Fast Track Facts:
85% of accepted MD medical school applicants report research experience
The Clinical Scholars Grand Rounds Symposium is a rare opportunity to win a research mentorship!
You know you need research on your application. It matters for BS/MD programs, for medical school, for residency. You believe it’s true. And yet somehow, months go by and you still don't have anything.
Because somewhere along the way, you decided that research is something that happens “later,” after you make connections, at big universities, in the right lab, after spending your summers pipetting things. Or maybe you’ve been cold emailing endlessly and getting nowhere.
But bench work is not all research. That's just a very specific kind of research, and it's not the only kind that matters. In my experience, it's not even the kind that makes you stand out.
The projects that made adcoms stop and say "tell me more" were never the ones that happened in a lab. I say this as someone who has done both. I have genuine wet lab experience, running western blots, mRNA work, p53 pathway signaling, biomarker studies in otolaryngology, microbiome research in head and neck surgery. I know what that work looks like.
I know what it costs in time and energy. And I also know which projects actually came up in every single interview or conversation with a BA/MD dean or residency committee.
Research is the systematic pursuit of a question you find genuinely interesting. That's it. The methodology, the setting, the tools, the data source, those are details. The thing that drives a good project is curiosity. And curiosity doesn't require a lab coat or a faculty sponsor or a grant.
The barrier you've built in your head isn't real. Let me show you what I mean.
Here are four actual published projects from my own career. Not hypotheticals. Projects I worked on, that were accepted for publication, that won awards, that came up in every meaningful professional conversation I've had.
Read these and let them inspire you to come up with your own projects, and then reply to this email and I’ll tell you what you can do to make your projects a reality!
Four Projects. Zero Pipettes.
Project 1
An Analysis of Otolaryngology in Avicenna's Canon of Medicine — Using the Original Arabic Text
I love history. I am a native Arabic speaker. I used both of those things — assets that were just part of who I already was — to analyze a 1,000-year-old medical text in its original language and examine what it said about ear, nose, and throat medicine. This project was accepted for manuscript publication. It also won a $5,000 award at the national otolaryngology academy conference.
→ Your identity, your language, your passions are research assets. What "unfair advantage" are you sitting on right now?
Project 2
TikTok Tracheostomy Video Analysis: Quality, Credibility, and Readability
I watched TikTok videos. Systematically. I analyzed the medical content patients were consuming about tracheostomies — how accurate it was, how credible the sources were, how readable the information was for a general audience. That's the whole project. It generated insights that mattered clinically and it got published. The data source was an app on my phone.
→ Where are your patients getting their medical information right now? What does a systematic analysis of that space look like?
Project 3
Continuation of Telemedicine in Otolaryngology Post-COVID-19
This one was done entirely virtually. No lab, no clinic, no in-person anything — because most labs were closed during the pandemic. I identified a hot-button topic in medicine, gathered data remotely, and produced research during a time when everyone else was waiting for things to reopen. The work was relevant, timely, and completely independent of physical infrastructure.
→ Today's equivalent of telemedicine-during-COVID is AI in medicine. What question about AI and clinical care can you answer from your laptop?
Project 4
Implementing Social Media in Otolaryngology: Effects on Program Interest at Our Institution
We created an Instagram account for our residency program. Then we tracked the data from the Insights tab — reach, follower demographics, engagement rates, the effect on program inquiries. Instagram became the data source for a legitimate academic study. Social media is a repository of untapped clinical and behavioral data. Most people scroll it. A researcher measures it.
→ What platform are you already on? What data lives inside it that nobody has thought to analyze through a medical lens?
If you spend years at a prestigious lab doing work that feels like a grind, barely engaged, barely contributing, walking away with a poster presentation with your name buried amongst a list of other names — was it worth it? Was it worth the opportunity cost of everything else you could have been doing?
Compare that to a student who identified something they were genuinely curious about, designed a simple study around it, and produced work that they could talk about in an interview for twenty minutes without running out of things to say.
That student wins. Every time.
A mediocre lab experience on an impressive letterhead is not better than a genuinely interesting project you actually cared about.
Admissions committees and residency committees can tell the difference. They've sat through hundreds of interviews. They know when someone is reciting a lab experience they were barely present for versus when someone is talking about work that lit them up.
The goal is to be the second person.
Build Your Own Research Pathway - The Clinical Scholars Grand Rounds Symposium exists because of this exact problem. I built it for students who are serious about their applications but stuck, either paralyzed by the myth that research is inaccessible, or grinding through experiences that don't reflect who they actually are.
One of the most valuable things that happens inside the Symposium is the chance to work with our physician panelists, practicing doctors and surgeons across different specialties, who can help you identify a research angle that fits your specific interests, your background, and your available resources. Not a generic research pathway.
Your own.
The grand prize for our top presenter is physician research mentorship: from project design through to a submission-ready abstract. A real publication pathway. Guided by someone who has done this.
That's not a participation trophy. That's an accelerant.
If you have been waiting for an opportunity to enter research, this is it.
— Dr. Samarrai
PS: Spots are capped by cohort size. If you're serious about this, apply for free today. The first ten applicants receive Fast Track Foundations regardless of acceptance outcome, and we are almost at capacity for that offer. Don't wait.
Accepting my $5,000 award for my research project: An Analysis of Otolaryngology in Avicenna's Canon of Medicine: Using the Original Arabic Text
This is a five-week program with the goal of guiding each student to build and present their own Clinical Grand Rounds Presentation.
For the first four weeks, students work through online modules designed by myself and other physicians to teach clinical thinking: how to analyze real patient cases, build a differential diagnosis, structure a treatment plan, and defend it with the literature. Each week a new module drops to guide them through the next section of their Grand Rounds presentation.
By the end of week four, every student has a complete, physician-informed Grand Rounds presentation.
Then they present it live. To an actual panel of physicians and surgeons, in a virtual Grand Rounds session.
The panel evaluates every presentation and delivers live verbal feedback and written commentary on their clinical reasoning and communication.
Every student who completes the program receives a certificate of six clinical hours, all remote and virtual, as well as the opportunity to request a letter of recommendation from the panelists based on how they performed.
The Grand Prize: The student who delivers the strongest presentation is selected for a direct physician research mentorship with one of the panelists, culminating in a submission-ready abstract.
Application and tuition
Applying is free. Spots are extremely limited so each student has the full time to present.
The first ten students to apply, whether selected or not, will receive free enrollment in Fast Track Foundations (normally worth $44.99).
This is an experience I wish had existed when I was building my own application.
Real clinical experience. Real physician feedback. A research opportunity that doesn't require a wet lab or a connection. A certificate for your CV that was earned from work in front of physicians who were actually evaluating you.
The application is free, but spots are limited. Apply today!