Training and trials—building a future

The debate about research training is not confined to postgraduate surgical trainees.1 As medical students, we too would like to learn how to recruit into and participate in clinical trials across all specialties. When we graduate, we will be expected to make diagnoses, order tests, and start treatment. The General Medical Council’s “Tomorrow’s Doctors” guidance emphasises the importance of evidence based medicine in student training. However, this does not include recruiting patients to trials, and medical school curriculums do not cover this subject. Most junior doctors therefore have little appreciation of the skills required.

The student led STARSurg (Student Audit and Research in Surgery; www.starsurg.org) group has run two national cohort studies in recent years to teach students essential audit and research skills.2 Building on this, we will pilot a workshop this summer in which 40 final year medical students are trained to recruit patients into trials and gain good clinical practice certification. This is in line with our vision to promote student engagement and participation in high quality research and national audit projects. It will be the first step in creating a new cohort of “research ready” junior doctors, who will be able to engage patients and disseminate high quality research. We would like to see such training embedded more widely within medical schools, because this would lead to a generational change in clinical research and evidence based practice within the NHS.

If we future clinicians understand the mechanics of recruitment and engagement as medical students, it can only benefit our patients, now and in the future.