Research opportunities
Student Selected Component 1
In Year Two, you will undertake a Student Selected Component (SSC), which you will chose from a range of options. Each option has broad relevance to the core MB ChB curriculum and will enable you to explore a particular topic in greater depth.
Find out more about it here.
Student Selected Component 2
In Year Three, you have an eight-week period where you will have an opportunity to select an area for in-depth enquiry. Depending on your interest, you could link your area of interest with the SSC option you chose in Year Two.
You can conduct your own research, be that a literature review, a service analysis, clinical audit, or your own primary research project.
The Medical School will help you connect with professors and lectures running interesting projects that you can get involved with. We also offer guidance on planning and organising your own project, including training on software, ethics committee approval and academic writing courses.
Many students go on to complete impressive projects that go on to be published in well-known scientific and healthcare journals.
Electives
For six weeks in Year Four you will undertake a medical project in a setting of your choice.
Most students choose to undertake their electives outside the UK, to observe how medicine is practiced in another country and to experience a different social, cultural and physical environment. Many students carry out research projects during their placements abroad, or find it triggers an area of future research interest.
Find out more about the elective block here.
Additional Research Opportunities
Self-Directed
There are possibilities to get involved in many kinds of extra research throughout the course. You can contact staff directly, or ask for guidance from WMS staff on projects suited to your area of interest.
Our clinical staff also run a huge variety of clinical trials and studies and are often very happy to have student involvement.
Follow the links at the side to hear more about the research opportunities at the main University of Warwick.
WMS encourages all students to take part in paid research internships (£1000 funding for UK projects, £1500 for international) through the Undergraduate Research Support Scheme (URSS). These projects are entirely optional taken in the summer holiday, provide a wonderful student research experience. Many students choose to apply for these in the summer break between year 1 and year 2.
INSPIRE Summer Studentships and INSPIRE conference
For the past 3 years, we have successfully bid for funding from INSPIRE (Academy of Medical Sciences) to create opportunities to support students to undertake academic activity.
In 2019 we launched our summer studentship programme, which targeted 1st year student and aimed to foster a passion for academic research at an early stage. Students were asked to select a supervisor matching their clinical interests, and together develop a project with relevance to the local health needs, in order to develop their public engagement skills. By supporting projects which aim to address local problems, we increase public engagement and are more attractive to local industry sponsors, which in time we are expecting to grow, in order to allow for more opportunities for students.
In 2018, we launched our national conference, The National INSPIRE Graduate Entry Research in Medicine (GERM) Conference. The conference aimed to address the disadvantage GEM students face arising from the condensed nature of the course, which limits the opportunities GEM students have to disseminate their research. This limitation can be far-reaching, particularly when graduate-entrants conduct high-quality research, and yet time prohibits them from either truly benefitting from the experience, or from reaching their potential (in addition to excellent work being lost).
Conference Bursary Scheme
WMS supports students with a conference bursary scheme open to those who have had their work accepted for a conference presentation. The most recent round of this scheme has seen 32 students apply, of which 4 were for international conferences, 20 for national, and 2 for regional.
Student Spotlight
Cian Murphy
"I worked part time for a medtech company throughout medical school, Dem Dx, and it was through them that I organised this placement.
Branagh Crealock-Ashurst
URSS Project: Acute Limb Ischaemia - The Need for Diagnostic Markers
"I chose to apply for and take part in the URSS experience in the summer between my first and second year of Medical School. For me, the URSS was a way of dipping my toes into medical research.
During my project, I worked at our local tertiary hospital (University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire) to test a new biosensing device that my supervisor had created. Working with the vascular surgery team, I attended theatre sessions to test patient blood samples for rises in biomarkers called Purines during their operation. Using the results from my project, I was able to create and display a poster at the URSS conference, providing excellent presentation practice.
I had a fantastic time doing my URSS and I enjoyed being able to take part in developing medical research. This opportunity also provided me with an excellent grounding for my SSC2 project. Whilst I have come to realise that a career in vascular surgery is not for me, the skills and experiences I gained doing the URSS provided valuable learning opportunities for a career in medicine."
Gursharun Hayer
INSPIRE Project: Do local authorities benchmark fairly? Using machine learning to
develop a model of nearest neighbours to improve benchmarking.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank INSPIRE/WAcMS/SMT and my supervisor for providing me with the opportunity to partake in this project. I have found it to be an incredibly valuable experience, more valuable that I expected at the outset. I have grown in confidence as both student and as a researcher due to the time spent working on this project. I have developed my knowledge in the areas of statistics, machine learning, benchmarking and public health. I also felt like a valued member of the team and this helped to make it a very enriching experience that I would highly recommend to those applying next year.
