Getting Started in Research and Scholarship — IM Bootcamp

Why this session

Scholarship in residency is where good career advice and good project hygiene are the same thing. The facilitator’s secret payload for this hour: bring two or three concrete, currently open projects interns could actually join — names and contacts included — so the room leaves with a door to knock on, not just a map of doors.

This session is the survey; the deep-dive exists. For programs that want a full research half-day — the publishability filter, the writing-to-submission pipeline, study design and basic biostatistics, and the mentorship long game — the site carries Research 101, a four-block curriculum built on the same method.

The scholarship ladder, boarded at minute zero: case report → poster and abstract, regional then national → a quality-improvement project → a joined retrospective or database project → first-author original work → and, for the few, prospective studies. The rule of thumb: an intern lives on the first three rungs, and that is not settling — it is how the people with impressive CVs started.

What interns leave able to do

Map the ladder and what is realistic at each training year.
Execute a case report end-to-end: consent, structure, journal-first formatting, submission, resubmission.
Write the mentor email that gets answered — and be the mentee who earns a sponsor.
Have the authorship conversation before hour one, anchored to the ICMJE criteria.¹
Name QI as first-class scholarship, and know who decides the QI-versus-research boundary.

The case

Part 1 — “We should write this up”

October. You admitted a 44-year-old with a genuine zebra — the kind of case that makes an attending lean against the counter and say, “Huh. In twenty years I’ve seen this twice.”

Your attending says: “We should write this up. Want to take the lead on a case report? It’d be great for you — especially if you’re thinking about fellowship.”

You say “absolutely,” because that is what interns say. Walking out, the questions land: written how? Published where? Does this need the IRB? Do I need the patient’s permission? What does “take the lead” mean — am I doing this alone?

What are your actual next five steps?

Part 2 — The mentor problem

November. The case report is drafted — the attending says “good bones,” which you are learning means “rewrite it.” Meanwhile you have decided you do want fellowship, something competitive. A senior tells you: “you need research with Dr. X’s group — but good luck, everyone wants in.”

You email Dr. X: “Dear Dr. X, I am very interested in research. Do you have any projects?” A week passes. Nothing.

What went wrong? Write the email that gets an answer.

Part 3 — The trap

February. A fellow offers: “I’m submitting this retrospective project — help with data collection and I’ll put you on the paper.” Sixty hours of chart review later, the abstract is submitted without your name; the fellow says authorship “didn’t work out with the PI,” but there’s “definitely a spot on the next one.”

Your co-intern shrugs: “that’s just how it works.”

Is it? What could have been different — before hour one, not after hour sixty?

Running the room

Minutes	Block
0–5	Frame + the ladder on the board
5–22	Part 1 — the case report, end to end
22–40	Part 2 — mentors: the ask, the follow-through, being worth sponsoring
40–55	Part 3 — authorship ethics + QI as scholarship
55–60	The live opportunities list + pocket card

Part 1 — the case report, end to end

Say yes with a timeline: “I’d love to — can we set a check-in for two weeks from now?” The attending’s calendar is the scarce resource; scheduled check-ins are how projects stay alive.
Consent and the IRB question, immediately. Most journals require written patient consent for a case report — and getting it from your actual patient, still in-house and grateful, is a hundred times easier than tracking them down in three months. Whether a case report needs institutional review varies by institution: at many, case reports fall outside the definition of reviewable research, but your institution’s process decides, not you — ask your research office this week.
Target journal first, format second. Journals differ wildly in structure and word limits; pick two or three realistic venues with your attending — specialty case-report journals and general-medicine venues, not the marquee journal that will desk-reject in week eight.
Draft ugly, draft fast. “Take the lead” means you produce complete drafts and the attending edits — a rough full draft in two weeks beats a polished half, because feedback needs something whole to react to.
Submit, and keep going. Standard case-report logic puts the intern who did the work first and the attending senior; save every version and confirmation; and when it is rejected — the first one usually is — resubmit to the next venue within two weeks. Case reports are a persistence game with a near-certain home if you keep moving.

The deeper point to name: this one small project teaches the entire scholarly workflow — consent, structure, revision, submission, rejection, persistence — at the lowest possible stakes. That is exactly why it is rung one.

