The Virtual Research Lab is an online platform that aims to bring students, professors and the public together through medical research. The student mentorship programme is a part of this platform that will allow students to get involved with current projects and gain valuable knowledge and experience regarding the world of medical research. Many students are currently undertaking research projects which require research design, data collection, statistical analysis, etc. We hope that the student mentorship programme will allow students with projects (mentors) to get help with carrying out the research process, whilst also giving junior students (mentees) the opportunity to learn from hands-on experience and experience sharing sessions from their mentors.
Current research projects are divided into three categories: basic sciences, public health and clinical. The Virtual Research Lab website lists all available projects for mentees. Interested students will be able to browse through the different projects available and see what kind of experience each project can offer them, whether that be data collection, analysis or simply experience sharing by mentors. Different project mentors will also require varying levels of commitment from their mentees, and this will be taken into account in the process of allocating mentees to mentors. An online application form is available for all interested students, and we will do our best to match as many students as possible to a suitable mentor.