medical students research projects

Top 10 Medical Research Project Ideas for High School Students

By Jordan Ellington

Project Support Manager at Polygence

4 minute read

The field of medicine is constantly growing and changing and there are always new challenges for researchers to tackle. Think back to the progression of COVID-19 and how it started with diagnosis after diagnosis but no treatment or end in sight. Thanks to research, clinical studies, and technological advancements, we now have readily-available vaccinations. Whether medical researchers are working to improve treatments or to create new ones, there's always work to be done.

If you are fascinated by the advancement of medicine and passionate about healthcare topics as a high school student, this could be a great opportunity for you to explore and learn more about it through an independent research passion project ! Our medical and healthcare mentors compiled a  list of 10 intriguing medical and healthcare research project ideas to inspire you. If any of these pique your interest, sign up to get matched with a mentor and get started on your student research project !

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Polygence alumni had a 89% admission rate to R1 universities in 2024. Polygence provides high schoolers with a personalized, flexible research experience proven to boost their admission odds. Get matched to a mentor now!"

What are some medical project ideas I can start?

1) the use of virtual and augmented reality in medicine.

Level: Beginner

Virtual realities are becoming the norm around households and even classrooms these days! Did you know that virtual and augmented realities are also starting to be incorporated within the world of medicine ? Take a deeper dive into this topic and write a research paper on your findings!

Idea by medical research mentor Mina

2) High School Health Independence

Level: Beginner 

Sometimes, it’s hard for teens to pinpoint a medical problem that they might be facing. How can we better educate high schoolers on the ins and outs of self care and living a healthy life? Brainstorm ways to introduce positive lifestyle mechanisms to this specific age group. 

Idea by medical research mentor Margaret

Research YOUR fave areas of Biology and Medicine

Polygence pairs you with an expert mentor in to create a passion project around biology and medicine. Together, you work to create a high quality research project that is uniquely your own. We also offer options to explore multiple topics, or to showcase your final product!

3) How Does Aristotle Inform Decision-Making at the End of Life in the U.S. Healthcare System?

Sometimes, medical decisions can interfere with what you believe is ethically correct. To help with this, clinicians should have some sort of guide to help them through decision making processes. For this project, you will grasp a better understanding of Aristotle’s principles, ethics, and more to assist with medical decision making . 

Idea by medical research mentor Avery

4) A Review of How Genomics Has Transformed Medicine

Cancer treatments are now being personalized and it’s largely due to genomics! Take time to do your research and explore genomics and all of the advances it has allowed us to reach. 

Idea by medical research mentor Trudy

5) What can Songbirds Teach us About Premature Infants? 

Level: Intermediate 

Due to the advancement of medicine, more premature babies are given a chance at life than ever before. However, some of these babies unfortunately grow to develop some sort of mental impairment which points back to their time spent in the NICU. Is NICU sensory overload altering brain development?

Idea by medical research mentor Naomi

6) Under the Dermatoscope: A Fact Check of Common Skin Care and Sun Protection Advice

If you find yourself buying lotions and serums to protect your skin from the sun, this could be the project for you! Do your research on all things dermatology! What really causes skin damage and how do you know you’re using the correct ointments? Create a blog or podcast on skin health. 

Idea by medical research mentor Austin

Dive in to BioMed NOW!

Register to get paired with one of our expert mentors and to get started on exploring your passions today! You have agency in setting up your schedule for this research. Dive in now!

7) Development of New Cancer Treatment with Targeted Medicine

Level: Advanced 

Explore the world of medicine by helping treat a cancer type of your choice! For this project you will invent a drug by learning more about cancerous cellular markers . You will focus on targeting those specific markers with the drug that you develop. Write a research paper or create a poster presentation to explain your creation. 

Idea by medical research mentor Clayton

8) How will Personalized Medicine Affect the Costs of Medical Care?

Imagine you went to the doctor and used your insurance, yet, you still received a large bill in the mail. Better yet, you have to go back to the doctor because the treatment given to you didn't work. It’s time to incorporate personalized medicine into our healthcare system. Do your research to gain an understanding on why this has yet to happen and what we should do to get there. 

Idea by medical research mentor Alejandro

9) Pitch Me a Med Device Startup!

When COVID came, we were forced to adapt to a world of social distancing. Long gone are the days when we have to physically show up to a doctor's appointment! Zoom telehealth appointments are all the hype nowadays, whether you are suffering from the common cold or need to meet with your therapist. Determine a medical issue that does not yet have a remote checkup option available. Create a pitch to prove the needs of your app. 

