Hello, everyone. Welcome to MetaCast, the podcast of the Meta-Analysis Academy. My name is Randerson Cardoso, and I have the honor here of sharing this podcast with Isabela Marques, Amanda Godoy, and Gabriela Brandão. I'm going to start by asking you to introduce yourself. Let's start with Gabriela. Yeah, sure. So, as Heather said, my name is Gabriela.
I'm finishing a research fellowship here at the Israel Deaconess Medical Center in pancreatic surgery and about to start my residency in general surgery at the same institution. And in the Meta-Analysis Academy, I'm one of the mentors. So, I do mentoring one-on-one with the students about meta-analysis, of course. It's a pleasure. Thanks for joining, Gabriela. Amanda? Hello, everyone. My name is Amanda.
I am from Brazil, and I'm currently a fourth-year medical student in the UK in Wales, Cardiff University. Hi, everyone. My name is Isabela Marques. I am a physician, graduated in Spain. I am originally from Brazil, but I've been a little bit everywhere, Spain, Germany, and now here. Now, I am a postdoc research fellow at one of the Harvard-affiliated hospitals, even though the Meta-Analysis Academy has no affiliation with any of the institutions that we mentioned.
And I have just started eight months ago. It's been eight months already that I'm here in Boston working with research for a job, for a living. And my name is Anderson Cardoso. As I said, I'm a cardiologist. I'm a cardiologist here in Boston in the United States. I currently work at Harvard Medical School. As Isabela said, this podcast, the Meta-Analysis Academy, is not affiliated with any of the institutions where we work.
I want to start this podcast by explaining what is the Meta-Analysis Academy. We have a very high-level training program that enables our students to do systematic reviews and meta-analysis. We teach the right methods, the statistics, the writing, so that you're able to do systematic reviews and meta-analysis with autonomy. I want to make it very clear that we do not do the publications for our students. We do not guarantee publications.
You will hear all about the incredible work that these doctors, medical students have done in our program. But it is their work. It is the results of their hard work and their dedication. The Meta-Analysis Academy will give you the support and the methods to get there. And speaking of results, let's start with that. All of you have taken the Meta-Analysis Academy within the last one to two years. Can you tell me your results? Let's start with Isabela, queen of the Meta-Analysis Academy.
Chosen one. I hold the title of the first student who published a Meta-Analysis as first author in the entire cohort of students. That was two years ago or something like that. Two years ago and 700 publications ago of our students. Go ahead. That's a lot, guys. That's amazing. Ever since. So in this two years? When I started, I was a fifth year medical student in Spain, didn't know anything about research.
And now, two years later, I have 11 Meta-Analysis published as full papers published and indexed in PubMed and approximately something like 40 abstracts presented in international conferences. Something like this. Congratulations. Who would have thought? Amanda? Well, I think the issue that we were speaking about before is that I should have counted before I came here. It's a common theme that you do lose count when you start the Meta-Analysis Academy.
What I can say is that I have at least 10 publications published on PubMed. And I also have at least 25 abstracts, I would say, with more than five oral presentations as well as international conferences. And I was just finishing my first year of medical school when I started. So it's been incredible. Congratulations, Amanda. Thanks. Thank you.
wouldn't say my number is true but with the caveat that I started doing this 10 years ago so I have 80 publications right now about 1,500 1 ,700 citations more than 300 abstracts presented in conferences but if you consider the number of years that I've been doing this all of you have done more than me in the years that you've been doing this so Gabriela how about your results yeah sure for me it was easy to take track because I just applied for residency so in my
ERAS application I had 18 PubMed index publications and seven of them were meta-analysis so that's a very powerful tool for engineering your CV so I and it resulted on the successful application for residency and here I am congratulations and we're gonna we're gonna jump right into that because one of the key messages that we share in the Meta -Analysis Academy is that it's not just about publications it's about how it will impact your career and I can think of no better
example than your amazing results so tell everyone please about you know your spectacular match not only a publication was not only useful as to show how I can perform and make a project from the scratch to the end to show how can I finish a project but I also took that as a very useful tool to make connections and I think for residency application that's key like the networking we do with that and and so a lot of those publications especially meta-analysis I could
make the networking throughout the project so I could ask for senior authors and they were in different institutions at the time of the application I could reach out to them I and ask for help ask for some recommendations and that was totally key.
