The Research Journey: What You Will Learn in 120 Days

The Question Nobody Else Would Ask
It was the fifth session of The Research Clinic, and I could see the anxiety building.
Four sessions in, the team had heard why research matters, watched Dr. Junaid’s promotion rejection become a cautionary tale, navigated the maze of HEC and PMDC regulations, and witnessed how Sumaira’s midnight PubMed search saved a patient’s life in ICU Ward 3. They were motivated. They were inspired. And they were terrified.
I could read it on their faces. Dr. Hammad Ali was fidgeting with his pen. Dr. Hassan Raza had his arms crossed the posture he adopts when he feels out of his depth. Even Dr. Bushra Fatima, who never shows vulnerability, was unusually quiet.
The unspoken question hung in the room like humidity before a Lahore monsoon: How on earth are we actually going to do this?
It was Dr. Zunaira Malik who finally said it out loud. From her usual spot in the back row, in a voice barely above a whisper, she asked: “Sir, I have zero research experience. Zero. I have never collected data, never used SPSS, never written a single line of a research paper. Can someone like me really learn all of this?”
The room went silent. Not because it was a strange question, but because every single person in that room was thinking the same thing and lacked the courage to say it.
Dr. Yaqoob smiled. Because this was exactly the question I had been waiting for.
“Zunaira,” I said, “research is not rocket science; it is a skill, and skills can be taught. And today, I am going to show you exactly how we will teach it. Step by step. Day by day. For 120 days.”
He picked up a marker, walked to the whiteboard, and drew a road. A long road, with milestones marked along it. By the time he finished, the anxiety in the room had transformed into something far more useful: a plan.

The 120-Day Roadmap: From Zero to Published
What Dr. Yaqoob drew on that whiteboard is the same roadmap I am sharing with you today. This is the complete research journey that the medical research course in Pakistan has needed to be broken into twelve stages. Each stage builds on the one before it. By the end, you will have the knowledge and the practical skills to conduct, write, and publish a research paper in a recognized journal.
Let me walk you through the entire journey, the same way I walked the team through it that morning.
Stage 1: Why Research? Why Now?
This is where we are right now. The first ten days are about building your foundation, not with technical skills, but with motivation and understanding. You need to know why research matters, what the regulatory bodies expect, how evidence-based medicine works, and what tools you will need. Think of it as the orientation week before medical school begins.
Dr. Junaid interrupted here: “We have already covered most of this. When do we start the real work?”
“This is the real work, Junaid sahib,” I said. “Every researcher I have seen fail did not fail because they could not run an SPSS test. They failed because they did not understand why they were doing research in the first place. Motivation is the engine. Without it, the car does not move.”
Stage 2: Finding Your Research Question
This is where most Pakistani doctors get stuck. They think a research topic needs to be revolutionary. It does not. It needs to be focused, feasible, and relevant. In this stage, you will learn how to choose a topic from your own clinical observations, how to search the literature systematically using PubMed and Google Scholar, and how to formulate a precise research question using the PICO framework.
“You will also learn something that saves months of wasted effort: how to identify a research gap. If your study has already been done exactly the same way, in the same population, with the same results, no journal will publish it. But if you can show what is missing from the existing literature, you have your justification.”
Hammad looked worried. “Sir, I wanted to do my research on diabetes. But everyone researches diabetes.”
“Diabetes is a vast field,” I told him. “The question is not whether to research diabetes. The question is which specific aspect, in which specific population, using which specific method, has not been adequately studied. That’s your gap.”
Stage 3: Study Design and Methodology
Now we enter the architecture phase. You will learn the major study designs: cross-sectional, case-control, cohort, RCTs, qualitative, and mixed methods, and how to choose the right one for your question. You will learn sampling techniques, how to calculate your sample size (no, you cannot just pick 100 because it is a round number, Hammad learned this the hard way), and how to define your inclusion and exclusion criteria.
This stage also covers data collection tools: questionnaires, proformas, validated scales, and pilot testing. By the end, you will have a complete study blueprint and a methodology section that could withstand peer review.
Hassan perked up: “Sir, can you just give us a template for each design? I will fill in the blanks.”
“I will give you templates, Hassan. But if you fill them in without understanding why each section exists, your proposal will collapse at the first reviewer’s question. Templates are scaffolding, not the building.”
Stage 4: Writing the Research Proposal
This is where everything comes together on paper for the first time. You will learn to write a complete research proposal for your research, CPSP synopsis, or MD, MS, MDS, or M.Phil degree synopsis. Every section: introduction, literature review, methodology, timeline, budget, rationale, etc. You will also prepare for your synopsis defense the questions supervisors ask, the mistakes that get proposals rejected, and how to respond to committee feedback without losing your mind. Sumaira was already taking notes furiously at this point, planning her next research timeline.
Stage 5: Ethics and Approvals
“Every study involving human subjects needs ethical clearance. No exceptions.” I saw Hammad open his mouth. “Yes, Hammad, even questionnaire studies.” He closed his mouth.
This stage covers the Helsinki Declaration, IRB/ERC approval processes in Pakistan, informed consent (including Urdu templates), plagiarism prevention, data privacy, and the ethical use of AI in research. These are not bureaucratic hurdles. They are the moral foundation of everything we do.
Stage 6: Data Collection and Management
Proposal approved. Ethics cleared. Now you enter the field. This stage teaches you practical skills in data collection: designing proformas, using Google Forms for digital data collection, training data collectors, entering data in Excel, cleaning data, handling missing values, and coding variables for SPSS.
I told the team, “This is the phase where most studies die quietly. Not because the methodology was wrong, but because the data was messy, incomplete, or lost. I know a colleague who lost six months of data when his laptop was stolen. No backup. The study was abandoned.”
The room collectively decided to learn about backups.
Stage 7: Data Analysis
The stage that terrifies most doctors. Statistics. But here is what I told the team, and what I am telling you: you do not need to become a statistician. You need to learn enough biostatistics to understand what test to use, how to run it in SPSS, and how to interpret the results.
We will cover descriptive statistics, chi-square tests, t-tests, ANOVA, Mann-Whitney, correlation, regression, logistic regression, survival analysis, and diagnostic accuracy, all with step-by-step SPSS tutorials and real Pakistani clinical examples. Every test will be taught in the context of actual research questions.
Sumaira, who had been dreading this stage, asked: “Sir, what if I still do not understand after reading the post?”
“Then you read it again. Then you practise with the sample dataset. Then WhatsApp me. Research is not rocket science; it is a skill, and skills can be taught. Statistics is just a skill within a skill.”
Stage 8: Writing the Research Paper
Data analysed. Results ready. Now you write. This stage covers the complete IMRAD format: Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion. You will learn how to write a title that attracts readers, an abstract that gets your paper noticed, a results section with properly formatted tables and figures, and a discussion that places your findings in context.
We will also cover the parts nobody teaches: writing a compelling cover letter to the journal editor, preparing your manuscript for submission, and the pre-submission checklist that catches errors before reviewers do.
Stage 9: Publication Strategy
Where you publish matters as much as what you publish. This stage teaches you how to choose the right journal (targeting HEC W and X category journals), understand the peer-review process, respond to reviewer comments, handle rejection, and navigate open-access publishing, including how to get fee waivers.
You will also learn about authorship ethics (the ICMJE criteria that Pakistan desperately needs to follow), building your academic profile on ORCID, ResearchGate, and Google Scholar, and the metrics that matter for your career.
Bushra asked quietly, “Sir, what about the papers I published in predatory journals before? Can I fix that?”
“You cannot erase the past, Bushra. But you can build a future so strong that those early mistakes become a footnote. That is what this journey is about.”
Stages 10–12: Advanced Formats and Your Research Career
The final days cover case reports and case series (accessible formats for beginners), systematic reviews and meta-analyses (the pinnacle of evidence-based research), and finally, a look at your long-term research career, how to build a publication pipeline, seek collaborations, and think of research as a lifelong practice rather than a one-time project.