Idea by medical research mentor Kyle

10) Tranexamic Acid as a Treatment for Drug-Induced Angioedema

Unfortunately, we probably all know someone with high blood pressure as it’s one of the most common diagnoses in the U.S. Even though there are plenty of medications that help control the spike in blood pressure, many of them have awful side effects. One of the most common side effects, angioedema , can be very dangerous if left untreated. Do your research to develop a treatment plan for these patients. 

Idea by medical research mentor Gaurav

Are there ways to start an independent reseach project in medicine?

If you’d like to take part in a dedicated medical research program for high school students, Polygence can help! Explore some of our previous medical research projects and public health and learn more about how to get started on a high school student research project based on your unique interests!

Related Content:

Top 10 Medical Summer Research Opportunities for High School Students

Passion Project Ideas for High School Students in 2024

Publishing Your Research as a High Schooler: 20 Journals and Conferences to Consider

Research Opportunities for High School Students in 2024: More Than 50 Options Across Multiple Academic Disciplines and Interests    

Get Matched with a Mentor

Interested in doing one of these exciting research projects? Click below to get matched with one of our expert mentors!

A Realistic Guide to Medical School

Written by UCL students for students

Top 10 Tips: Getting into Research as a Medical Student

Introducing our new series: Top 10 Tips – a simple guide to help you achieve your goals!

In this blog post, Jessica Xie (final year UCL medical student) shares advice on getting into research as a medical student.

Disclaimers: 

• Research is not a mandatory for career progression, nor is it required to demonstrate your interest in medicine. 
• You can dip into and out of research throughout your medical career. Do not feel that you must continue to take on new projects once you have started; saying “no, thank you” to project opportunities will allow you to focus your energy and time on things in life that you are more passionate about for a more rewarding experience.
• Do not take on more work than you are capable of managing. Studying medicine is already a full-time job! It’s physically and mentally draining. Any research that you get involved with is an extracurricular interest.

I decided to write this post because, as a pre-clinical medical student, I thought that research only involved wet lab work (i.e pipetting substances into test tubes). However, upon undertaking an intercalated Bachelor of Science (iBSc) in Primary Health Care, I discovered that there are so many different types of research! And academic medicine became a whole lot more exciting…

Here are my Top 10 Tips on what to do if you’re a little unsure about what research is and how to get into it:

TIP 1: DO YOUR RESEARCH (before getting into research)

There are three questions that I think you should ask yourself:

• What are my research interests?

Examples include a clinical specialty, medical education, public health, global health, technology… the list is endless. Not sure? That’s okay too! The great thing about research is that it allows deeper exploration of an area of Medicine (or an entirely different field) to allow you to see if it interests you.

2.  What type of research project do I want to do?

Research evaluates practice or compares alternative practices to contribute to, lend further support to or fill in a gap in the existing literature.

There are many different types of research – something that I didn’t fully grasp until my iBSc year. There is primary research, which involves data collection, and secondary research, which involves using existing data to conduct further research or draw comparisons between the data (e.g. a meta-analysis of randomised control trials). Studies are either observational (non-interventional) (e.g. case-control, cross-sectional) or interventional (e.g. randomised control trial).

An audit is a way of finding out if current practice is best practice and follows guidelines. It identifies areas of clinical practice could be improved.

Another important thing to consider is: how much time do I have? Developing the skills required to lead a project from writing the study protocol to submitting a manuscript for publication can take months or even years. Whereas, contributing to a pre-planned or existing project by collecting or analysing data is less time-consuming. I’ll explain how you can find such projects below.

3.  What do I want to gain from this experience?

Do you want to gain a specific skill? Mentorship? An overview of academic publishing? Or perhaps to build a research network?

After conducting a qualitative interview study for my iBSc project, I applied for an internship because I wanted to gain quantitative research skills. I ended up leading a cross-sectional questionnaire study that combined my two research interests: medical education and nutrition. I sought mentorship from an experienced statistician, who taught me how to use SPSS statistics to analyse and present the data.

Aside from specific research skills, don’t forget that you will develop valuable transferable skills along the way, including time-management, organisation, communication and academic writing! 

TIP 2: BE PROACTIVE

Clinicians and lecturers are often very happy for medical students to contribute to their research projects. After a particularly interesting lecture/ tutorial, ward round or clinic, ask the tutor or doctors if they have any projects that you could help them with! 

