Pitch Perfect: Clinical Research Primer on the Art of Pitching Projects for Medical Students

Research is a crucial skill for undergraduate medical students, especially those aspiring to a career in competitive, academic fields such as neurosurgery. The first and perhaps least explicated step is the development of an idea suitable to a clinical project. While medical students may face challenges during all parts of the research process, learning how to efficiently pitch a research project can reduce barriers to publishing research. Several steps can be taken by medical students to find projects that are conducive to completion. First, medical students should focus on finding project ideas they find interesting, suitable mentors, targeted questions, and projects which can be completed in a reasonable timeframe. Second, medical students should think through the entire project early on to determine if their proposed project has any major hurdles. This involves thinking through any possible problems that may arise for the proposed project's target population, data collection, variables, outcomes, and study design. While these tasks may initially seem like extra work, being able to avoid problematic project ideas can result in more efficient research output and increase research satisfaction. To date, the process of creating and pitching a potential project idea for research has yet to be satisfactorily explained at a medical student level. Therefore, the goal of this paper is to detail any relevant steps necessary to pitch a research project for medical students.