Medical research is a pre-requisite for medical student starting from undergraduate level depending of the medical specialty. It is therefore a must that towards the end of the course, one must develop a research report and be able to defend it. But before the research report, a proposal must be developed and then later, once it is approved by the Faculty ethics research committee, data is collected and a report is compiled for submission. Before we continue in case you are new to proposal development, follow the link below for components of a research proposal before we continue.
THE RESEARCH PROBLEM: So before thinking about getting a research topic, get a research problem first. This will help you to formulate a problem statement later in your chapter one of the research proposal. A research problem will be something of a medical or social concern. The next question now will be; where do I get a research problem from? A research problem can be be got from media, newspapers, previous research studies, recommendations from other researchers and even just from individual observation during practice. Follow the link below on how to formulate a research problem.
It is worth noticing that without a problem, there would otherwise be no need to conduct a research study. And so, prevalence of a problem or a phenomena is the trigger for conduction of research studies in order to draw conclusions. Let's take some examples to understand the way problems can be generated.
Example 1: You are working on the medical ward and you notice that every patient from the theatre, will suffer some form of sepsis before being discharged. The whole idea will be either the surgical team does not sterilize instruments well, the surgeon does not employ sterile techniques during the procedures, or the bedside health practitioners and or the patients attendants have less or no knowledge about the care of a postsurgical wound. At this point, we all know that sepsis is deadly and must not happen in such case and therefore, the problem will in that case be "High prevalence of sepsis on that specific medical ward".
Example 2: The sustainable development goals 3.1, outlines a target to reduce the Maternal mortality rate to 70 per 100,000 live birth by the year 2030. In Uganda according to UNFPA, the number was 336 per 100,000 live birth in 2016. Therefore the problem in that case was "A higher that expected maternal mortality rate".
If you want more about generating research problems, follow the link below.
Now that you are done with a research problem, you can choose a study setting where you will be able you conduct your study but before that, you may also want to get some information concerning the problem you have identified. It makes a lot of meaning when you really know about the problem you are talking about and actually when the people who will read your research paper will actually have an idea about the same problem. We have talked about the research study setting in details and if you would like to read more about it, click on the link below.
When you are done with the research problem and you are finished with formulating a research topic, then you can start making your research writings. Sometime it is OK that you have chosen a research topic well and you are ready to submit it to your supervisor and or the Research and Ethics committee, then you notes that someone else have the same topic and sometimes as students, you may not be allowed to do topics under the same theme. In that case I would say in advance that, it is always good to formulate more than one research topics, and then let the supervisor choose or suggest for you what is best. The research supervisor is one of the most important entity in your research project and without him/her, your research may not be valid.
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