for me so I think that speaks more even more about the power of it so publications the networking and what's the result tell them about your match yeah I so I was approved for a categorical general surgery program at the Harvard institution so it's a very it's mind-blowing yeah it's mind-blowing it's the dream if there was anything that could have been more perfect is that you know is that kind of match yeah I mean many of you guys know about the importance and the difficulty of getting
a general surgery categorical match let alone at Harvard Medical School and Gabriela accomplished all of that I'm under tell us about how Meta analysis your publications that you mentioned how they have helped your career still in medical school I mean that's a loaded question I would say because I don't remember the amount that before she started the Meta knowledge Academy I've groomed so much professionally in knowledge and in practice I've grown so much professionally in knowledge and
in opportunities that have been provided to me I remember that I've always been a very dedicated student I was very hard working and I would ask for opportunities but we were talking about this earlier it's very easy to ask for opportunities is very easy let's say to be hard working but people don't care if you're hard working they don't really care if you're just trying to get there or even they ma what matters is the results there is a saying that I really like that there's nothing
more useless than just a merely in well-informed man and I think I really learned this when publishing Meta analysis when I started getting my publications my results that's when people starting reaching out to me opportunities started just appearing and doors started opening in my career so from just a medical student who would look for opportunities try to publish try to get involved in research now I present at international conferences I have my name on PubMed I have
emails from journals inviting me to review their paper and I participate in primary research a really high impact primary research even though I haven't even finished medical school and it's a scary thought to think that next year I will graduate and what is out there for me but I'm I'm it makes me more confident that I've built a track record with metanalysis that hopefully will get me somewhere that is has a high level of impact for my future career as
well well it's the hard work that pays off right because the hard work of course is important but it's it's it's important it's also critical to have the results so we're going to talk more about that about the differences of putting in hard work and other types of research and Meta analysis Isabella what kind of opportunities have have you had through your publications in your career well i'll start saying that it's funny how stories repeat themselves all over so amanda studied
in wales in gales gales in portuguese in wales and i was studying in spain guys and you might think wow is this limited to my country like why is it so hard doing research here it's so funny how it seems to be like that everywhere right because i also same as amanda said i don't remember isabella before and i would try so hard to get opportunities so hard it's not like i was sitting and waiting for opportunities to come i would really try and the amount of no's that i
got only lose to the amount of no responses that and then after i published my first meta-analysis after i finished the course i started getting like same thing invitations from the dean of my university from professors being like wow isabella you're a student you have you know how to make meta-analysis and i'm like yes i know i was still i i'm the same that i was six months ago but somehow now you notice me but at the same time i have to admit i'm not the same
because now i have something like to bring to the table and that has really been kind of like the mindset that allowed me to dream bigger and to be here now as a postdoc research fellow in boston who would have thought the same thing it's pretty incredible um let me explain to you guys briefly what a meta-analysis is many of you may know but it's i think it's important to highlight this a meta-analysis is the is putting together statistically quantitatively the results
of studies that are similar to each other so if you have a study that was done in spain in the united kingdom in brazil in the united states if you have these different studies and they were similar to each other those authors analyzed them independently of course and published them but then as meta-analysis authors what we do is we have the idea we do the right methods for identifying those studies and then we put them together statistically that's a
meta-analysis let's talk a little bit about the advantages of this particular research method and i'll start with this my favorite one is autonomy it's just the fact that no matter where you are you know um and in the world of research you're not going to be able to analyze the whole world the entire world we just had a colleague here with us who is from a small city very small city in the countryside of brazil we have students from india from everywhere in the
world who don't otherwise have access to research and the meta-analysis gives them autonomy amanda can you tell like expand on that a little bit you know how is it that people how is it that i'm saying that people from anywhere in the world if they understand the right method of course and they have a computer and internet access they can do a meta-analysis great around this and uh thank you for that that comment because autonomy many people confuse it with just doing it by yourself true whereas
when we speak about autonomy in meta-analysis it's not that you're just conducting a meta-analysis alone actually joining a community of well-minded like-minded individuals in the meta-analysis academy for example that's what makes it powerful that's where what takes you to the end but when we say autonomy is that you know how to conduct it every step of the way you probably if you have any knowledge of research methods out there listening to us you probably know that every
step of research should be checked by at least two people so of course you're not going to be conducting a meta-analysis by yourself but instead of being that student that you're emailing people asking for opportunities you know the method and actually you can put together your research team because you know how to conduct it and probably the people that are with you know the methods and actually you can put together your research team because you know
you also do it creates autonomy in the sense that you can you're able to take it to the end you don't depend on well money that's a big one you don't depend on an ethics committee to approve your research which takes a lot a long time guys if you if you don't know maybe primary research research takes at least more than a year to conduct to publish that's another another story and meta-analysis can be done as quickly as would say five weeks you know from having the idea to
publishing can be discussed yeah you you mentioned a lot there and we talked about the autonomy just how quick it is the fact that you don't depend on an ethics committee and you mentioned about doing it in a group and um i want to ask gabriella this question because i know you have a spectacular group with you know bruno and patricia you know and so many other people you know sergio and other other great minds from the meta-analysis academy so tell us a little bit