Setting Realistic Expectations
Before anyone walked out of that session with unrealistic dreams, Dr. Yaqoob addressed the elephant in the room.
“This medical research course will not make you a research expert in 120 days. It will make you a competent researcher. There is a difference. An expert has years of practice. A competent researcher has the knowledge, the skills, and the confidence to conduct a study, write a paper, and submit it to a journal. That is what we are building here.”
I set three expectations that apply to everyone following this series:
Expectation 1: Consistency Over Intensity: You do not need to spend three hours a day on this. Fifteen to twenty minutes of focused reading, daily, is enough. Each post is designed to be read during a chai break or a quiet moment between ward rounds. But you must show up every day. Research is a marathon, not a sprint.
Expectation 2: Application Over Memorization: Do not just read the posts. Apply them. When we cover the PICO framework, write your own PICO question. When we cover SPSS, open the software and practise. When we cover proposal writing, start drafting yours. Knowledge without application is like a prescription that is never dispensed it helps no one.
Expectation 3: Asking Questions Is Not a Weakness: Zunaira’s “basic” question today, “Can someone with zero experience learn this?” was the most important question anyone has asked in five sessions. If you do not understand something, ask. The only bad question in research is the one you were too afraid to ask, because that unasked question becomes the mistake you make six months later.
Dr. Junaid, who had been listening with uncharacteristic patience, spoke up: “I have fifteen years of clinical experience but zero years of research experience. Where does that put me on this roadmap?”
“It puts you at an advantage, Junaid sahib,” I said. “You have fifteen years of clinical observations stored in your head. Every patient you have seen, every treatment pattern, every outcome you have noticed, those are all potential research questions. The juniors need to develop clinical insight. You already have it. We just need to give you the tools to convert it into publishable research.”
Something changed in Dr. Junaid’s expression that day. It was no longer cautious hope; it was determination. He pulled out a fresh notebook and wrote the date at the top.

Where Each of Them Stands Today
Before we moved forward, I asked each team member to share where they were and what they hoped to achieve. Their answers paint a picture of the diversity of Pakistani doctors entering the research world:
Dr. Sumaira Talib (FCPS Surgery, PGR Year 2): “I need to submit my CPSP synopsis within four months. I want to design a study good enough to publish, not just pass.”
Dr. Junaid Rashid (Associate Professor, Internal Medicine): “I need five more publications for my promotion application. I want to publish from my own clinical data for the first time.”
Dr. Hammad Ali (Fresh PGR, General Surgery Year 1): “I want to understand the basics. Everything. From scratch. And maybe not embarrass myself again.” The room laughed. Hammad laughed too. Growth.
Dr. Hassan Raza (MS Orthopedics, UHS): “I want the shortest path to a published paper.” I raised an eyebrow. “Fine,” he amended. “The shortest legitimate path to a published paper.”
Dr. Zunaira Malik (BDS, MPhil Oral Pathology): “I want to stop being afraid of research. I want to understand it well enough to help my students someday.”
Dr. Bushra Fatima (Senior Registrar, Gynecology): “I want a legitimate publication in a W or X category journal. One real paper that I can be proud of.”
Every goal was valid. Every starting point was different. But the roadmap was the same for all of them, and it is the same for you.