Virginia Cox is from the USA and has a Bachelor’s of Science from DePaul University and a Master’s degree in Physiology from North Carolina State University. It was during her Master’s degree that she first got involved with research. After graduating she worked for a year at Duke University, where she spearheaded a microbiology and infectious disease focused research project. “This project was cut short by COVID-19 and at the same time I was admitted to LF1 and moved over here for school,” Virginia explained to us how she became a student of General Medicine at the First Faculty of Medicine. She sticks with her interest in science and in MEDSOC she joined Medical Academia, where they help students to get involved in research.

How long have you been engaged in Medical Academia and what is your goal in this organization?

I joined Medical Academia and was responsible for programming last year and have served as president this year. Our goal is helping students understand the importance and relevance of research in medicine and finding ways to help students get involved in research projects. During my studies at colleges in the US there were designated offices that helped match students to open research positions at the school, in addition to providing programming about research basics, medical ethics, how to read and write academic papers, etc. I wanted Medical Academia to serve a similar role. My big proposal was the creation of a “research hub”, which would be an online space where professors and outside organizations could share open positions that students could then apply to. This is common for US medical students, and I also found examples of similar websites at UK medical schools, Chinese schools, and German schools.

What kind of challenges or obstacles do you face?

There have been two really big challenges that I have faced with Medical Academia. The first is student involvement. Students don’t have a lot of time outside of class and studying to do anything extra, which includes participating in clubs that are beneficial to them in the long run. Medical Academia partners with Dr. Otakar Raška and Dr. Shreya Patel, who founded Medical Academia and the scientific writing elective. The original idea was students would sign up for the scientific writing elective and then attend Medical Academia meetings to learn more about how to read a scientific article and make sense of the data or have the opportunity to discuss evidence-based medicine. Unfortunately, due to lack of student participation on the planning side and attendance side, this hasn’t come to fruition. The second biggest challenge we have had is actually implementing changes, like the research hub. In the beginning of this academic year, I had a few meetings with key faculty members, and I went so far as to create a project proposal that was supposed to be given to the Dean. I hope this project will continue!

There is a new similar initiative that has been recently established by a group of Czech students called Thaletus. Could it be an opportunity to extend cooperation between Czech and English parallel in this issue?

I do think a proposal as large as the research hub will require involvement from both the English and Czech parallel. I think the SVK conference is so far the only event that is faculty wide and brings our parallels together in science activities. I believe it is an opportunity for LF1 to include Czech and international students in research, since the scientific community is all about networking and multinational cooperation. By including international students, professors are opening up future collaborations. Furthermore, many international students have previous experiences that would make them assets to a research group.

What kind of projects do you do?

Some of our most popular events were a three-part series on how to read a scientific paper, in which I broke down a typical research paper into sections and helped students understand “the anatomy” of a paper. Another event was applying all of that to published papers about different COVID-19 therapies, and students had to use the data and evidence from their assigned paper to argue in favor of their therapy. At the beginning of this academic year, we held a meeting entitled “How to Study According to Science”, where we outlined best practices that are supported by research to help give students a toolbox of study techniques. Online we also have shared relevant research papers that parallel what students are learning in class, to help highlight the relevance of research in medical practice. Our past presentations can be found on our MS Teams page if you are interested.

Virginia Cox is from the USA and has a Bachelor’s of Science from DePaul University and a Master’s degree in Physiology from North Carolina State University. It was during her Master’s degree that she first got involved with research. After graduating she worked for a year at Duke University, where she spearheaded a microbiology and infectious disease focused research project. “This project was cut short by COVID-19 and at the same time I was admitted to LF1 and moved over here for school,” Virginia explained to us how she became a student of General Medicine at the First Faculty of Medicine. She sticks with her interest in science and in MEDSOC she joined Medical Academia, where they help students to get involved in research.

How long have you been engaged in Medical Academia and what is your goal in this organization?

I joined Medical Academia and was responsible for programming last year and have served as president this year. Our goal is helping students understand the importance and relevance of research in medicine and finding ways to help students get involved in research projects. During my studies at colleges in the US there were designated offices that helped match students to open research positions at the school, in addition to providing programming about research basics, medical ethics, how to read and write academic papers, etc. I wanted Medical Academia to serve a similar role. My big proposal was the creation of a “research hub”, which would be an online space where professors and outside organizations could share open positions that students could then apply to. This is common for US medical students, and I also found examples of similar websites at UK medical schools, Chinese schools, and German schools.

What kind of challenges or obstacles do you face?

