Clinical Research for beginners

This video provides a quick 30 seconds overview of what you can expect from this module

This lecture will teach you how to identify topics for doing a thesis or research study. Subscribing to “e-Table of contents” from major journals, understanding your resources and limitations and numerous other thumb rules are provided which will help you identify your topic and decide whether it can be successfully executed in your settings.

This lecture introduces you to the most important online search engine for biomedical journals i.e. PubMed. Differences between Medline, PubMed and PubMed central are highlighted, the concept of MeSH terms is introduced and indexing of journals is explained in this lecture.

This lecture demonstrates utilization of the PubMed search engine using real life examples. You will learn concepts of advanced search, Boolean search, creating your own NCBI account and customizing PubMed to suit your own requirements.

This lecture will introduce you to various study designs that you can use to conduct your study. It demystifies the concepts of cohort vs. case control studies, prospective vs. retrospective studies using animations that will give you clarity. Most importantly, you will learn to decide which study design suits your research question the best.

This video gives you a quick 30 seconds overview of what to expect in this module

This lecture introduces you to the basic building blocks of biostatistics i.e. a variable. You will learn how to classify variables into continuous and categorical types using real – world clinical examples. Finally, you will get exposed to the concepts of an independent and dependent variable.

Making an excel sheet that can be utilized by statistical software packages requires you to follow certain specific guidelines. This lecture will enlist these simple guidelines that you should use to make your excel sheet. An excellent excel sheet will ensure quick and relevant statistical analysis.

In this lecture, you will learn how to use measures of central tendency (mean, standard deviation, median etc.) to describe different types of variables. Additionally, you will understand the best ways to graphically represent the variance and distribution of a variable. Lastly, you will understand the concept of “outliers”.

In this lecture, you will learn how to find statistically significant differences between variables using different tests of significance such as student t test and chi square test. An algorithm like approach is presented to make it simple for you to follow and apply in your own research.

This lecture introduces you to the concepts of correlation and regression analysis. Regression is required to adjust for the influence of confounders in your study. Different types of regression analysis are introduced depending on the outcome variable along with real life examples from clinical studies.

Communicating with a biostatistician effectively is a critical part of designing your study, calculating sample size, data maintenance, statistical analysis and presenting your outcomes using appropriate tables and figures. This lecture teaches you how to optimize this interaction and get the best out of your biostatistician.

This video gives you a quick 30 seconds overview of what to expect in the module on "Manuscript writing"

This lecture gives you guidelines on how to choose the most appropriate journal to submit your manuscript. Concepts such as “what is meant by indexed journals” and the peer review process are also introduced in this lecture.

This lecture introduces you to different types of manuscripts and focuses on how to write original articles. The IMRAD format of writing is introduced, nuances of writing each section of the manuscript are elucidated and abstract writing is introduced in the end.

Writing case reports and letter to editor are not as demanding as writing original articles and are hence, excellent starting points to initiate scientific writing. In this lecture, you will learn about the intricacies involved in writing Case reports and letter to editor.

This lecture introduces you to very important general tips of manuscript writing such as choosing a title for the manuscript, style of writing using scientific lingo, reference style, specifics of tables and figures applicable to most journals and cautions against plagiarism in scientific writing.

This lecture introduces you to manuscript writing using internationally accepted checklists available from the Equator Network. It then takes you through the items in one of the most commonly employed checklists i.e. the STROBE statement.

This video gives you a quick 30 seconds overview of what to expect in this module on "Rejections and Reference Managers"

This lecture takes a look at manuscripts from a reviewer’s point of view. It introduces basic concepts used in the review process such as relevance, originality and validity. It also takes a look at how to construct a good research question and transmit information with clarity so that it is easily understood by the reviewers, editors and finally the readers.

This lecture introduces you to the 10 most common causes of rejection. Being aware of these causes will help you in avoiding the same mistakes when you write your manuscript, thereby improving your chances of acceptance.

This lecture will introduce you to reference managers such as Zotero and Mendeley, which are freely available online, integrate with your web browser and Microsoft WORD, and assist you in automatically organizing and numbering references for your manuscript.

This lecture summarizes the entire lecture series and gives you perspectives on the logical applications of the in-depth knowledge you have gained, so that you are able to apply these research techniques in your own research as well as day – to – day practice.

In this course, I talk about how you can impact a lot of lives and patients by doing good clinical research. I share my personal experiences to make this as real and practical as possible.

In this lecture, I discuss nuances of how to read a scientific published paper, the need for such interpretations in a medical practice and templates you can use to interpret papers.

There so many opportunities that you can leverage and earn a good living if you have expertise in clinical research. This lecture talks about some of these opportunities to make you aware of whats out there. I have curated these based on my own experiences but this is in no way a comprehensive list. You can comment on the lecture and share your own experiences about some more opportunities.