4 ms·

My assumption is the credibility of a non-PhD-holding medical student’s research is 0, just like (almost) any other inexperienced researcher.

by fn-mote 4mo ago

aardvark92 4mo ago
I guess it depends on who the coauthors and PI are - some academic mentors can be overly trusting and ‘hands-off.’ A lone medical student’s self published paper shouldn’t be worth much though…
sebmellen 4mo ago
This is really far too broad a brush. Do most medical students publish useless case studies trying to jockey for residency spots and signal hustle/devotion? No doubt! But there are a good handful of medical students who are still (surprisingly) in it for the medicine and not the money. And that handful is exceedingly capable; no reason they can’t publish valuable work with the right collaborators and resources.
- myroon5 4mo ago
  > no reason they can’t publish valuable work with the right collaborators Despite h-index claiming to balance quantity and quality, it obviously incentives quantity over quality (no single publication can increment h-index as much as churning out a few worthless publications that cite each other); med students overwhelmingly follow those incentives trying to secure better residencies
- mishellaneous 4mo ago
  in that case, it's a question of proportion. we cannot automatically conclude that a (supposed) "good handful" doing good research makes up for "most students" doing bad research.
NotGMan 4mo ago
Since we have seen that 50%+ of findings even in medical and other natural sciences are not repruductible it's obvious that even PhD people are mostly incompetent.
thomasfedb 4mo ago
As a clinician-academic who published in The Lancet during medical school, I think this goes a bit far. Unfortunately student doctors are encouraged to publish whether or not they actually have an interest in research… but that shouldn’t discount the work of those who are genuinely engaged. But certainly we should always approach the literature critically, including the author list, journal of publication and its peer-review practices, and the methods.
- bflesch 4mo ago
  I was severely disillusioned about the quality of clinical studies. Would you publish if the head honcho of your double-blind study insists to know what treatment a certain patient is receiving? You have this discussion about research ethics and subsequent beratement once, and then you either mentally check out or go to another hospital.
- BrtByte 4mo ago
  I think this is the right distinction
- gbnwl 4mo ago
  As usual HN posters are hyper aware of other's credentials while ignoring that their BS in CS (if that) doesn't magically qualify them to assess everything in every domain. "I'm a software engineer, I'm sure if I had the time to study Neuroscience, I'd figure out what all of these researchers failed to realize all these decades! I (alone) have the magic of critical and logical thinking"
  - Avicebron 4mo ago
    A lot of us here have masters, PhDs, have published in academia, worked in the hard sciences or different engineerinf disciplines. But I agree, when youre on the internet no ones knows you're a dog.
- tremon 4mo ago
  > student doctors are encouraged to publish whether or not they actually have an interest in research… but that shouldn’t discount the work of those who are genuinely engaged. How do you propose the interested public make the distinction between genuine engagement and forced encouragement? Isn't it the task of journals to make that distinction before publishing? I don't think you can fault the public for dismissing everything out of hand when both academia and the journals are actively turning scientific publishing into a market for lemons.
niekmaas 4mo ago
Well, that is a statement..! As an MD PhD with over 60 (co-)publications including multiple in top 1% journals I can say for sure that this is untrue. Of course this may be different per topic and country, but there is perfect research being published by non-PhD scientists. In fact, the PI from a top-tier US university I collaborate with for over 10 years doesn't even have a PhD.
- KeplerBoy 4mo ago
  You can be a PI without having a PhD?
  - internet_user 4mo ago
    Even Hassabis found time to do a PhD. This is extra strange.
  - dekhn 4mo ago
    I've seen this a few times- for example, my manager at Berkeley Lab was a PI but only had an undergrad degree. This is very rare, however.
- deleted 4mo ago
  [deleted]
- 11101010010001 4mo ago
  Both your statement and the OPs are an appeal to expertise which is not a substitute for the scientific method.
deleted 4mo ago
[deleted]
bflesch 4mo ago
In the end it is about personal integrity and idealism, no matter what the titles are. Totally different if someone's self image is that of a researcher for benefit of humankind or if they pick the career because they want to drive a Porsche.
BrtByte 4mo ago
A med student can absolutely contribute useful work, especially with good supervision. The issue is more that inexperienced authors plus publication pressure plus easy tooling is a bad combination
mishellaneous 4mo ago
a friend of a friend who did a stint in biomedical academia told me that the researchers in their field did not hold research coming from the medicine community in high regard
- boelboel 4mo ago
  Knew a professor statistics from a world renowned institution. He worked in nephrology for 10-20 years and would tell many stories about the worst practices he's seen and researchers pushed him to allow. Medicine was among the worst if not the worst according to him. Didn't really want much to do with it anymore. Basically a case of subpar statistical knowledge and bad incentives.
- gowld 4mo ago
  How can you tell when you are reading a paper?
  - dekhn 4mo ago
    The author list will show "M.D." instead of (or in addition to) "Ph.D.". The paper terminology will be skewed towards medical terms.
  - mishellaneous 4mo ago
    my impression is that inside these niches, people know each other personally, or are only separated by a small number of degrees. reputations form, etc. so any paper they end up reading, most likely does not have completely unknown authors from completely unknown institutions. without this information, yeah, it'd be harder to judge. surely anyone can find out anyone else's (using full name and institution) academic background online today, but it'd not be so easy to judge it without being an insider.
  - elendilm 4mo ago
    There will be clues and leaks hidden in the sentences of the paper. Compression always leaks out.
samuraijack 4mo ago
LLVM was a masters thesis project (not medicine related but research by non PhDs should not be disregarded imo)
- philipallstar 4mo ago
  LLVM was a thing that demonstrated its value by working when you used it. And you can't judge a population (all non-PhD theses) by its tippety-top performers, particularly when there are poor incentives involved.
elendilm 4mo ago
What has PhD got to do with anything. Research is research regardless of who does it if using proper scientific method. Such obvious common sense appears not obvious after all.

