Readers want to know!

I have a reader, EG, who has asked me the following question:

How did you get experience as a researcher before your MD-PhD program?

Since I LOVE pontificating about myself, I will tell you.

The short answer is: the job kind of fell into my lap.

The longer, more truthful answer? I'd been thinking about a career doing research for a long time. See, compared to most pre-meds I know, I came at this whole med school thing ass-backwards. Most kids decide they want to be doctors. Then, when being a doctor doesn't turn out to be the eternally intellectually stimulating adventure they thought it would be, they turn to research.

It all started way back in the 90s. When I was in college.

I had thought I wanted to do research when I was taking sociology classes as an undergrad. But, after taking Sociology of Culture, which was -- I do not kid -- all about how rich people use "culture" to keep the working man down, and how economics is "wrong" because people often choose to spend their time doing things besides work (don't even get me started on this), I kind of became disenchanted with the field.

There, I said it. I love sociology. I really do. But at that moment, they all seemed like a bunch of whiners to me.

Also, while there may have been oodles of opportunities to do sociology research at The University of Chicago, I had no idea how to get involved with it. And anyway, I was beginning to think the field was bullshit.

Still, as I sat in the methods classes that taught us how to design surveys and run focus groups, I found myself thinking, "I could really do this."

Between junior and senior year of college, I had this mini-freak out about med school. I felt like I'd written it off too quickly, and briefly toyed with the idea of doing some biology my senior year. I decided at that time that my senior thesis would be on health or medicine and sociology.

It turned out to be a very auspicious decision.

I was assigned an adviser who did palliative care research (now he does social network studies using the Framingham database and facebook of all things). I had wanted to do some kind of project on race and medical adherence, but alas, he had a data set on hospices. So, I did a project on the predictors of voluntarism in hospices instead.

And the year passed, and I did my project. I never really got into working with this guy -- I always felt like he thought I was kind of stupid -- but I still got my A. And I graduated. And he asked if I wanted to try to publish the paper, but I didn't care so I said no. I was starting my job as a consultant after all. I thought I would never go back to academics.

Anyway, fast forward 4 awful years and 2 jobs later, I found myself jobless in the recession of 2003. I had been *thinking* about the idea of grad school for a couple of years. Ok, 3 years. My interest mostly stemmed from the fact that I found the PhD-burnouts who ended up in business to be infinitely more interesting than the MBAs, and because I liked thinking about things in a way that most people I knew didn't understand or couldn't care less about.

Ok, they weren't stellar reasons. But also, my brain was atrophying out in the warehouse. I couldn't remember how to do algebra to get fractions out of the denominator of an equation, ok? I longed to be able to use my brain again. To solve interesting problems. It's what I've always been good at.

So I started looking for a job. Any job. I needed to feed myself. And every so often I would find a research job -- usually at 50% of the salary I had been making previously -- and I would apply for it. One job asked me what research experience I had. So I mentioned my senior thesis and who I had worked with, and played up my job skills.

Little did I know that a) my adviser had turned out to be a major hot-shot, and b) he had worked in the same research group as the people who had posted the ad for the job.

So I got the interview. And I totally hit it off with both of the PIs, and they more or less hired me on the spot. They were doing some really cool research that as it turns out is somewhat related to what I'm doing now. And they let me basically run the ship. I learned so much at that job! Looking back, it kind of scares me how much autonomy they let me have.

I also went back to talk to my former thesis adviser, and he put the bug in my ear about med school. I think he thought I was younger than I was, because when he found out my age, he kind of waffled back and forth a bit about whether I should still go. But I was sold. I had figured out that you could become an MD and do research, and still have a viable back up career if the research part didn't work out. Having seen a lot of my PhD friends struggle to find jobs -- much less tenure track jobs -- once they finished their PhDs, that was really important to me. And (my mentors told me) if I my plan was to do research, I might as well do it right and get the PhD too.

I guess that makes it sound like it was this big epiphany moment. And it kind of was. But I still told myself, "Ok, a year of biology, and if it goes well, then I'll go to med school." And the same with Physics and Ochem the next year. I was also really lucky to have found these particular mentors as they were incredibly supportive of my decision and were great to work with.

I completed the project a year ahead of schedule, which enabled me to get some publications. And I got good grades and did well on the MCAT, and got into [you know where]. The rest is history.

So do YOU want to know how to get into research? It's all about making connections. Talk to your professors. Set up meetings. Show interest in what your professors do. If they can't pay you, do some work for them for free if you think it will pay off in terms of a relationship or a letter. I wish I had realized this when I was in college. Oh well. I got a lot of valuable work experience instead. And I got here anyway. Just a bit later than everyone else.