Not infrequently.
I'm asked the question about the impact of research on
a doctor's CV or resume.
Most often I'm asked is it a problem if I
don't have any or much research to add to my
resume So I'm going to answer this question for you
in this video.
Hello everyone.
Dr. Anthony Llewellynthe career doctor.
I make videos to help explain the doctor job process
in Australia and to help doctors just like you better
manage their careers.
So in this video I'm going to cover the topic
of research in a doctor job application.
And by research I mean publications and other scientific stuff,
not the other type of research, which is doing research
about the job, which is probably more important in the
whole scheme of things.
Yes.
What I'm talking about is all those papers you have
had accepted into the new England journal of medicine or
nature or am I, you see, the thing is in
most cases, whether you have or have not done any
significant medical research, it's overrated for most doctor jobs.
This is not to say that having some accomplishments to
see this area doesn't help candidates, it's just that it's
not as significant as you might think and there are
definitely ways of compensating for a lack of research papers
on your CV, which we'll go into at the end
of the video, but let's talk about why research is
not particularly important as well as when it is actually
important first.
So why is research not that important Well, because for
most jobs in medicine, research is not a critical part
of the role.
Sure you need to be able to read and apply
evidence based medicine, but you don't need to have been
the first author on a peer review publication to have
this skill.
Far more important in most other cases are all the
other elements of the can meds wheel like being a
medical expert and communicating well
Why What's that You say research is missing from the
candidates will, well it is there.
It's under scholarship right there over there, but it's part
of the scholar role, a role which also includes your
competency in learning, learning what you need to learn as
well as being able to help other people learn, which
are other capabilities that you can probably talk about on
your resume that will compensate for a lack of pure
research for most candidates, particularly at the trainee level and
even at the consultant level.
I can reassure you that no research is not a
deal breaker for most positions.
In fact, there can be an opposite problem which is
having too many research papers listed.
This can be a strong indicator to employees that you
will be distracted from your clinical role.
So unless you're going for an academic post, which is
one of the situations where research does matter quite a
bit, then it's best to actually limit your research publications
on your resume to maybe the top six or so
that are particularly relevant to the job in the best
journals and most recent, that sort of thing.
And the other thing that you will notice with most
resumes, at least the ones that are written correctly, is
that research comes somewhere in the middle of your resume,
which means it's mostly skimmed over.
Remember, employers are most interested in your most recent work
experience and achievements and not so much interested about publications
or indeed where you went to medical school.
So in summary, no research, not a major issue, too
much research, tone it down.
But if the job mentions research in the title, then
you probably do need to have done some research.
Now, if you've made it this way through the video,
chances are you don't have a lot of research to
write about, but you're still worried about not putting anything
down under that heading on your resume.
I am.
So that's you.
Good news.
There are some things that you probably haven't thought about
that could go on your CV or resume.
Firstly, you don't actually have to call this heading research.
There's no rule to say that it has to be
that particular word.
You could call it something more appropriate like publications or
academic interests or research and audit.
You probably see where I'm going here.
You can still convey a level of research ability by
broadening your definition past, being able to cite Vancouver references
to other activities, to things like being part of a
research project, but not being an author, which often occurs
when you're involved in patient recruitment or data gathering or
something like that.
Or presenting papers at conferences or writing up an audit
project, or even something that you developed as part of
a research unit in medical school but didn't get around
to publishing.
Publications can even stretch to things like writing manuals or
blog posts.
So that's a few tips on research and your doctor
CV or resume.
Stay tuned for more dr jobs tips and I'll see
you in the next video .