My assumption is the credibility of a non-PhD-holding medical student’s research is 0, just like (almost) any other inexperienced researcher.

by fn-mote 4mo ago

My assumption is the credibility of a non-PhD-holding medical student’s research is 0, just like (almost) any other inexperienced researcher.

aardvark92 4mo ago

I guess it depends on who the coauthors and PI are - some academic mentors can be overly trusting and ‘hands-off.’ A lone medical student’s self published paper shouldn’t be worth much though…

sebmellen 4mo ago

This is really far too broad a brush. Do most medical students publish useless case studies trying to jockey for residency spots and signal hustle/devotion? No doubt! But there are a good handful of medical students who are still (surprisingly) in it for the medicine and not the money. And that handful is exceedingly capable; no reason they can’t publish valuable work with the right collaborators and resources.

myroon5 4mo ago
> no reason they can’t publish valuable work with the right collaborators Despite h-index claiming to balance quantity and quality, it obviously incentives quantity over quality (no single publication can increment h-index as much as churning out a few worthless publications that cite each other); med students overwhelmingly follow those incentives trying to secure better residencies
mishellaneous 4mo ago
in that case, it's a question of proportion. we cannot automatically conclude that a (supposed) "good handful" doing good research makes up for "most students" doing bad research.

NotGMan 4mo ago

Since we have seen that 50%+ of findings even in medical and other natural sciences are not repruductible it's obvious that even PhD people are mostly incompetent.

thomasfedb 4mo ago

As a clinician-academic who published in The Lancet during medical school, I think this goes a bit far. Unfortunately student doctors are encouraged to publish whether or not they actually have an interest in research… but that shouldn’t discount the work of those who are genuinely engaged. But certainly we should always approach the literature critically, including the author list, journal of publication and its peer-review practices, and the methods.