TIP 3: NETWORKING = MAKING YOUR OWN LUCK

Sometimes the key to getting to places is not what you know, but who you know. We can learn a lot from talking to peers and senior colleagues. Attending hospital grand rounds and conferences are a great way to meet people who share common interests with you but different experiences. I once attended a conference in Manchester where I didn’t know anybody. I befriended a GP, who then gave me tips on how to improve my poster presentation. He shared with me his experience of the National institute of Health Research (NIHR) Integrated Academic Training Pathway and motivated me to continue contributing to medical education alongside my studies.

TIP 4: UTILISE SOCIAL MEDIA

Research opportunities, talks and workshops are advertised on social media in abundance. Here are some examples:

Search “medical student research” or “medsoc research” into Facebook and lots of groups and pages will pop up, including UCL MedSoc Research and Academic Medicine (there is a  Research Mentoring Scheme Mentee Scheme), NSAMR – National Student Association of Medical Research and International Opportunities for Medical Students .

Search #MedTwitter and #AcademicTwitter to keep up to date with ground-breaking research. The memes are pretty good too.

Opportunities are harder to come by on LinkedIn, since fewer medical professionals use this platform. However, you can look at peoples’ resumes as a source of inspiration. This is useful to understand the experiences that they have had in order to get to where they are today. You could always reach out to people and companies/ organisations for more information and advice.

TIP 5: JOIN A PRE-PLANNED RESEARCH PROJECT

Researchers advertise research opportunities on websites and via societies and organisations such as https://www.remarxs.com and http://acamedics.org/Default.aspx . 

TIP 6: JOIN A RESEARCH COLLABORATIVE

Research collaboratives are multiprofessional groups that work towards a common research goal. These projects can result in publications and conference presentations. However, more importantly, this is a chance to establish excellent working relationships with like-minded individuals.

Watch out for opportunities posted on Student Training and Research Collaborative .

Interested in academic surgery? Consider joining StarSurg , BURST Urology , Project Cutting Edge or Academic Surgical Collaborative .

Got a thing for global health? Consider joining Polygeia . 

TIP 7: THE iBSc YEAR: A STEPPING STONE INTO RESEARCH

At UCL you will complete an iBSc in third year. This is often students’ first taste of being involved in research and practicing academic writing – it was for me. The first-ever project that I was involved in was coding data for a systematic review. One of the Clinical Teaching Fellows ended the tutorial by asking if any students would be interested in helping with a research project. I didn’t really know much about research at that point and was curious to learn, so I offered to help. Although no outputs were generated from that project, I gained an understanding of how to conduct a systematic review, why the work that I was contributing to was important, and I learnt a thing or two about neonatal conditions. 

TIP 8: VENTURE INTO ACADEMIC PUBLISHING

One of the best ways to get a flavour of research is to become involved in academic publishing. There are several ways in which you could do this:

Become a peer reviewer. This role involves reading manuscripts (papers) that have been submitted to journals and providing feedback and constructive criticism. Most journals will provide you with training or a guide to follow when you write your review. This will help you develop skills in critical appraisal and how to write an academic paper or poster. Here are a few journals which you can apply to:

• https://thebsdj.cardiffuniversitypress.org
• Journal of the National Student Association of Medical Researchjournal.nsamr.ac.uk
• https://cambridgemedicine.org/about  
• https://www.bmj.com/about-bmj/resources-reviewers  

Join a journal editorial board/ committee. This is a great opportunity to gain insight into how a medical journal is run and learn how to get published. The roles available depend on the journal, from Editor-in-Chief to finance and operations and marketing. I am currently undertaking a Social Media Fellowship at BJGP Open, and I came across the opportunity on Twitter! Here are a few examples of positions to apply for:

• Journal of the National Student Association of Medical Researchjournal.nsamr.ac.uk – various positions in journalism, education and website management
• https://nsamr.ac.uk – apply for a position on the executive committee or as a local ambassador
• Student BMJ Clegg Scholarship
• BJGP Open Fellowships

TIP 9: GAIN EXPERIENCE IN QUALITY IMPROVEMENT

UCL Be the Change is a student-led initiative that allows students to lead and contribute to bespoke QIPs. You will develop these skills further when you conduct QIPs as part of your year 6 GP placement and as a foundation year doctor.

TIP 10: CONSIDER BECOMING A STUDENT REPRESENTATIVE

You’ll gain insight into undergraduate medical education as your role will involve gathering students’ feedback on teaching, identifying areas of curriculum that could be improved and working with the faculty and other student representatives to come up with solutions. 

