MediclinicResearch Hub
NEW RESEARCHER ONBOARDING

You have joined a research team. What do you actually do first?

A practical onboarding pathway for students, interns, residents, fellows and clinicians who are new to medical research and need to become useful without creating governance, data or authorship problems.

10 sections · Procedural guidance

Your first objective

Do not start by collecting data or writing an abstract. First understand the question, the study design, your exact role, the approval status, where authorised files live, and what work has already been completed.

Understand

Question, protocol, design, outcomes, timeline and why the project matters.

Verify

Approval status, data-access permission, current protocol version and approved study documents.

Contribute

Take ownership of a defined task with a deadline and a review process.

Before your first research meeting

  • Know the project title and one-sentence research question.
  • Know who the principal investigator/supervisor is.
  • Know whether the project is planning, awaiting approval, recruiting/collecting data, analysing, writing or submitted.
  • Read the current protocol rather than relying on a verbal summary.
  • Write down unfamiliar terminology and study-design concepts to review.
  • Do not request patient data simply because someone says it will be useful.

Questions to ask your supervisor

1

What is the exact research question?

You should be able to repeat it in one sentence. If the team cannot define it, the project is not ready for data collection.

2

What is my exact role?

Ask for a concrete deliverable: literature search, screening, data dictionary, extraction, recruitment support, analysis, figure preparation or manuscript section. “Help with the research” is not a usable assignment.

3

What approvals exist, and what am I authorised to access?

Ask where the approval letter/determination and current protocol are stored. Confirm whether your name or role must be added before you access study data or interact with participants.

4

What is the primary outcome and analysis plan?

Even if you are not the statistician, understand what the study is primarily trying to estimate or test.

5

How will contributions and authorship be handled?

Discuss expectations early. Authorship should reflect qualifying contributions and accountability, not merely hierarchy or attendance.

Your first two weeks

Days 1–2

Read the protocol, approval/governance documents available to you, data dictionary/CRF, and one or two foundational papers.

Days 3–5

Learn the relevant study design and reporting guideline. Map the project workflow from source data to final result.

Week 2

Complete one bounded task under review. Document exactly what you did so another team member can reproduce it.

End of week 2

Confirm your next deliverable, deadline, dependencies, and whether any access/training requirement is blocking progress.

Pick the skill you need right now

I need to refine the questionResearch question & PICO/PECO/PCCI need to search the literatureReproducible searchingI need to write the protocolProtocol structure and version controlI will work with study dataData dictionary, collection and handlingI need to plan analysisOutcomes, variables and statistical planWe are writingManuscript workflowI need a conference outputAbstracts, posters and presentationsI am unsure about approvalEthics and governance concepts

Data rules for a new team member

  • Use only the authorised data source and approved variables for the approved purpose.
  • Do not copy patient-identifiable information into personal email, consumer cloud storage, messaging apps, personal laptops or this Research Hub.
  • Do not merge an additional dataset into the study merely because it is available; new data sources may change the governance/approval requirements.
  • Keep a data dictionary that defines every variable, coding rule, units, allowed values and missing-value convention.
  • Never silently “clean” implausible values. Record cleaning rules and preserve an auditable path from raw to analysis data.

Research habits that prevent avoidable problems

  • Use dates and version numbers on protocols, extraction forms and analysis plans.
  • Keep decisions in a written study log rather than only in chat messages.
  • Save the exact search strategy and search date for literature work.
  • Record why participants/records/studies were included or excluded.
  • Separate exploratory analyses from prespecified analyses.
  • Use the correct reporting guideline while doing the work, not only at submission.
  • Raise uncertainty early rather than improvising a new method.

Things you should never assume

“It is retrospective, so ethics is not needed.”

Retrospective use of clinical records can still require ethics/governance review and data-access permission. Obtain the authorised determination.

“It is only a case report, so consent never matters.”

Publication of an identifiable clinical story can require patient consent under journal/institutional policy even where the activity is not treated as a research study.

“The database already exists, so I can use it.”

Availability is not permission. Confirm the approved purpose and authorised access route.

Your onboarding completion checklist

0 of 8 reviewed · This session only. Review does not grant authorisation.

Primary standards and sources

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