about um if you knew all of them before if you met them in the meta-analysis academy what it's been like to work in this research group how many publications you guys have i see one every week now tell us a little bit about that every month i think there is a publication coming from that group and i think that's so value like when you have a very hard working group and everyone shares with different responsibilities the work just flows right so we can share uh different steps of the
the process together and have those results i met some of them before and then i brought them to the team because i knew how like hard working they were and that it would like add to the group but some of them i met on the way because we find ourselves when we have this goal right we are looking for surgery we have the same path along the way and we are all hard-working which is and you're part of the meta-analysis academy yeah so we find ourselves there with the same goal and
that's the best way to find your group like you're going for the same way and we have so many examples of this in meta-analysis academy even isabella she she when she started in the meta-analysis academy she joined an incredible research group that up to this day has incredible work together we like i actually don't know how to explain it i don't understand how to explain it but i think it's an have i love to share this because i have all the possibilities of groups that you can form to make
a meta-analysis i have worked with all of them and they all gave incredible results i have worked and this is such a coincidence i have worked with amanda before i've worked with gabby before i have in complete different areas like with amanda in endocrinology with gabby that's actually funny because gabby was the one that solved the problem with statistics so the thing is guys um in the meta-analysis academy we learn how to make every step of the way right so we learn how to do
our own statistics and all that and we had a very like hard to overcome obstacle in one of our ideas and surprisingly gabby was the one one in the group of the community that knew how to do that and we were like hey hi gabby are you interested in joining helping us and you know join the publication she saved our lives and now it's published and it's already has like it already has like two citations or something this paper that we have together and with amanda the same we put together
i knew two people that had the same idea of meta-analysis because that's also one thing that we learn in the course like how to have your own ideas right and it's funny because when we teach the methods people start start getting the same ideas because you know they're good ideas they are viable let's talk about the ideas uh sorry gabriella just a little second let's talk about developing ideas you've published in pediatrics and infectious disease and cardiology and you're not a specialist
yet you've published anesthesiology one of those published in endocrinology and surgery and others not a not a specialist in those areas yet gabriella published a ton in surgery will start residency now tell us a little bit about how you developed these ideas for your projects many of which you were first authors in yeah i think for me at least i i went uh after the topics i liked and i think one really cool thing about meta -analysis you can go for the latest of the uh
like new projects out there and put all the together and create like a masterpiece so you can uh publish a very late like trendy topic uh it's still trending and that's that's cool so i went after those uh topics but i know there's a lot of other ways of course yeah we have a class one of meta-analysis academy that teaches this method that gabriella just mentioned of looking at recent clinical trials recent studies to develop your own ideas and how
about you amanda i really like the method as well of the randomized trials i i get randomized trials on my in my inbox on my email every day every day with viable ideas and i think you become so effective at looking at new ideas that you just don't have the time to pursue it all so i do have a lot of people that i help in the academy in the community that i say like listen i i found this viable idea i just do not have the time because i have so many other meta
-analysis projects going on would you take it forward and uh i've had two that have taken to the end and had it published and i think that's the good thing that we kind of touched upon the community aspect of it when you if you already know the word of academia it can be quite competitive it can be quite frustrating at times because the collaboration might not be exact and it can be quite frustrating at times because the collaboration might not be exactly as you expected
and i think the difference in the meta-analysis academy is that we end up helping each other not only with the ideas but with the process with the research and i think for me at least that's the value of the collaboration aspect we grow together not alone but coming back to the ideas aspect of it besides randomized trials when i started meta-analysis academy i was very early on in my clinical years so one topic that we that we always have is bedside
on the bedside looking at patients and i i thought that this wasn't a viable way for me to get ideas because i thought i have no clinical experience but again when you know about how to conduct meta-analysis when you when you know about the process it only takes one moment it only takes one conversation maybe when you're doing ward rounds with a doctor to start an idea and that was that was one of the ideas that i that i started as well in surgery in fact
with a kidney transplantation that we we got an idea on the bedside and i think it is a very effective way as well because you're seeing it right there and then the problem of the clinical doubt should we should we use this method or should it should we do a more conservative so we was comparing more surgical managed conservative management and i think it can be a really good method as well so i like that one that's a good one i've actually so i think i've used all of our
nine ten methods of getting ideas that she was just referring to the meta-analysis academy nine to ten methods exactly last one we have some methods that are very straightforward to kind of like switch the key in your brain to actively look for ideas and that's so true what amanda was commenting i feel like um we go year after year in med school or medical training and in the beginning one of the methods that i liked the most was the go on the gas
website as well i love checking latest publications at jama at um now jack imaging and all these to look for for ideas like this super hot topics there are latest published clinical trials and all that that really like that one but i will admit that one of my favorites is actually checking guidelines so there's also this crazy crazy brilliant idea that is looking for kind of inconsistencies in guidelines from big societies and they were literally mentioned to your face like hey this is
something we don't really have clear um we have this evidence but it's kind of lacking one of my favorites you're giving away every time works every time i'm not kidding well i mean she's taught me about them but how to actually perform and get these ideas i guess they can learn it you can you can discover in the course so i want to talk about a subject here on how meta -analysis can be either a gateway for people to start research or complementary in
in the research portfolio so for example in my own career i was a first year resident at the university of miami i needed to publish to get into cardiology fellowship and i had zero experience i did not have any pubmed publications yet and i learned how to do this and it took my career took off you know in three years or four years of residency because i was also chief i published 20 papers this really helped me to match into a really competitive program at johns hopkins
