CDU Advantage Research Pillar – A Conversation with Dr. Shahrzad Bazargan( continued)
for the students. They wanted to do lab research. They wanted to do more, you know, direct patient-related outcome research. But I think what happened was that eventually all of these students became interested in looking at the area and topic that interests them from the health disparity perspective; finding the gap, and then seeing how they can fill in a little bit of that gap with that type of research. How the social determinants of health-related issues are patient-related, and mandate physician-patient communication. A lot of structural racism, medical education, and research education. These are the areas that I’ m interested in.
Please take us briefly through the phases of research training that leads to the kind of inquiry and writing that you deemed to be at a high standard.
In order to do research, you just have to have patience to go through certain process and these are not the processes that I have created. These are the structured process, or steps, that everybody who wants to become a researcher has to go through. You have to learn how to do literature review, you have to learn how to design a study. You have to learn how to collect data, analyze it, interpret it, present it, publish it. All of that, and the unintended consequence of this process is that it makes you to become patient, to persevere, and also adaptable. Just very interesting because these are the qualities that you need to do most research. Submitting your work for peer review, and then submitting that for publication.
That’ s a process to many people that is like writing a grant and you keep failing. You have to get up, and then restart without getting upset, and without making sure that your pride is not bruised and believing in the idea that the feedback is supposed to make the quality of the work better. And these are the attitudes that the process that also shapes your attitude to become you know, more adaptable and more receptive to feedback.
So how does research advance one’ s knowledge of a given subject matter? Once you have the curiosity of a topic, then you immerse yourself into what is out there, that by itself advances your knowledge, right? And then you decide that okay, now I learned and I know what’ s happening. Do I want to make any change? Or you formulate a question. Every step that you go now, there is a skill attached to it. There is knowledge attached to it. You have to mold your attitude toward that step. And then all of these is learning constantly even for posing a question, formulating a question you learn that there are tools out there that can help you to pose it in such a way that is more feasible.
Every step, it’ s feeding your curiosity, collaboration and networking. If you look at the things that are published, you will see that hardly ever is there only one author, because research means collaboration. Research means networking. And so that’ s that’ s just the best part of it because you put yourself out there for people to tell you what you think. And then you open yourself to, you know, criticism, and feedback. And oh my god, that is such a learning process.
What would you say to a person in training, in judging that they’ re competent in conducting research inquiry? Is it through the peer review process? Is it through publication?
It’ s really a few things. The intellectual learning curiosity is the common denominator across everything, all the questions that you asked me, right. But then given that, you have to be willing to seek out mentorship guidance. I mean, if you want to really create that attitude, you should be willing to seek guidance, and mentorship. Why? Because they have that ability not only to support but help you to expand your insight about a topic or you should have the attitude of seizing opportunities. And that means that people shouldn’ t really have to force you if you’ re really interested. You should have that attitude of looking out for opportunities to engage yourself in research. I think through publications and presentation, putting yourself out there to tell that people what you’ re doing can also help.
An example that I use with my students is to start with something small because I always give them the analogy of a puzzle. A puzzle for a five-year-old may have 12 pieces. And there is a reason for that, i. e., the five-yearold can put the puzzle together and feel competent. Then for the for the nine-year-old, it becomes 20 pieces and then it’ s 30 pieces for someone a little older. There is a theory and science behind that because you want people to work on their self-efficacy in order to feel that they can start something, complete it, and feel competent.
How has scientific and medical research advanced the professional knowledge base? Practicing evidence-based science and medicine is something that I always use when I have to train our trainees. You know, we work in a health professional field, and they are constantly encountering patients. So being able to practice evidence-based research not only helps you as a physician or as a clinician, but also it will improve physician outcomes. It improves patient safety and it improves patient satisfaction. It improves quality of life. I can go on and on and on. From the cost perspective, it’ s going to cost the system less because patient doesn’ t come back again and again and again.
Thank you very much.
CDU College of Medicine | PG. 40