The Clinical Research Handbook: A Practical Guide To Designing, Conducting And Publishing Clinical Research

The Clinical Research Handbook: A Practical Guide To Designing, Conducting And Publishing Clinical Research

Through clinical research, field changing ideas are formulated, tested, and ultimately translated into clinical practice with the goal of improving healthcare for generations to come. From a practical perspective, there is a need for medical students both in the United States, and internationally, to be exposed to clinical research in their medical education. In the United States, many students are encouraged to perform research in medical school for the overall advancement of the field, and also to become competitive for the medical residency match process. The latter point has become even more important over the past two years as Step 1 has recently become pass/fail, and thus many students are turning to research to become competitive candidates in their field of interest. However, often in the clinical environment, academic mentors are often busy and, in some medical schools, difficult to find. Therefore, students in these situations need a written resource that describes how to perform research for junior medical professionals. Internationally, some medical students may have difficulty finding mentors in guiding them to perform effective clinical research. Therefore, in: The Clinical Research Handbook, the authors attempt to provide a concise and effective reading that allows individuals to gain introductory knowledge in performing clinical research. We completely describe the process of research by describing how to formulate ideas, test these ideas, and submit these ideas as publishable manuscripts to journals. Specifically, we cover many key concepts such as: Reading relevant peer-reviewed literature. Formulating novel hypotheses. Formatting and writing a manuscript. Describing different types of data sources such as institutional datasets and many national databases. Describing how to take data and perform statistical analysis using prominent packages of RStudio, and we additionally provide basic source code. Discuss the creation of online predictive calculators which are becoming even more common in literature today. Discuss an introduction to intellectual property and grant writing. Where possible, we take all opportunities to explain these subjects in non-technical and easy to understand terms, and each chapter is designed to be read as a unique individual reading in an effort to save time for the reader. Since this is primarily aimed at individuals that are junior in their career, we aim to make this reading as low of a cost as possible. Using our book, medical students will be able to go from formulating ideas to accepted publication by using all of the information provided here. "We invest so much in the care of patients, and clinical research is the process of knowing our results. The secrets to success in this vital part of medicine are revealed in this handbook. I believe that the pen is more powerful than the scalpel, which is why I recommend The Clinical Research Handbook to aspiring authors everywhere seeking to advance their specialty." Michael T Lawton, MD President & CEO, Barrow Neurological Institute Chairman, Department of Neurosurgery "The Clinical Research Handbook is an indispensable resource for researchers. It offers clear guidance on study design, data analysis, and manuscript preparation — essential steps for translating clinical insights into impactful research." Zayed Almadidy, MD (Dr Z) Neurosurgeon | Medical Educator Mohammad Faizan Khan is a medical student at Indiana University School of Medicine and a distinguished Bepko Scholar from IUPUI. As a Valedictorian at Eman Schools, he demonstrated a lifelong commitment to academic excellence. A passionate researcher, Mohammad has authored multiple publications in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Neuro-Oncology, Journal of Clinical Neuroscience, and World Neurosurgery. He has also contributed articles to The Neurosurgical Atlas, furthering education in complex neurosurgical procedures. In The Clinical Research Handbook , Mohammad provides a practical guide to designing, conducting, and publishing clinical studies, empowering medical students and early-career professionals to make meaningful contributions to research. Outside of medicine, Mohammad enjoys video games and quality time with his wife. Nolan J Brown is a medical writer and co-author of The Future of Technology in Medicine: From Cyborgs to Curing Paralysis , a World Scientific publication. He earned his MD/MBA from the University of California, Irvine. He aspires to pursue fellowship training in skull base and cerebrovascular neurosurgery. Outside of the clinic, his research has led to multiple patents, including a novel dural repair technique with applications in neurological surgery. He has also contributed to developing a novel, multimodal liquid biopsy assay for enhanced detection of GBM, the most universally lethal form of brain cancer. His main research interest is leveraging spatial transcriptomics to map brain tumor expression pro