When she entered medical school, Addison Shenk, DO, wasn’t looking to build a career centered on scholarly pursuits, nor was she concerned with stacking up publications to strengthen her eventual residency application. Instead, she was determined to let her genuine interests and passions guide her journey toward becoming a physician. If research became part of that journey, she would welcome it.
Now, as a medical school graduate and incoming anesthesiology resident, Dr. Shenk can also call herself an award-winning researcher. The project she championed, which sought to improve how medical students differentiate between opioid and nonopioid overdoses, earned the top prize at the 2025 AMA Research Challenge—standing out from an initial field of more than 1,400 submissions.
Reflecting on her scholarly success, Dr. Shenk offered these tips for medical students hoping to make their own mark in research. Here are some of her standout lessons and advice to help guide the way.
Experience isn’t required
Dr. Shenk entered medical school with a limited research background, having worked on a single lab-based project she conducted with a college professor. She classified her first-year medical student research skills as “somewhere between beginner and average.”
A lack of prior experience wasn’t a dealbreaker for her as she sought research opportunities early in her medical school career. Eventually, as she looked to add students to assist on her opioid-overdose project, she didn’t emphasize prior pursuits.
“We just wanted people passionate about our topic,” said Dr. Shenk, an AMA member. “If they had no other experience but they were really interested in our work, that stood out. Those are the people we wanted.”
Abstract submissions for the 2026 AMA Research Challenge—the largest national, multispecialty research event for medical students, residents, fellows and IMGs—are due July 16. Held virtually, the event offers trainees the opportunity to showcase their work on a national stage and compete for a $10,000 grand prize, presented by KeyBank.
Opportunity is abundant
Dr. Shenk entered medical school thinking she’d have to look diligently to find research opportunities. The reality, she said, was almost the exact opposite.
“We would get an email every other week about a professor looking for somebody to be on this research project,” she said.
Once medical students have made contact and are in pursuit of a project, Dr. Shenk advised that you approach the opportunity with enthusiasm and a willingness to “say yes.”
There’s no shame in switching
As a fourth-year medical student, Dr. Shenk won the Research Challenge and a $10,000 award for her project, “Hands-On Naloxone Training: Advancing Curriculum and Assessment Through Simulated Manikins Learning” (PDF), but her path to that work was hardly linear.
After joining a research project during her first year in medical school, it became clear that that particular research wasn’t for her.
“It’s OK to move on from a project,” she said. While working on that first research project, Dr. Shenk “felt like I was going through the motions, doing research just to have it on my CV.”
When she switched onto the opioid-overdose research, her level of interest totally flipped.
“I felt a complete difference,” she said. “I felt like I was taking more control over it. I had more autonomy with it. And wanted to keep working on it, rather than having to get a check mark on my CV.”
Run with an idea
Dr. Shenk’s research project took off when she joined her school’s overdose-prevention task force. The seed for the work grew from a conversation with an older medical student who was departing the task force. That student suggested that it might be worth examining the school’s training for first-year medical students on using the opioid-overdose reversal medication naloxone (marketed under the brand name Narcan, among others).
Shenk and a team of students took that initial concept and ran with it, eventually adding a simulation component to the existing medical student naloxone training.
“When other task force members were going to take a step back because of [core clerkship rotations] they asked us if we had interests in this idea,” she said. “They had done a lot of brainstorming so there was a good starting point, and it was really interesting.”
It’s important for medical students to know “how to use Narcan effectively, how to treat somebody when they are going through an overdose, and the best way to train people on those” topics.
She added that “it’s an incredibly important and relevant topic given the state of the world right now.”
Passion matters most
As noted in the “2025 AMA Report on Substance Use and Treatment: Progress, Policy and Future Directions” (PDF), about 75,000 Americans are dying annually of overdoses—predominantly from potent, illegally made fentanyl. For Dr. Shenk, her work had meaning on a personal level.
“I unfortunately had a friend who suffered from addiction in college, and I had witnessed an overdose, so it was something that really affected my life, that affected my early college years,” she said.
Without that passion and personal motivation, she doubts the project would have gone very far. Her advice to medical students is—when evaluating each research project, and really any opportunity—to let your interest be your guide.
“As a medical student, you have to value your time and pick and choose what you do,” she said. “When opportunities come up that play into your personal passions, you have to take them by the horns. You can find the time to do the things you love.”