and now i participate in clinical trials and i do all these things but meta-analysis was the first publication that's how i started i think for isabella chu but gabriella you mentioned the 18 or 19 publications seven are meta-analysis so clearly you've done a lot of other things that are not meta-analysis you did a research fellow here so tell us a little bit about how even though you you have research experience otherwise meta -analysis contributed to your portfolio
and to your career sure and i think uh you can have this as one of your tools for uh be a better researcher and for me it was interesting because i had a lot of publications before like considerably but not all of them or the least of them were surgery focused or barely touched the surgery topic and i was missing like a real like clinical surgery patient uh research on my cv like to show more interest that was not like that i was into it into the surgical techniques
i was ready for it so that was the first um uh appealing of the meta-analysis for me but later uh even already having some meta-analysis published i came for a research fellow and to do a primary research it takes a long time and i had five months to apply when i came so i thought i would take my my box again and i will use the meta -analysis tool and that's when i uh used my my first publication here and the research fellow was a systematic review because that would be quick that would
be useful i could present a conference which i would do the networking for residency so it was very useful for me on that way and you can impress your mentors right i'm sure people were impressed about this three weeks yeah this new research fellow who just joined you know she doesn't even know where the bathroom is yet and she's already published yeah she last in a month yeah that's incredible congratulations and let's talk more about time just about how long
it takes you know you said oh you can easily do it in five months which is the time that you had before your application uh she was able to do it in five months and she's already published your application uh isabella you are author of the first publication of the meta-analysis academy i remember that was almost two years ago now you joined the course how long did it take you to do that one and then others that followed so that one doesn't count for time-wise
because i was still taking the course so i would learn a new topic every week and i had to wait until i would learn that new topic to apply that in my idea um so that one i think i had this idea around week four of the course and by week 10 he was pretty much ready for submission but that does count it's super fast that's six weeks that's incredible afterwards not kidding you guys i i think that that summer break uh my friends and i so one of i mentioned before how many groups i was able to
form inside the community one of the best ones i keep in my heart i think all of them are the best ones i keep them all in my heart but the reason why i joined the med academy that was one of my best friends that insisted so much that i would join her so we would do research together and i was like okay bella her name is also so bella like bella you won okay we're joining together and then that summer break we found one idea we checked it was viable we're like we don't have anything to
do it's way too hot in barcelona i don't want to go out i think we finished that analysis in like two weeks that's amazing two weeks and we were four in the group so it's not like we have you know 20 people working it's four of us internet connection and that was it a lot of hard work you know the two weeks is is obviously very fast but i would say that our students generally complete a meta-analysis on average probably around five weeks once you've learned
the method of course if if you're really good at it and you have experience you could do it even faster like isabella if it also depends on how much time you have on your hand like if you're on a summer break depends on the number of studies so there are a lot of variables in the process but you can do it super fast amanda tell us a little bit why it's so fast what uh how come a clinical trial takes so much longer even a cohort study takes so much longer and you're not able to do it
so much longer in a meta-analysis you can just do it that fast definitely well what we're saying here is definitely not taking the value of primary research they are very important and we use them in our meta-analysis of course but i think it's getting the idea and getting it approved by an ethics committee it takes a long time it might take a few months in there for approval for changes that you have to make in the protocol and then actually starting the trial or the observational study
and it can take a long time for recruitment for analysis of data then gathering that data collecting writing the manuscript so it can take a couple years until you publish whereas meta-analysis all the data is in there in the literature you just need a good idea your computer a good group right and that comes with the autonomy and the community and there you go you you just need to put it together you just need to know an effective method that we teach in the meta-analysis academy
so it's those two components is the fact that you don't need to go to the ethics committee or build a long protocol and then the data is already already available that's it you summarized it beautifully yeah and then we can do it quickly exactly and i think that that's what makes it so powerful because you don't need especially when the topic is very hot and there are some really new trials like gabby said of oh you get uh the notification of a new trial came out and then you
realize that you don't need to go to the ethics in the introduction they say oh these trials have also come out and they talk about conflicting results that might be a good idea for the meta -analysis and you just need to get started a good example is one of our colleagues she is a resident in endocrinology from brazil and she's presenting now at one of the conferences that is happening here in boston and she had a great idea on a very hot topic and she just had just entered
the meta-analysis academy and ranerson who was really good friends with her said we're gonna help you don't worry don't you worry so she helped her to get in touch with me and other colleagues and in the group we really really sped up the meta-analysis the data was already there it was a hot topic so i think that's the power of meta-analysis you can have a good impact in the literature summarizing data increasing the power of those analysis we can touch a little bit on power on another another
another time but i think that's the the beauty of the method i think that the sooner you do the more these ideas get published the more the things get published you end up sharing data in a certain way you know so she could build their user experience in a way or even不行 those techniques that they want to see it become clever so with someone else who's working for us who knew just how to understand what they were feeling what their goals were what their objectives were
and so we kind of super sparked that and let's cuz come on okay days. It's a journey, it's a journey, and it's definitely worth the effort, of course. Guys, let's talk about a contentious topic here, which is the value of a research fellow in residency United States application, in application for residency in the United States. Controversial. Yeah, controversial. It depends on multiple factors, but I know many of you are specialists in this topic here. Let's start with Gabriela.
