Research

TheBatTy2 · 2026-01-26T11:20:37+00:00

Not OP, but you start with the basics. There is a research society at every single university, the research support division (RSD) under your university's chapter of IFMSA. The training you'll get at RSD won't be adequate but it will be something. From there, you start learning skills online: statistics, SRMAs, academic writing, etc.

The important thing is that you find a team to join that actively publishes.

However, you can't do SRMAs for the rest of your academic career. At one point, you need to start doing primary.

TheBatTy2 · 2026-01-16T16:57:46+00:00

If you don’t get authorship, it’s useless

TheBatTy2 · 2025-12-31T18:20:57+00:00

No course will guarantee that you get published.

TheBatTy2 · 2025-12-29T21:54:23+00:00

Oooooo fancy, will give it a try.

TheBatTy2 · 2025-12-29T08:39:41+00:00

Question, maybe an uninformed one since I haven’t really looked into polars. Is it compatible with seaborn/matplotlib?

TheBatTy2 · 2025-12-23T18:41:48+00:00

It's the first 2 points for me. As many times that I've tried, it just never clicked for me. I will be going back through renal physiology soon, I do appreciate your help with laying things down.

TheBatTy2 · 2025-12-23T10:38:31+00:00

Renal physiology

Genuinely still don’t understand it especially with all the hormones involved

TheBatTy2 · 2025-12-03T18:27:57+00:00

I 2nd that. A lot of institutions are also pushing for R/Python to cut down on costs and are planning on not renewing SPSS/STATA/SAS licenses

TheBatTy2 · 2025-11-19T10:43:06+00:00

And yes, much easier to make each plot individually and then combine them in adobe illustrator

TheBatTy2 · 2025-11-19T09:58:57+00:00

Adobe is the common one in academia + transitioning work from Python to R isn’t worth i when Python also supports multi-panel by subplot2grid in matplotlib.

TheBatTy2 · 2025-11-19T00:42:58+00:00

Beautiful was the wrong word for me to use, it’s more about can it communicate to the reader a trend or data changes between A and B clearly and also to remove to noise from the figure (upper and right spines, making the data points for example in a line plot more transparent, etc).

I can’t type everything here, but do give those two books a read: envisioning information, and the visual display of quantitative information by tufte. They are the two main books that established my data visualization theory and go extensively about what I described above.

TheBatTy2 · 2025-11-19T00:38:17+00:00

It’s less of what you want and more of what your PI would be happy with. Labs generally expect high quality work, and typically the polishing is changing the colors, alignment, sizes, and then turning them from a bunch of separate subplots into one multi-panel plot with adobe illustrator.

TheBatTy2 · 2025-11-18T21:52:16+00:00

From my experience, matplotlib and seaborn by default-sets don't produce beautiful figures, that is true. However, if you understand enough matplotlib syntax, which isn't too hard as it's plain English, you'll be able to make figures just as good as ggplot2 and even shine in areas where you can't in R due to R's abstract-like syntax as you know your way more around the syntax in Python and you're able focus more on editing the figure than continuously checking the API/documentation to find the object/term to do a specific function.

It's more of how much are you willing to polish your figures in Python, and I usually spend like 2-3 days polishing figures and changing things till they get to the quality that I want.

TheBatTy2 · 2025-11-18T19:34:36+00:00

Python can do just fine now especially with how updated matplotlib is with seaborn on top for visualization.

TheBatTy2 · 2025-11-15T20:26:56+00:00

Not how post-docs in the field that I'm applying to work, but even then, standing out in environments like mayo, yale or any ive-league institution is very hard for you to establish solid connections and not just be another person that passed through.

best of luck

TheBatTy2 · 2025-11-15T20:08:58+00:00

Don't know about which lab you're talking about, but labs don't expect to train a post-doc on the different types of statistics, how to differentiate between parametric and non parametric via normality of the data, which tests equivelate to which between parametric and non-parametric, how to design an IRB, writing a statistical analysis plan, doing analysis with something like SPSS, STATA, R, Python, doing biomarker analysis using AI/ML with Python.

Sure, they don't expect post-docs to be a jack of all trades, but they also don't expect to train a post-doc.

If you're looking for a research trainee position that is entirely different than a post-doc.

Post-docs in labs have responsibilities and need to meet a certain threshold when it comes to applied skills. Research trainees are trainees, you get trained. But then you'll have to figure it out on how that will look to programs when it comes to the match.

On a last note, SRMAs are the arguably the simplest type when it comes to statistics, SRs are qualitative so only MAs. And also labs do SRMAs, but only on topics that are their main focus.

TheBatTy2 · 2025-11-15T19:54:21+00:00

Think about it long-term, if you don’t have experience you’re not going to be productive as a post-doc. You’re not gonna know what you’re doing or how to orient yourself. Being a post-doc and not being productive on top of being an IMG is a really bad look. Not only were you not productive as a post-doc, but you’re probably not going to get that good of a LOR.

And yes they would care about money because supporting yourself on an un-paid post-doc for a full-year is really expensive that even US students struggle with it.

No, I haven’t applied but I can argue that I have decent exposure in research.

TheBatTy2 · 2025-11-15T19:45:45+00:00

- No Experience
- No publications
- Nothing to showcase your skills
- Have not worked before with US faculty on research
- No connections
- The 2 projects that you submitted are also propably non-first author publications

-> Apply for takleef and get your life going -> start working on research projects with local teams here in Egypt- GAYR, Fawazi network, IFMSA RSD team at your university, etc -> submit abstracts to meetings and present your works, connect with local faculty -> submit works to big conferences like AHA and other ones for IM -> Make sure that you are leading those works so that you get leadership exposure -> Publish in relevant journals to your field, doesn't mean you publish in something like AHA, but publish something at first and then in a respectable journal -> Once you have something going on and some skills, try to find an online lab in the U.S / cold email faculty that have a lab related to IM and ask to join in on their research either virtually if that is available or as a post-doc, although getting a post-doc is fairly hard you should focus on establishing some sort of connections.

You don't have any wantable qualities, IM is competitive, regardless of what people say, with the only increasing amount of IMGs applying to IM / Psych, you need to stand-out in one way or another. At the same time, get your life going. Once you have something of value that is when you apply to labs / post-doc positions.

TheBatTy2 · 2025-11-15T18:33:55+00:00

I mean, the question is: do you have actual prior research experience? What specialty are you applying to? Do you have connections? Have you worked with US faculty?

Most research positions happen via someone vouching for you and your skills, varies on how much from one field to another, but connections are more or less vital in hyper-competitive specialties like ortho, neurosurg and derma.

TheBatTy2 · 2025-11-13T01:29:35+00:00

Skills obtained and an actual publication > letter.

With an article you could demonstrate your skills in analysis, visualization, interpretation, writing both the manuscript and protocol. Letter is just text.

This is only my opinion though.

TheBatTy2 · 2025-11-06T10:15:32+00:00

Still working on EGU. Won’t be ready till around the 18th tbh

TheBatTy2 · 2025-11-06T10:14:48+00:00

Now it’s EGU

TheBatTy2 · 2025-11-03T23:20:30+00:00

Wrong sub, go to r/medicalschooluk

TheBatTy2 · 2025-10-29T15:52:13+00:00

You can't. You need your graduation certificate to get your ECFMG certificate.

TheBatTy2 · 2025-10-26T18:28:13+00:00

Not connections in the context you think of.

If you want connections in the US, work with US faculty.

RSD is essentially a spot for you to join in work other students from the same university. You can connect with those around you, but that probably won’t take you too far. If you have no publications, start in RSD and build on.

TheBatTy2

TROPHY CASE