obtaining research qualifications and that. Now it'd be nice to do research, but when? As a medical student? Or as a HMO? People say one who wanted to obtain a PhD should do it as a HMO, but the problem is do they have to give up practising for a while?

And the issue with that is - won't their skills regress after 3-4 years of not practising?

[Russ]

You can't do a PhD until you're out of med school anyway.
Some people do part time lab work to try and get a publication history as middle authors. It works I guess, but you're not getting much recognition out of it in terms of "research". If you want to do research, you need to decide whether or not you're willing to make that sacrifice of working fulltime

[thushan]

Hmm, Monash introduced MBBS/PhD officially - announced by Dean of Faculty, approved by Academic Board. Seriously considering doing it.

Hmm, yeah that'd be quite a sacrifice. But the main concern is about regression of clinical skills.

[Russ]

I imagine it's just doing a PhD after your MBBS, which is essentially the same thing. I don't see how they're letting high school students into a PhD course without previous experience

[thushan]

I imagine it's just doing a PhD after your MBBS, which is essentially the same thing. I don't see how they're letting high school students into a PhD course without previous experience

It's done within your MBBS. So you do say 2-4 years of MBBS, then do BMedSci (Hons), a research year. If your project is conducive to being extended, that BMedSci (Hons) is turned into your first year of PhD, and then you do your subsequent years. After completion of PhD, you go back to complete your MBBS. Most likely pathway is after 4th year MBBS, when your barrier exams are completed.

[Russ]

Yeah that sounds standard then, that's the same as any other pathway. Weird that they won't give you the MBBS first but oh well

[thushan]

Mmm, but my original question - what of regression of clinical skills?

[pi]

Mmm, but my original question - what of regression of clinical skills?

That would be entirely your call, is the research worth loss of your clinical skills? :/ It's a reason why many students still don't take the BMedSci afaik (among other reasons such as not being able to graduate with your original cohort, wanting to get into the working as soon as possible, etc.).

It is unlikely you'd be able to do some "clinical practice" in hospitals whilst not actively doing MBBS due to various admin/insurance issues (similarly why such placements during holidays are very difficult to find/organise).