It may not seem like there are any research opportunities up for grabs, but that’s where lateral thinking comes into play: the discussions that you have with your peers and staff could be a source of inspiration for a potential medical education research project. For example, I identified that, although we have lectures in nutrition science and public health nutrition, there was limited clinically-relevant nutrition teaching on the curriculum. I then conducted a learning needs assessment and contributed to developing the novel Nutrition in General Practice Day course in year 5.

Thanks for reaching the end of this post! I hope my Top 10 Tips are useful. Remember, research experience isn’t essential to become a great doctor, but rather an opportunity to explore a topic of interest further.

One thought on “Top 10 Tips: Getting into Research as a Medical Student”

This article was extremely helpful! Alothough, I’m only a junior in high school I have a few questions. First, is there anyway to prepare myself mentally for this challenging road to becoming a doctor? check our PACIFIC best medical college in Rajasthan

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In this section

• Imperial Home
• Faculty of Medicine
• Departments
• School of Public Health
• Undergraduate
• BSc Global Health

Students research projects

Global Health BSc Students Projects take up 13 weeks of full-time learning (this corresponds to Module 3 – February to May). The Global Health BSc projects provide a unique opportunity for students to develop a strong set of research skills. Projects are an attractive part of the course for many students because they immerse the students in real-life Global Health research context by positioning students within the research teams of what is an active, internationally focused and research-intensive environment.

How do BSc projects work?

We offer a wide range of BSc projects that immerse students in research from around late January through until May of each year – after the taught modules of the course. Some are London-based and focus on primary or secondary analyses of existing datasets. Others involve systematic reviews for public health, with international relevance. We also have projects which involve the use of qualitative methods to address questions in health systems, technology or other relevant fields.

These give students an opportunity to work on a project in collaboration with an overseas institution such as the World Health Organization or Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) or conducting fieldwork abroad in a low-to-middle income country (see examples below). Past projects have included students going to ICDDR-B Bangladesh for projects related to climate change and health.

The allocation process

Around November, we publish a list of Global Health BSc projects with research teams at Imperial College London, sometimes involving external collaborators. Students can apply for their top 6 projects and will be allocated on the basis of their application statement for each of the top 3 (or grades during the BSc year in cases where the Module lead cannot discern between candidates). Students are then matched to projects/supervisors aiming to accommodate everyone’s preferences. Students may also design their own project as ‘independent projects’ (this requires planning in the summer prior to commencing the course and approval by the pathway Director).  We typically offer around 2-4 projects abroad each year. This opportunity has been paused due to COVID-19 restrictions to travel and insurance. Short statements of interest alone are used in the allocation process. The selection process for international projects is the same as for London-based projects.

Examples of past projects

Minimum target prices for production of direct-acting antivirals and associated diagnostics to combat hepatitis C virus . For her BSc project, our alumnus Nikolien Van de Ven worked with our colleagues at the London Headquarters of Médecins Sans Frontières, calculating the minimum possible costs of DAAs treatment and diagnostic tools – these have the potential to reduce a significant proportion of the burden of disease associated with Hepatitis C globally but continue to be produced at prohibitive rates. The project exposed the feasibility of affordable drug production.  Read the full paper .

Ethnic variation in cancer patients' ratings of information provision, communication and overall care . For her BSc project, our alumnus Lorna Trenchard analysed data from the National Cancer Patient Experience Survey and her analysis outlined inequalities in cancer care amongst ethnic groups in the way that patients are given information and experience communication.  Read the full paper .

Sea-level Rise in Bangladesh . In 2015 Zeina Fakhereddin and Jake Levi conducted fieldwork in coastal Bangladesh relating to their respective projects, “Climate change in Bangladesh: implications for health” and “The wider health impacts of climate change related salinization in littoral Bangladesh: An analysis towards a causal social-health framework”, both of which examined the impact of sea-level rise upon health outcomes in the region. During his project Jake also took some footage of his visit in Bangladesh. Since then, he has been to film school in New York, and edited his documentary about climate change  Watch the video .

Can I set up my own BSc project?

Students may set up their own project, but they are required to have an Imperial College London supervisor and the project needs to be approved by course director and lead. Students interested in this need to contact the course coordinator during the summer.

Bangladesh: Dairy farming

Bangladesh: Arable produce

Uganda: Entebbe fisherman using traditional methods

Uganda: Entebbe woman dry curing the fish for food longevity

Find out more

Admissions enquiries Nicole Barnes [email protected] +44 (0)20 8383 1071

General enquiries Beatrix Rozsa [email protected] +44 (0)20 7594 8967

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