Part 2 — the mentor email, and the currency

What went wrong: “I am very interested in research, do you have any projects” asks a stranger to do the work of figuring out where you fit. Busy investigators triage it to never. Have the group draft the better email, then compare against the shape:

Dr. X — I’m [name], a PGY-1 on [service]. I read your recent paper on [specific thing], and I’m hoping to build toward [field]. I saw your group runs [specific project or database] — I’d be glad to help with [one small, specific task: chart screening, data collection, a literature pull], and I can commit [X hours a week]. I’m free at [three specific times] for twenty minutes if you’re open to it.

The anatomy: specific about them, a specific small ask, a number on the commitment, and zero work required to reply. Then the part nobody says out loud: reliability is the entire currency. Talent is common in residency; the intern who turns a chart-review task around in a week gets the abstract, and the one who delivers the abstract early gets the real project. A mentor advises you; a sponsor spends their capital on you — puts your name forward, tells the fellowship director to watch for you — and sponsors are earned by small commitments delivered early, without drama. One moving project per relationship: a finished poster with Dr. X beats three zombie projects with three groups.

Being a good mentee, the unglamorous list: arrive at every scheduled meeting with something done; turn edits around in days, not months; say “I don’t know how” early; and never let your mentor discover a missed deadline from someone else.

Part 3 — authorship, the trap, and QI

“That’s just how it works” is wrong — it is how it works when nobody has the authorship conversation before the work starts. The ten-minute conversation that prevents the hour-sixty betrayal: “I’d love to help — can we talk about authorship expectations? If I do this scope of work, where does that put me on the byline?” Awkward once; protective forever. Anchor it to the standard: the ICMJE criteria require substantial contribution, drafting or critical revision, final approval, and accountability — all four — for authorship,¹ and sixty hours of defined data work plus manuscript involvement is designed to clear them. An investigator who will not discuss authorship up front is telling you something; believe them. If it happens anyway: your chief, your mentor, your faculty advocate — programs take authorship abuse seriously, because it poisons the pipeline. Don’t eat it silently; don’t torch anyone publicly; use the adults.

QI is first-class scholarship — spend real minutes here. Quality-improvement projects — reducing catheter infections, fixing sign-out gaps, cleaning up discharge medications — are faster than research, useful to your patients this year, and genuinely valued by fellowship and hiring committees. Structurally they fit residency: the measure-intervene-remeasure cycle closes inside months, and much QI work does not require full research review — but the QI-versus-research determination belongs to your institution’s process, because the boundary turns on the intent to produce generalizable knowledge, and that call is theirs, not yours. Sources of projects: the morbidity-and-mortality conference, the quality office — which often has supported projects waiting for resident energy — and your own daily irritation: “why does this take four hours?” is a project proposal wearing work clothes.

Common pitfalls to surface

Launching a prospective study as an intern side project — it will outlive your residency and die with your graduation.
Zombie projects: three open loops, none closing. Finished beats impressive.
The silent authorship assumption.
“Research isn’t for me” — declared before one case report and one QI cycle. Keep the door open; the career session shows which paths care, and how much.
Waiting to be chosen. The ask is your move.

Key teaching points

The ladder: case report → poster → QI or a joined project → original work. Interns live on the bottom rungs — by design.
Case reports: consent this week, draft ugly in two, journal-first formatting, resubmit fast.
The mentor email: specific about them, a small ask, a number on your commitment.
Reliability is the currency. Deliver small things early; sponsors find the reliable.
The authorship conversation happens before hour one. Always.
QI counts. Start with what annoys you daily.

Pocket card

Carry this

Say yes with a timeline. Consent the patient this week.
Draft ugly, draft fast. Journal-first. Rejected → resubmit in two weeks.
Mentor email: specific + small ask + hours/week + three times you’re free.
Deliver small things early. Reliability → sponsorship.
“Can we talk authorship?” — before hour one.
Finished beats impressive. One closed loop > three zombies.

Variations

The abstract micro-workshop: add fifteen minutes and draft a 250-word abstract of Part 1’s zebra live, as a group.
The QI co-teach: invite the quality office to pitch two live projects at the end — the highest-conversion variant of this session.

Notes

The case is a fictional composite. The broader evidence base for the bootcamp is in the bootcamp introduction.

Sources

International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. (n.d.). Defining the role of authors and contributors. In Recommendations for the conduct, reporting, editing, and publication of scholarly work in medical journals. https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html ↩₁ ↩₂

This page is a teaching scenario for facilitated small-group education. It is not legal or regulatory guidance; consent requirements, review-board processes, and QI determinations belong to your institution — verify locally before starting any project. Last reviewed July 2026.

Getting started in
research and scholarship