Gabriela, you did it both. You did research fellowship, you did a bunch of meta-analysis and publications. You got a great match. Tell us about doing a research fellow, yes or no, for the people who are listening and interested in residency in the United States. The answer depends. There's no right or wrong answer, of course. But I would say, I think the main factor is how competitive is the residency you're looking for.
If it's a very competitive specialty, as probably the surgical ones, or if it's a very competitive specialty, dermatology, ophthalmology, et cetera, you're probably going to need it. And it's not only for the publications. It's more about the networking and the contacts you made. But during the year, you have to show your capacity, your hard work, your results. And with results, we mean publications, right?
So I think people that are going for a very competitive specialty, they're going to need it.
And if you're going to need it, you're either institution or specialty might consider a research fellow it's not mandatory of course but that helps a lot with the networking 100% agree Isabella a research fellow I also agree with Gabby there's no there's no easy answer for that there's no right or wrong I think depends on a lot also on how much you're genuinely interested in research because sometimes and it's it's okay not saying it's a bad thing it's okay if
publishing is just a means to get where you want to get maybe you don't necessarily want a super academic career and you just you know we often share in the meta-analysis academy social media this one chart that is like the average number of publications reach specialty for matching here in the united states and you'll see like seven eight publications time might be better spent if you just want to reach that number to be considered for you know
one institution for a strong candidate you might as well just sit at home for six months work on six-month analysis and publish that that will save you time money effort brain cells many things so if research is just a means for you to get for example a match that not necessarily super academic there's no need if you don't love it don't like go spend time where you love spoiler is that sometimes you get in love that's not true yeah i think that's the point um my family
even says amanda i used to say five six years ago that you're never getting to research i never thought i never thought you i think my take on it is then the meta-analysis exactly exactly and now i want a clinical and academic career so it's it it is a lot of changing exactly it's a so then it comes if you want if that's what you want and you really are interested in learning the method learning how research works like in the background you know these slow slow
trials how that works everything that is involved you learn a lot of course you learn a lot like i learn things that i didn't like like i didn't even didn't even know it existed until two months ago and now it's my daily work um but i i love it i love it i love it because i love research but i think gabby said the key aspects there are one networking if you want a competitive specialty that really is game changing the people you will meet the influential people you
meet you just might as well in one day be sitting with a program director next to you and you didn't even know um but again each case is a case that's not mandatory and you might as well publish if you're at home wherever you are in the world it's fine it depends on the person and not every research fellow is going to be the same not every research fellow is going to make you stand out so it really depends you know i i i have of course i i haven't done a research on myself yet but i have spoken
to a lot of people that have and i think my kind of take up today it's it's that there's no point in doing a research fellow if you just want publications right you need to get something more in that year and i know people who had no publications and came to do a research fellow here in the states and got disappointed because they were expecting something that zero publications i know that also got it to do a research fellow how the reality of how things were got into the
meta-analysis academy and then started publishing right so i think about if it's about publications you know you might be best spending your time in meta-analysis for example but if you have the interest if you want to connect with people i definitely think that it does have value and if you mix both then yeah that's my toolbox and so let me give the one minute summary of this which i fully agree with everything that you said First of all, if the specialty is super competitive,
you absolutely should consider doing it. It's likely to be almost mandatory for some specialties. Number two, if there's a genuine strong interest in learning research, you should also consider it. Now, number three, it's not mandatory by any means. And if you decide to do it, first of all, get publications before you apply. You're going to become a stronger applicant.
Multiple of our students from the Meta-Analysis Academy have used their publications, should then apply to a strong research fellowship like Isabella Marquez, for example. But if you decide to do it for the sake of having publications for an application, be conscious of two important points. Number one, by no means are publications and networking guaranteed. Don't put all your tokens, all your hopes in the research.
Don't put all your hopes in the research fellowship because a number of things could go wrong. Obviously, we hope that if everything works out, but you can go to a place and your mentor moves. Your mentor doesn't help you. It's not supportive. You know, the institution is going through some problems. So there's a number of reasons why it may not work out.
