Medical research in Lebanon, how to start a research project with no lab and no money.

Starting my BS at the University of Balamand I was a young, fresh kid who was passionate about research. I had these bouts of excitement about research and actually 'making a difference'. This quickly changed. I remember approaching a few of the university doctors and professors about research, but all of them gave me the same "advice" to just focus on my degree and not even bother. I realized there was a huge lack of resources for both staff and students, and if I were to begin this endeavour I needed to do some research about researching on a resource budget! By simply gaining the knowledge and making a quick mental 'how to' in my mind, I went from being the clueless kid in the corner to being able to design, write, and publish research articles in a heartbeat. So I thought I would save you the trouble and show you the basic steps needed to begin your own research project.

Disclaimer: what we are trying to teach you here is the easiest way to initiate a research project. There are a lot of more advanced tools, but at this level, you should at least familiarize yourself with the basics.

The most important steps are:

1- Know what a research article is

2- Have an idea

3- Create a study design

4- Create a team

5- Find a mentor

6- Now you can begin!

1- Know what a research article is:

Trust me, many don’t. Read this paper for the various types of study designs.

Hundreds of thousands of examples of published research papers can be found on scholarly databases (Pubmed, Google Scholar…). Know these databases because you’ll be needing them for your paper.

For simplicity, we’ll be dividing the type of project you’ll be conducting into “easy”, “moderate”, and “difficult” based on the amount of work and resources the study will require. Grossly speaking, “easy” studies include case-reports, case-series, and review articles. “Moderate” studies are mainly descriptive prevalence studies (cross-sectional studies) and case-control studies (retrospective generally). “Difficult” studies include cohort studies and anything related to control trials. Realistically, you will mainly be working on “easy” and “moderate” level papers.

2- Have an idea:

The second step is to have an idea. If it is a great one, awesome. If not, no worries, it doesn't need to be a ground-breaking new hypothesis that turns you into a Nobel Laureate. You can even make an exact replica of a study done in another country and adapt it to your region or population. For example, you might read a cool paper about Attitudes to Colonoscopy in Germany and then replicate that study in Lebanon.

3- Create a study design:

You need to have like an overall structure on how to conduct the study. This requires the basic knowledge you learned regarding study design (step 1).

4- Create a team:

You want to be working with people you have good chemistry with and are able to cohesively work together. If you want this to be a sustainable collaboration over many projects you have to be able to trust your team member's judgement and their work ethic, so not one person carries the team. Don’t be afraid to expand the team as you work on extra projects. One of our projects had 13 authors (10 students, 3 professors). I found that the more members there are on a team, the more projects you can publish.

Most medical students think that having “too many” authors on a paper will “dilute its value”. This is usually the mentality that’s fostered amongst medical students after having to be competitive for so long. But, honestly, at this level no one cares how many authors are on a paper and you should focus more on your research output. I've found that the more members are on a team, the more studies we can publish and the better we all look - it's a win-win.

5- Find a mentor:

You will need an instructor (doctor, professor…) to be what is called the corresponding author (basically the mentor) when you submit a paper. The topic you are dealing with should be related to the specialization of the “mentor”. For example, if you are dealing with mental illness among medical students, you will need a psychiatrist or psychologist mentor.

The best way to go about looking for a mentor is to look up faculty at your institution who actually have a track record of research work AND PUBLICATIONS. Search their names on Pubmed or Google Scholar to get an idea about their research activity in the past. If they use researchgate, you can also search for them there to see if they have any ongoing projects you might be interested in. You can also simply ask around your institution’s departments to find out which faculty members are working on research projects you can participate in. A good mentor can fill in the gaps in your study design.

Note that the mentor might not find your idea interesting enough. In this case, ask if they have any other projects available and if they might need a team to begin this process. Many doctors have ideas but lack a committed team, and if you can provide this, you're already half way there. Meanwhile you can try and find another mentor that might be interested in your idea.

For us, we formed a team first. We learned how to design studies, and then approached an enthusiastic mentor with our ideas. We did 99% of the work because that made things much quicker, and we sent final drafts to our mentor for comments. If you make your mentor’s job easier, he will want to work on more projects with you. This may sound demoralizing, but like I mentioned earlier, writing research can become second nature. Once you get going, you’ll see how easy it is for yourself. Especially if you’re working with like-minded people who want to get things done. We published case reports, review articles, and original articles where we tested certain hypotheses. We started off as complete novices, and with everyone pulling their weight on the team, it was one of the easiest things we got to do during medical school.

6- You can now start data collection:

You have a team, an idea, a plan, and a mentor, things are now looking serious. Regardless of the project, the first step will be data collection. Whether you need to go through a patient’s file to write a case report or you need to go through pathology reports to test a hypothesis, you need to go and collect the data needed for your study.

The next steps depend on the type of research study you are conducting and generally includes data analysis, writing the paper, and finally submitting the paper for publication. What I've learnt is that research is definitely not as daunting as it seems and the hurdles you face can usually be solved, especially with the help of a team. So if you have an idea, just go out and pitch it, after all what is there to lose.

Good luck!