Whether you’re a first-year medical student or a seasoned physician scholar, every research project begins the same way: with a good question. It doesn’t have to be groundbreaking or polished, but the first spark of inspiration is what transforms an idea into a project and a project into something worth sharing.
At the 2025 AMA Poster Showcase, more than 250 medical students from across the country presented research posters on a wide array of topics. Each poster marked an endpoint, the final product. Before data collection and design, each project started with a research question.
Four medical students who presented posters at the showcase, which took place during the 2025 AMA Annual Meeting in Chicago last month, offered their advice for forming a question worth investigating.
Your experiences can offer ideas
Research that draws eyes doesn’t necessarily require a microscope. When formulating the research question that eventually resulted in the poster he presented at the event, Aaron Kiel, looked at areas of medical education that were impacting his life.
His research examined a major trend reshaping medical student life: the impact of the United States Medical Licensing Exam (USMLE) Step 1 going pass-fail on how students allocate their time.
“I thought it was something that was really impacting a lot of people around me,” said Kiel, an AMA member who attends medical school in Connecticut. “It was something people liked to talk about, but we didn’t have a set answer to it.”
He noticed that more of his peers were prioritizing research deliverables over volunteering, and he decided to quantify the shift using data from the Association of American Medical Colleges.
Similarly, Bayan Galal’s project evaluating the efficacy of AI at generating Step-1 style questions came from her interest in medical education—and from classmates constantly asking how to get more high-quality practice material.
This idea “stemmed from seeing how students were oftentimes looking for additional resources they could use to test their understanding and assess their preparation levels for upcoming exams” said Galal, an AMA member who attends medical school in Pennsylvania.
For medical students looking to gain insight on the research process and the work their peers are doing, the 2025 AMA Research Challenge, held virtually, offers medical students, residents, fellows and international medical graduates the opportunity to showcase their scholarly pursuits in front of some of the brightest minds in medicine. The AMA Research Challenge is the largest national, multispecialty research event for medical students and residents, with a $10,000 grand prize presented by Laurel Road, and the abstract-submission deadline is July 16.
Dive deeper:
- Poster presentation 101: Make your work stand out at a conference
- What you need to know to ace a poster abstract
- 1st-time poster presenters offer tips on medical student research
- Four tips for medical students to get their start as researchers
What’s happening locally?
AMA member William Ho—a medical student attending medical school in Utah—said his research question was inspired by what was happening in his home state.
“Opioid addiction is a problem everywhere,” he said. “But specifically in Utah, it’s a particular problem.”
Ho’s research examined how existing treatment gaps for opioid-use disorder might be addressed through computational modeling and early-stage drug-discovery tools.
“Identifying a problem that exists in your community and seeing what’s out there in the ether—and what is being done currently to solve the problem—that’s the first step,” he said.
Channel your unique expertise
As a medical student, don’t underestimate your own experiences. Whether it’s in research, education, public health, or tech, your premed background might be the very thing that sets your project apart. Ho’s background working in drug discovery in his premedical school career gave him more insight on the process, and from that he saw an opportunity.
“I was able to bring in some machine-learning workflows to try to solve a problem that I saw presently in my community,” he said.
The AMA Succeeding in Medical School series offers tips and other guidance on a wide range of critical topics, including preparing for the USMLE and COMLEX exams, navigating clinical rotations, pursuing medical student research opportunities, and maintaining optimal health and wellness.
Dive deeper:
- Five reasons to showcase your work in the AMA Research Challenge
- How to get published in medical school and boost your CV
- To publish research in medical school, avoid these 4 mistakes
- Medical student research FAQ: Get started, showcase your work
Make your own luck
Krushi Bhaswith Suresh, a second-year medical student attending medical school in Washington, D.C., found his inspiration during first-year shadowing at his medical school-affiliated hospital’s sickle cell center when an attending invited him to follow along for the day. What started as passive observation became an active pursuit.
“This is my third poster that came about in the same way—just kind of whenever I see something interesting, talking to attendings about it, telling them why I found that particularly interesting,” said Suresh, an AMA member. “From there, they can help me get started on the research.”
When it comes to getting exposure to cases that can spark inspiration, Suresh said it’s important to put yourself in the right position.
“You have to make your own luck to some extent,” he said. “Try to get yourself into those situations.”
“Our sickle cell center is one of the biggest ones in the area, so I knew that's probably where I'd find some cool, interesting cases, and that's where I tried to spend a lot of my time.”
For medical students looking to hone their research skills, the AMA offers resources and programs that bring you from the basics all the way to the AMA Research Challenge.
