Top 10 lessons I learnt over the past 7 years in clinical research

Negida Academy
Jan 30, 2021
Hello,

I'm listing below the top 10 lessons I have learned over my entire 7 years of expertise in the fields of clinical research (2014-2021).

(1) Building cumulative research efforts in one specific field is much more important than making several achievements in scattered unrelated fields.

(2) Although Google Scholar citations might not be a reliable indicator of the impact and quality of your research output, these metrics are still considered by several governmental agencies as reliable indicators of your influence in the field.

(3) You do not need to publish in a high impact journal to get several citations; your work can make an impact itself irrespective of the journal where it was published; I published a letter to the editor in a new journal (in 2015) and it was cited +200 times until now (currently, ranks among the top 1% cited articles in clinical medicine for the respective year of publication).

(4) Do not fall for the quality vs. quantity trap. In the first 5 years of your research career, quantity matters more than quality (as long as you are away from predatory journals, plagiarism, or ethical misconducts); publish as much as you can in your specific field (see number 1 again).

(5) Communicate and collaborate. Work in multiple groups as long as possible. The parallel work maximizes your chances of publication and increases your chances of building new connections.

(6) Work in small teams to learn more and in big teams to get closer to academic opportunities.

(7) Do not compare yourself to others. Do not create enemies. Our enemy is the disease.

(8) Conferences are mainly for scientific communication, building bridges for collaboration, and learning about new updates in the field. I do not consider conference presentations as a successful publication unless published later in a journal.

(9) Be patient. Your first publication might take about 6-24 months.

(10) This is the most important lesson. Your mentor = Your success. Good mentors are difficult to find. Find good mentors and follow them. I do not usually speak about my mentors but they played the most important roles in guiding me forward. I always feel privileged that I had met them and still learning from them until now.

Thank you very much!

I will discuss these points in the upcoming few weeks on my youtube channel available here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfMrL5_2TidACpbvgF9sPDA

1 comment

yasser abdelkareem
Feb 2, 2021
Seriously, I get many benefits from your advice. many thanks. You are a light candle at a route for science.