bflesch 4mo ago
I was severely disillusioned about the quality of clinical studies. Would you publish if the head honcho of your double-blind study insists to know what treatment a certain patient is receiving? You have this discussion about research ethics and subsequent beratement once, and then you either mentally check out or go to another hospital.
BrtByte 4mo ago
I think this is the right distinction
gbnwl 4mo ago
As usual HN posters are hyper aware of other's credentials while ignoring that their BS in CS (if that) doesn't magically qualify them to assess everything in every domain. "I'm a software engineer, I'm sure if I had the time to study Neuroscience, I'd figure out what all of these researchers failed to realize all these decades! I (alone) have the magic of critical and logical thinking"
- Avicebron 4mo ago
  A lot of us here have masters, PhDs, have published in academia, worked in the hard sciences or different engineerinf disciplines. But I agree, when youre on the internet no ones knows you're a dog.
tremon 4mo ago
> student doctors are encouraged to publish whether or not they actually have an interest in research… but that shouldn’t discount the work of those who are genuinely engaged. How do you propose the interested public make the distinction between genuine engagement and forced encouragement? Isn't it the task of journals to make that distinction before publishing? I don't think you can fault the public for dismissing everything out of hand when both academia and the journals are actively turning scientific publishing into a market for lemons.

niekmaas 4mo ago

Well, that is a statement..! As an MD PhD with over 60 (co-)publications including multiple in top 1% journals I can say for sure that this is untrue. Of course this may be different per topic and country, but there is perfect research being published by non-PhD scientists. In fact, the PI from a top-tier US university I collaborate with for over 10 years doesn't even have a PhD.

KeplerBoy 4mo ago
You can be a PI without having a PhD?
- internet_user 4mo ago
  Even Hassabis found time to do a PhD. This is extra strange.
- dekhn 4mo ago
  I've seen this a few times- for example, my manager at Berkeley Lab was a PI but only had an undergrad degree. This is very rare, however.
deleted 4mo ago
[deleted]
11101010010001 4mo ago
Both your statement and the OPs are an appeal to expertise which is not a substitute for the scientific method.

deleted 4mo ago

[deleted]

bflesch 4mo ago

In the end it is about personal integrity and idealism, no matter what the titles are. Totally different if someone's self image is that of a researcher for benefit of humankind or if they pick the career because they want to drive a Porsche.

BrtByte 4mo ago

A med student can absolutely contribute useful work, especially with good supervision. The issue is more that inexperienced authors plus publication pressure plus easy tooling is a bad combination

mishellaneous 4mo ago

a friend of a friend who did a stint in biomedical academia told me that the researchers in their field did not hold research coming from the medicine community in high regard

boelboel 4mo ago
Knew a professor statistics from a world renowned institution. He worked in nephrology for 10-20 years and would tell many stories about the worst practices he's seen and researchers pushed him to allow. Medicine was among the worst if not the worst according to him. Didn't really want much to do with it anymore. Basically a case of subpar statistical knowledge and bad incentives.
gowld 4mo ago
How can you tell when you are reading a paper?
- dekhn 4mo ago
  The author list will show "M.D." instead of (or in addition to) "Ph.D.". The paper terminology will be skewed towards medical terms.
- mishellaneous 4mo ago
  my impression is that inside these niches, people know each other personally, or are only separated by a small number of degrees. reputations form, etc. so any paper they end up reading, most likely does not have completely unknown authors from completely unknown institutions. without this information, yeah, it'd be harder to judge. surely anyone can find out anyone else's (using full name and institution) academic background online today, but it'd not be so easy to judge it without being an insider.
- elendilm 4mo ago
  There will be clues and leaks hidden in the sentences of the paper. Compression always leaks out.

samuraijack 4mo ago

LLVM was a masters thesis project (not medicine related but research by non PhDs should not be disregarded imo)

philipallstar 4mo ago
LLVM was a thing that demonstrated its value by working when you used it. And you can't judge a population (all non-PhD theses) by its tippety-top performers, particularly when there are poor incentives involved.

elendilm 4mo ago

What has PhD got to do with anything. Research is research regardless of who does it if using proper scientific method. Such obvious common sense appears not obvious after all.