Research trends among medical students of Jinnah Sind Medical University

Background: Research at under graduate and graduate level is important in deciding career fields. The undergraduate experience is greatly enriched by attaining knowledge of research and leads to a successful career. Objectives: To evaluate the research trends and research career preferences among undergraduate students of Jinnah Sindh Medical University in Karachi, Pakistan Methodology: It was a cross sectional study on the students of Jinnah Sindh Medical University. Total 256 Students were enrolled from 1st year to final year after giving verbal consent. An organized questionnaire was used to collect the data about student’s research involvement, trends, and research career preferences. Results: Out of 256 students, majority of the students (59.4%) had decided to do both clinical practice and research, some (28.9%) were interested in clinical practice only. Least response came for research in biomedical sciences (1.56%) and clinical research (1.17%) Only 23.83 % of students had done research work, 9.38% were involved at that time and majority (66.80%) had no research experience. We assessed that only few students got their paper published. The first four chosen specialties for the future research work were surgery, gynae, internal medicine and neurology. It was observed that highest percentage of students (63.84%) wanted to do research to explore the knowledge about various scientific aspects, some students (23.73%) were interested in research and few (10.73%) were more concerned about publications while only 1.69% selected less competitive field. Conclusions: Our study suggested that young students of new batches are more inclined towards research along with clinical practice. Although they are not yet exposed to clinical settings but they’ve planned to carry on both together. Most of the students were not involved in research while some had research experiences but only few got their paper published. Trends of Research are increasing with time due to enhanced competency. Research environment was rated as average and poor by majority of students Keywords: Research Trends, Undergraduate Research, Future Research Career Interest