And if the metric is publications that you're looking for and it's an important metric, join the Meta-Analysis Academy or, you know, figure it out independently. Don't put all your hopes in that and then forget to do everything else. And then the number two. The second point I want to highlight that people often forget is the value of time.
You know, when we're young and thinking about a career that's going to last 40 years, you know, we don't generally think about the value of one or two years to get us to the next step, which is generally a competitive residency. And that's fine. But let me say that from a person who did nine years of residency and fellowship in the United States, these years will add up. Essentially, if you're doing a research fellowship when you don't have to or you don't have a strong interest.
You're doing it just for the sake of doing it, you're paying a high price, which is changing or trading one future year of being an attendee, of having an attending income salary for a research fellow right now. And that has financial implications. It's going to extend the number of years in training. And it might not be an issue now, but, you know, send me a message when you're seventh year into residency and fellowship and, you know, you understand what I'm saying. So balance these things.
And if you decide to do it, do it complementary to the publications, like the beautiful example here of Gabriela Brandom. But I will actually take a chance to comment that I think doing meta-analysis before applying for the postdoc were essential for my application, because also, like, it's a postdoctoral position. They kind of expect you to already know more or less what you're doing. Of course, they're hiring you to do research. They're hiring you to do research.
Yeah, you're not there to learn. They don't have the basics of research, they don't have the time to do that. They don't expect that from you and they will not pay you to do that. So I think I when I applied, when I got the guts to apply, actually, I already had like seven, eight publications. That's when I felt like, oh, my God, OK, someone might actually pay me some attention. And it was actually great because they did. My my current boss, principal investigator, he did comment on that.
He did say, wow, you. You actually have a lot of publications like it's a lot more than the average person in your level of, you know, about training and as a last year medical student. So that was actually the main reason why he trusted me enough to hire me to do research full time. So without that, I don't like I don't really think there was any other reason that he would trust me enough with that.
So even if you want to do a postdoc, if you want to apply, maybe Gabby might experience like share her experience on that. But I think you also have to bring something to the table. So even if you want to apply, you have to prepare for that and you have to have publications to show before that. Yeah, I think one value of that is kind of when you show that you are able and capable of going from the start to the end with a project.
First, you show how you manage your time, how you manage your tasks, but also like a manuscript writing a manuscript. It doesn't matter much what kind of research and when you can write it fast, write it very objectively, you already know half of the way. So that applies for every research, right? It's the proven result. You know, it's not when you're especially if you're a first author, you know, you show that on your CV, it's done.
Like people know that you know how to do the work, that you get it done because lots of people know about research, but don't actually get things done. And it's just. It makes your application for a research fellowship, for residency, for whatever it is in your career. It's just like totally different if you have publications, especially if they're high quality and if you're a first author. So we're in Boston right now and the weekend we're recording this.
Well, at the time we're recording this, there's lots of events in the Meta-Analysis Academy where students are participating. So in Sao Paulo, Brazil, there's one of the largest, one of the largest cardiology conferences. We have multiple students presenting here in Boston. We have endocrine. In 2024, you will know better than me, Amanda, but I'm sure there are at least 10, if not 20 people presenting here.
We also have the American Society of Clinical Oncology with more than 10 students presenting in Chicago at this time. And we have the American Transplant Congress in Philadelphia with my friends there. Yes. Lots of friends, Gabriela's friends presenting Meta-Analysis and Surgery. And actually just saw one of them posting it today. So let's talk a little bit about this experience of going to conferences.
And like, but especially going when you're presenting and Amanda, I'm going to ask you, because you're a veteran at this, two years in a row of oral presentations at Endocrine Society, what's it like, you know, to go to these conferences and just like be queen, you know, like presenting? No, no, please stop. But I do have to say that I haven't expected the amounts of oral presentations that I've had. I've had it in at least five conferences now. And it does build, grow some skin.
So for this one, of course, you can never get used to it, but it does make you a lot more comfortable with the aspect. And right now I focus on not only just presenting and getting it done with, because I think that on my first presentation, that's how it was. I was so scared. I just want to get it over with. I'm so nervous.
Right now, I'm focusing on how can I communicate my research because oral presentations do bring visibility to the topic that you're talking about, to the research that you're presenting. And also, I think the most interesting thing is the comments that you get after your presentation and the invitations that you also get. I know some people, even after oral presentations, got invitations from journals to high impact journals like Lancet.
So with my experience with oral presentations, of course, manuscripts and getting publications on PubMed are completely priority, but conferences are great for networking. And when you network. I think that's when things really, really trigger for the success in your career and the progression, because I think we really depend on connection with other people. You find new mentors, you find new inspirations, sources of inspiration.
And even in this conference just now, so just yesterday, we went to a talk, me and Larissa, who is the other second year medical student who presented six, six abstracts in this conference. For the second time. She was here last year as well, as a first year medical student. She is incredible. She is incredible. She is incredible. We both went to this talk and we had, we were listening to professionals that we had met last year, very high impact. And we went to have a chat with them afterwards.
