Why Medical Students Are Crucial to the Future of Research in South Asia

1110 H ealth research is essential to improving health care [1]. Unfortunately, health research has a low priority in the developing world. In all disciplines of science and technology, India and Pakistan combined have 208 researchers per million citizens [2,3], as compared to 4,526 researchers per million citizens in the United States [4]. The published research output from South Asia is small—South Asian health researchers accounted for only 1.2% of all papers within the Institute for Scientifi c Information database from 1992–2001 [5]. Developing countries must therefore enhance their research capacity to effi ciently address the growing burden of both communicable and non-communicable diseases [6]. One long-term strategy for promoting health research is to target medical students early in their careers. Most of the research to date on the effectiveness of such a strategy has been done in Western settings. This research has shown that research experience as a medical student is strongly associated with postgraduate research involvement [7,8]. Student research can also contribute to the published output of an institution. In Germany, for example, medical students authored 28% of the publications of one institution, including fi rst authorship in 7.8% of papers [9]. Nothing can be more motivating for a student than to get published. Even if the experience of doing research as a student does not lead to a later career in academic medicine, research experience can help improve students' skills in searching and critically appraising the medical literature, independent learning, and writing research papers [10,11]. Such exposure to research as a student can also help to identify future careers, establish important contacts, and secure better residency positions. Given the many benefi ts of doing a research project as a student, not surprisingly, 97% of students considered research as a useful alternative to electives [11]. Student research is not without its problems. Good mentorship, for example, is a vital component of effective student research, and inadequate mentoring can lead to discontentment with research. Other problems include lack of time, neglect of routine studies and deterioration of clinical skills due to more time being spent on research activities, and inadequate project management [12]. The perceived competitiveness and greater demands of a career in academic medicine and lower salary compared to private practice may deter students from research. Another concern is that students may work simply as junior laborers with no role in designing the research or in critical thinking …