There have been two really big challenges that I have faced with Medical Academia. The first is student involvement. Students don’t have a lot of time outside of class and studying to do anything extra, which includes participating in clubs that are beneficial to them in the long run. Medical Academia partners with Dr. Otakar Raška and Dr. Shreya Patel, who founded Medical Academia and the scientific writing elective. The original idea was students would sign up for the scientific writing elective and then attend Medical Academia meetings to learn more about how to read a scientific article and make sense of the data or have the opportunity to discuss evidence-based medicine. Unfortunately, due to lack of student participation on the planning side and attendance side, this hasn’t come to fruition. The second biggest challenge we have had is actually implementing changes, like the research hub. In the beginning of this academic year, I had a few meetings with key faculty members, and I went so far as to create a project proposal that was supposed to be given to the Dean. I hope this project will continue!

There is a new similar initiative that has been recently established by a group of Czech students called Thaletus. Could it be an opportunity to extend cooperation between Czech and English parallel in this issue?

I do think a proposal as large as the research hub will require involvement from both the English and Czech parallel. I think the SVK conference is so far the only event that is faculty wide and brings our parallels together in science activities. I believe it is an opportunity for LF1 to include Czech and international students in research, since the scientific community is all about networking and multinational cooperation. By including international students, professors are opening up future collaborations. Furthermore, many international students have previous experiences that would make them assets to a research group.

What kind of projects do you do?

Some of our most popular events were a three-part series on how to read a scientific paper, in which I broke down a typical research paper into sections and helped students understand “the anatomy” of a paper. Another event was applying all of that to published papers about different COVID-19 therapies, and students had to use the data and evidence from their assigned paper to argue in favor of their therapy. At the beginning of this academic year, we held a meeting entitled “How to Study According to Science”, where we outlined best practices that are supported by research to help give students a toolbox of study techniques. Online we also have shared relevant research papers that parallel what students are learning in class, to help highlight the relevance of research in medical practice. Our past presentations can be found on our MS Teams page if you are interested.

Virginia Cox is from the USA and has a Bachelor’s of Science from DePaul University and a Master’s degree in Physiology from North Carolina State University. It was during her Master’s degree that she first got involved with research. After graduating she worked for a year at Duke University, where she spearheaded a microbiology and infectious disease focused research project. “This project was cut short by COVID-19 and at the same time I was admitted to LF1 and moved over here for school,” Virginia explained to us how she became a student of General Medicine at the First Faculty of Medicine. She sticks with her interest in science and in MEDSOC she joined Medical Academia, where they help students to get involved in research.

How long have you been engaged in Medical Academia and what is your goal in this organization?

I joined Medical Academia and was responsible for programming last year and have served as president this year. Our goal is helping students understand the importance and relevance of research in medicine and finding ways to help students get involved in research projects. During my studies at colleges in the US there were designated offices that helped match students to open research positions at the school, in addition to providing programming about research basics, medical ethics, how to read and write academic papers, etc. I wanted Medical Academia to serve a similar role. My big proposal was the creation of a “research hub”, which would be an online space where professors and outside organizations could share open positions that students could then apply to. This is common for US medical students, and I also found examples of similar websites at UK medical schools, Chinese schools, and German schools.

What kind of challenges or obstacles do you face?

There have been two really big challenges that I have faced with Medical Academia. The first is student involvement. Students don’t have a lot of time outside of class and studying to do anything extra, which includes participating in clubs that are beneficial to them in the long run. Medical Academia partners with Dr. Otakar Raška and Dr. Shreya Patel, who founded Medical Academia and the scientific writing elective. The original idea was students would sign up for the scientific writing elective and then attend Medical Academia meetings to learn more about how to read a scientific article and make sense of the data or have the opportunity to discuss evidence-based medicine. Unfortunately, due to lack of student participation on the planning side and attendance side, this hasn’t come to fruition. The second biggest challenge we have had is actually implementing changes, like the research hub. In the beginning of this academic year, I had a few meetings with key faculty members, and I went so far as to create a project proposal that was supposed to be given to the Dean. I hope this project will continue!

There is a new similar initiative that has been recently established by a group of Czech students called Thaletus. Could it be an opportunity to extend cooperation between Czech and English parallel in this issue?

I do think a proposal as large as the research hub will require involvement from both the English and Czech parallel. I think the SVK conference is so far the only event that is faculty wide and brings our parallels together in science activities. I believe it is an opportunity for LF1 to include Czech and international students in research, since the scientific community is all about networking and multinational cooperation. By including international students, professors are opening up future collaborations. Furthermore, many international students have previous experiences that would make them assets to a research group.

What kind of projects do you do?

Some of our most popular events were a three-part series on how to read a scientific paper, in which I broke down a typical research paper into sections and helped students understand “the anatomy” of a paper. Another event was applying all of that to published papers about different COVID-19 therapies, and students had to use the data and evidence from their assigned paper to argue in favor of their therapy. At the beginning of this academic year, we held a meeting entitled “How to Study According to Science”, where we outlined best practices that are supported by research to help give students a toolbox of study techniques. Online we also have shared relevant research papers that parallel what students are learning in class, to help highlight the relevance of research in medical practice. Our past presentations can be found on our MS Teams page if you are interested.