And one of them recognized my name from a paper that I had published. And they took a picture, they tweeted about it. They put the paper in there as well. Loved reading your work. And we got even more people commenting on it and a track on. We have a lot of people on med Twitter. If you don't know about it, please do get involved because it is powerful. And I think that's the beauty of it.
Even Larissa, as we were speaking, people are just so shocked how she's a second year medical student presenting at one of the largest conferences in the world for endocrinology. So I think that's the benefit of all presentations, posters, presentations and conferences. And it is something that meta-analysis really, really add. I recently went even to.
One of the cities in the UK and imposter syndrome is a thing for everyone, everyone, and I submitted this research that, oh, it had been on the process that we were conducting, it had been published and I was just so disappointed by it and thankfully with the methods that we learned in the meta-analysis academy, I was able to change it a little bit and now we submit it for publications with some changes, but I submitted the abstract and it got a normal presentation.
I got to the conference and I did not know that I was in the session for the. The five presentations that were for a prize. Wow. Um, and I had some colleagues there that are doing primary research with me and they said, Amanda, you are, you know, you're against X person who is a PhD, who publishes so much on surgery. And I'm like, it's okay. I'm here for the experience.
I went up there on the stage and, um, I was, I wasn't nervous before because I wasn't expecting much because for me, it was a disappointment that my research had been published. Yeah. I had to change it. I went there, got really nervous beforehand and presented. And guess what? The one, one prize, the most prestigious prize of the organization that's given to one abstract in the whole conference was awarded to our paper. No way. Yeah. How are we only finding out about this?
She got used to it guys. She doesn't leave it common anymore when she gets a prize on meta-analysis. No, but I think that, I think that's, you know, I just never thought that I could be in that situation. Wow. So because of meta-analysis, people, it brings you visibility. In a world so valued. Yeah. And I, I even, I got back to my seat after presenting thinking, okay, now it's gone. I've presented among incredible people. I'm going to go away now.
And as I was leaving through the door, because I had to catch my train to go back to the city that I'm from, um, I hear my name on the stage and I'm like, I don't care if I missed the train right now, I'm going to go get off. Of course. So, oh my God. Yeah. I think it's, it's incredible. These conferences as well. I think it's a great opportunity. Again, things that add to your CV, stories that you can tell and people that you can connect with. I just want to add a quick story to this.
You mentioned when you were saying, so the, we had a similar situation in, um, Amsterdam, Netherlands, European society of cardiology, 2023 last year. And one of our students, uh, Mariana presented an oral presentation as well. And afterwards, the associate editor of.
One of the Lancet journals, uh, e-clinical medicine, this, uh, this associate editor was in the audience and spoke with her later on after the presentation saying that she enjoyed the talk and that she invited Mariana to submit her paper to this journal. And it's a high impact journal. Forget the impact factor now, but I think it's 14. I could be mistaken.
Uh, it's again, it's one of the Lancet journals from the family Lancet and Mariana did, you know, if not such high hopes, but she submitted it, they requested. Revisions are, and, uh, the paper was accepted, you know, it's a, it's a great story. And, uh, came from oral presentation as well.
Larissa, who was just here, you mentioned also, she is a second year med student, and she's in touch with the president of the Brazilian society of endocrinology who knows her from the conferences where she's presenting. So, you know, a great stories I could, I could go on and on, but I want to ask Gabriela about her experience as well, because I've definitely seen you on the podium from some, uh, conference. I did, uh, two, uh, following years.
Yeah. For the podium and the two of them were, uh, meta-analysis. The last one was my application year and was gorgeous to see. Visibility. Yeah. It was a very, uh, big audience and it was a very, like a controversial topic that I was closing, uh, like summarizing what we should do, like drain or not drain. Which conference was that? Uh, the American College of Surgeons. So the biggest, yeah. Oral presentation. Oral. Yeah. It was very, uh, so it was very like a controversial topic.
Everybody was excited. And then just after the presentation, like everybody came to ask more about it. Like, well, how do you do or, uh, what are the conclusions? Why are we going with that? What do you agree or not? So we became the reference. Yeah. We came, we have such a good discussion. And one of, one of the discussion was with one, uh, associate program director, which I was interviewed later. So he was. It was even more special. It was awesome. Yeah. No, that's fantastic.
And so to me, I'll just add like is crazy, Gabby saying how she really closed a gap in literature. And that is so like, that is such an amazing aspect of meta analysis. And just one of these days I was checking the social media meta analysis Academy social media and saw a Med student that was cited on an international guideline for something. And it's like, God, these people are getting cited by guideline.
Yeah. solving the problems that are there, like, oh, we're lacking this information, like we don't know very well, and one of our students are getting the answer. The name of the legend is Matheus Gauza. He's a six-year medical student. He was cited with his group of co-authors in an international guideline. And not just him, but multiple of our students, you know, you get papers like Gabriela's paper. You know, if you do a high-quality meta-analysis, be ready.
