On practicing the art of clinical research with medical students.

I congratulate Dr Levine for his organized approach to mentoring medical students, which has led to 56 original publications in peer-reviewed journals from 1984 to 2003 (1)—an average of three articles published per year. In 2001, 66,253 students were enrolled in the 126 accredited medical schools in the United States that grant the degree of doctor of medicine (2,3)—an average of 526 students per school. If three of the 526 students at each medical school produced one article per year, that would mean that only 0.6% of U.S. medical students were active in publication; but if 10 radiology faculty members at each institution were as successful as Dr Levine has been in fostering student activity in this area, the numbers would increase to 30 of 526 (5.7%). If 30 radiology faculty members at each of the 126 U.S. medical schools co-authored one paper per year with a medical student, the numbers would be 3,780 (5.7%) of 66,253. Having said this, I don’t want to overemphasize publications as a measuring stick for success. In Dr Levine’s words, “Radiologists in academic medicine must be able to pursue their research interests if they are to achieve the level of scholarship needed for academic promotion” (1). Scholarship encompasses not only discovery but also integration, application, and teaching (4). Whereas articles published in peer-reviewed journals are typical products of scholarly discovery in basic science or in clinical or educational research, the products of scholarship related to education might also include Web-based learning materials, textbook publications, curriculum units or teaching modules, continuing medical education presentations, curricular change, and community education (5). Dr Levine makes the point that medical students, unlike radiology residents, have no other formal responsibilities or clinical assignments while they work on research projects. However, I have not always found this to be true. At the University of Wisconsin, radiology residents can elect to spend up to 3 months on a research elective, whereas medical students often do not have the option of spending more than 1 or 2 months on a research elective and may have to participate in research and clinical clerkships simultaneously. One of the medical students with whom I collaborated had to make a 1-hour drive from Milwaukee, where his clinical clerkship was located, to Madison several times in 1 month to orient different groups of medical students participating in our research project (6). Moreover, while radiology residency programs have an obligation to “encourage all residents to engage in an investigative project under faculty supervision” (7), medical schools are required only to provide “opportunity for students to participate in research and other scholarly activities of the faculty” (8). Dr Levine must have developed a reputation at his institution as someone who welcomes medical student collaboration on research projects, and students likely hear of this by word of mouth. There are also more formal ways of pairing students with faculty collaborators. For example, a list of faculty members interested in collaborating with students in research and a description of their current research interests might be posted on the institution’s Web site. The department of radiology at the University of California, San Francisco, is among the institutions that maintain such a list (9). Acad Radiol 2003; 10:473–474