Student research

As part of your medical degree at Charles Sturt, Doctor of Medicine (MD) students are required to complete a scholarly research project. We refer to this as the 'MD project'.

The Research team is responsible for supporting students to source a range of research projects and to supervise you through your research experience.

You must individually develop, address and report on an original question or project aim that is relevant to the Rural Clinical School (RCS) that you are based at for the clinical years (Years 3-5).

Projects can be developed in one of six areas. The research must aim to achieve improvement in rural health outcomes. Within the context of rural health, your project may be in one of the following areas:

  • Clinical medicine.
  • Community health.
  • Health innovations.
  • First Nations health.
  • Health education.
  • Biomedical sciences.

View the Doctor of Medicine Project Program brochure

My advice for students is to actively look for opportunities to promote your research and to grab them when they come up.

Thomas Merkus - Third year Doctor of Medicine student, Research Project poster presentation, ANZAHPE conference 2023
portrait of Thomas Merkus

The research process

Step 1

Establish a problem

Step 2

Review Literature

Step 3

Identify knowledge gap

Step 4

Define research question or focused aim

Step 5

Obtain Ethics approval if required

Step 6

Write project proposal

Step 7

Review available resources including Modules

Step 8

Develop research, plan project design and methods

Step 9

Data Collection

Step 10

Data analysis

Step 11

Report on findings

Step 12

Evaluate project

Student MD projects