It's going to be cited in international guidelines. That's for sure. Definitely, and again, another thing that brings you visibility and what separates primary research from meta-analysis, it's a common theme. Primary research is very valuable, but you see the guidelines citing the meta -analysis.
And I'm sorry, but if you can bring that into an interview, your paper being cited by a guideline and you solving a clinical issue, I think that's a great conversation starter and a great contributor to convincing that person that, yes, you do have a problem. You do have value because you speak a lot about this, about how mentorship works. Many people are not bringing value to the table, and I think that's what's missing, and meta-analysis definitely do that.
Yeah, it's one of the ways, you know, certainly whenever you are, whether it's in a research fellowship or in any other situation where you're a mentee and you have a mentor, you really need to show your value. There's no doubt about that. So we're coming to a wrap here. I want to give you all, the opportunity to do some final considerations, and I'm going to start with Isabella. No pressure. Just my final consideration is, wow, it was a good talk.
Like, so many things that I have to wrap up now, but I think I'll just go to the most basic aspect that we started this talk saying how much we and Amanda, we don't even remember the pre-meta-analysis academy, Isabella and Amanda, and that's because so many things, things changed and achievements that I would never have expected, doors that were open that I could never imagine.
And I think the value of getting into the community and learning how to do this yourself with autonomy, with your power of controlling the time of that is you're able to dream so much bigger than you initially expected. And that's just it. Sometimes we just get so focused, focused in the, like, rushing process. I'm doing it with everything, just getting this one path that everyone tells you just do this and it will work out. Then you come a little bit out of the curve.
You learn something new and it opens a whole new world. And I think that's really what meta-analysis changed in my life. And yeah, I just have to be grateful here, meeting all these amazing people that I have been working with together for like two years. And it's a community everywhere. It's amazing. Yeah, I love this community. And it's a really hard thing to summarize.
all of our experiences all the amazing people that we have met and all the the the network that we have built over the years into just the summary so i'm really glad that we're starting this this new series of talks that we're going to be discussing so much about meta-analysis but if i can summarize in three things i get so many questions about potential students that want to enroll in meta-academy in meta-analysis academy um is it a secret formula is it just a magic
recipe and definitely definitely it's very powerful definitely feels magical but it's not and i often bring three things to them first the effective method and you're definitely going to get that in the meta-analysis academy you're definitely going to know to how to create autonomy how to know every step of the way we'll guide you with that you saw in bella's example how she was able to take it after the course finished a week after she submitted for publication so that's one
thing that i'm going to share with you today and i'm going to share with you guys a little bit a really powerful method that meta-analysis provide as you have seen through today the second one is the mindset we have been speaking here about hard work dedication and that's definitely not different with meta-analysis you're gonna have to put the effort in but the difference is that the effort that you're putting in definitely bears fruit it definitely counts and you're gonna get a lot from
it and the third one which bella touched upon is the community and we are all i believe so happy to be part of it of the second family of the second family of the second family of the second family that has a lot of collaboration and when you connect with like-minded individuals that have this growth mindset then you're sorted so if you have any interest in those three things because they have to be together by by the dream that meta-academy provides because it's is a really
good one and you're gonna go very far so i think that's my little bit of a summary i have to say that the matter uh really opens the like open the door for me to be a part of it and i think that's it's not like all of you know kind of all of this like open doors but what really matters in the academy is definitely the people and in the people for some reasons i think uh networking is one of them you can networking among the other mentees and the other students attendings even like we
have brilliant people in the community uh but also like uh consonant analysis research is be is becoming a more competitive like it's very we have to publish fast the methods it came out on the be complex and some topics and we have experts for every single step of the way like yourself no not like myself but there are some people that are really in the statistics very complex models and we have we have them all together uh helping each other and i think that's priceless
really yeah no thank you so much and congratulations to all of you i'm going to actually take three closing points here i'm gonna cheat and not just just one number one is that i want to emphasize just how grateful and thankful i am to all the people who made the meta-analysis academy happen you know amanda is our director of social media isabella has been an ambassador has been a tutor in the program gabriella is a mentor in the program and so many people that i i wouldn't
have time to mention the great contributions the support that our students have the community that was mentioned multiple times it's all credit to the great people who make it happen a number Number two, I want to emphasize the same point that I talked about in the beginning. All the results that you've heard from them, but also from the hundreds of students that have joined the Meta-Analysis Academy is really the results of their hard work, their dedication. We provide the method.
We do not do publications. Publications are not guaranteed. It's up to you and our students to really take the opportunities, the method, and really take that forward and bring it to publication. And my final message is for you to join the Meta -Analysis Academy if you're not a part yet of this team, to learn how to conduct high-impact research with autonomy to transform your career. That's our mission, and I hope you will join us.