Research Education and Journal of Medical Thesis


Vol 2 | Issue 2 | May - Aug 2014 | page 1-2 | Shyam A K


Author: Dr. Ashok K Shyam

MS Orthopaedics
Editor - Journal of Medical Thesis
Email: drashokshyam@yahoo.co.uk


Thesis is an essential document for a medical curriculum [at least in India] and this has been the rule since many many years. Again thesis has been written and rewritten in the same formats since a long time, however times are changing rapidly. Importance of research is rising in geometric proportion with each passing year and now 'Thesis' which was meant to be our first exposure to research is gaining additional importance.
The perception about thesis has certainly undergone rapid changes in last few years. There are two main reasons, one is change in attitude towards research and the other is change in university policies. There has been directive from universities that thesis will also undergo peer review before acceptance. This practice has been started since last two years and many students have received corrections and revisions for their theses. This has forewarned the next batch to make better thesis and to avoid major errors in research methodology. The other aspect is change in attitude towards research. In our country 'Research Apathy' has existed for a long time. Apathy towards conventional form of research in terms of collecting data and writing and publishing manuscripts. In last few years this has changed and we at the Indian orthopaedic research group (IORG) are fortunate, not only to witness this change but also contribute to the change. We see many students and trainees taking initiate in publishing in journals and also presenting their research in conference. As thesis is the first line of our exposure to research, many students are now interested in publishing and presenting their thesis. To do this successfully we are now in desperate need for research education. Although university has started research methodology courses and we are been part of some of these courses, we find them much too dry and much generalised. We feel needs for thesis for various faculties of medicine is quite different. What is needed for an orthopaedic thesis may not be the requirement for a paediatric thesis. We feel each faculty should be addressed separately and in small group where individual attention can be given to these candidates. With this in mind Journal of Medical Thesis along with IORG has decided to conduct 'Thesis Writing Workshops' every two month at various places in India. Many medical colleges have shown interest in supporting us in this venture and the first course is done with the help of Sir JJ Medical College, Mumbai. We feel such courses will help students realise the right way of doing there thesis and also help them in publishing it.
The format of the thesis writing courses will include the standard university guidelines and information about any recent updates and changes. Speakers from IORG will be speaking on how to design the studies, how to do a literature review and how to write various parts of thesis. A detailed account of basic statistical method will also be given in this course. This will help students to learn basics about statistics and also help them understand statistics while reading literature. Special lecture on use of End note and formatting of references is one of the key features of the Course. Along with writing a good thesis the second major emphasis of the course will be conversion of this thesis into a publication. With this respect the entire program is been formulated with background of journal guidelines and a separate lecture on how to convert your thesis into a publication is included in the schedule. No meeting related to research can be complete without discussion of Evidence based medicine and in this course too we have included a short introduction on EBM and how to use it for thesis and publications. In the end we will be going through an ideal template thesis where students can identify the format and also revise what they have learned from the course. Additional lecture on journal guidelines of Journal of Medical Thesis and submission process of JMT is also added to the course. Thus the course is designed to provide a complete overview of Research and specifically of Thesis writing. We believe more such courses should be organised and are looking for collaboration from medical colleges. For the first two of these courses we found tremendous response from students with both programs exceeding maximum registration. We also hope the medical associations would also contribute by organising such workshops and helping the next generation of professionals to be more educated in research methodology and publications.
Journal of Medical thesis will also be starting symposiums on thesis writing for different faculties which will be published in the journal. This will be compiled to address subject wise articles and experts from editorial board of JMT will be invited to write these articles. In coming years research education will be one of the main focus on JMT and we will be taking more initiatives to this end. JMT hopes to contribute to research education in a very positive way and invites opinions from our readers on how we can do this in a more effective way. This will help us achieve our goals and realise our vision put forth in the first issue [1]. On another note we are also starting a series of guest editorial which will focus mostly on current perspective of medical thesis and how to add positivity to perception of thesis. First hypothesis is published in this issue of JMT and we hope to invite more students in publishing there hypothesis with us [2,3]. With this I leave our readers to enjoy the new issue of Journal of Medical thesis.

References
1. Shyam AK. Editorial: Journal of Medical Thesis: Creation of AUnique Paradigm - Principles and Vision.Journal Medical Thesis 2013 July-Sep; 1(1):1-3.
2. Shimpi A, Shetye J, Mehta A. Comparison between effect of equal intensity training with Suryanamaskar or Physical Education activity or combination of both on Physical fitness in Adolescent Urban School children – A Randomized Control Trial: A Hypothesis. Journal Medical Thesis 2014 May-Aug ; 2(2):16-20.
3. Shyam AK. Editorial: Journal of Medical Thesis: Hypothesis, Intellectual Property and Journal of Medical Thesis: Concept of Defensive Publication. Journal Medical Thesis 2014 Jan-Apr; 2(1):1-2.


How to Cite this Article:  Shyam A K. Editorial: Journal of Medical Thesis: Research Education and Journal of Medical Thesis. Journal Medical Thesis 2014 May-Aug; 2(2):1-2

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