Consultations for Medical students - Biometric Consultation
Biometric consultations are available to all MeCuM students. To be able to provide a satisfactory and effective service despite the large number of applications, a few rules - highlighted below - must be followed:
Online Application:
- All applicants must fill out the online application.
What is meant by "Biometric Consultation"?
The IBE is tasked with providing consultations for medical students regarding their doctoral theses. This is available to all medical students at the university hospitals of the LMU. Generally, a medical student only receives consultative support through the institution. It is possible that students are assisted in the calculation of examples, however they remain responsible for the execution of their own work. The staff at the IBE is able to support students by providing guidance regarding statistical methods which includes study design and the statistical analysis and interpretation of results. It is not possible for the personnel to execute the statistical analysis.
A consultation regarding the selection and application of statstical software is available in certain situations. However, since the number of statistical programs has become too large to manage, assistance is only available for the following programs: SAS, SPSS, and R.
Applications to the ethics committee:
The IBE only supports applications for ethical approval for clinical trials where the principal investigator has a direct cooperation with the IBE (proven by a contract). Therefore, the IBE cannot provide consultations on ethical approval applications for doctoral theses. However, non-binding methodological support on biometrical aspects needed for the ethical approval application can be provided without restriction.
Requirements for an effective consultation
The contents and the methodical level of the consultation is based on the needs and wishes of the applicant. However, it is expected for all students to have basic knowledge of biometry as outlined by the mandatory lectures for medical students (such as MeCuM Science Block I1 "Basics!" and „Advanced!“ or the Seminars „Basics of clinical Epidemiology“, „Quantitative Methods in Clinical Epidemiology“ and „Basics of Epidemiology and Healthcare“). We would like to emphasize that the IBE offers voluntary lectures to medical students who have little experience in the application of statistical methods:
SPSS course – year-round 2 meetings per month, for more information and for registration please call: 4400-74480.
We generally recommend that students already make use of the biometric consultation during the planning phase of a study. The conversation with a biometrician often leads to a more precise research question and the optimization of the study design.
How binding is the biometric consultation?
The participation in the biometric consultation program does not guarantee that an optimal study design and analysis has been achieved for the doctoral thesis. First, the consultant can only provide advice on those aspects of the investigation that have been provided to him/her during the consultation. Second, the advice given is based on the statistical knowledge of the applicant and which statistical software is availabe. Third, the consultant has no way of controlling that his/her advice has been correctly implemented. For the reasons stated above, we emphasize that any mention of the institute or the advisory staff member within the dissertation, whether as a thank you or in the form of a coauthorship, requires an explicit approval by the staff member. Since this rule has not always been followed in the past, we now require a consenting signature to this rule within the application form.
What support is available regarding statistical analysis software?
The university computing center (Universitätsrechenzentrum), LRZ, offers introductory courses and consultations regarding IT and computer usage. Additionally, it provides courses and consultations regarding SPSS.
Information regarding the SPSS course can be found on our site under "Study Programs and Education".
The usage of computer labs at the university hospitals is available to students of the faculty of medicine.
Computer access:
Students of the faculty of medicine can use the university computer system (Computer lab K5) at the university hospital in Großhadern. More information here
For more information please contact:
Shirley von Stuckrad
stuckrad@ibe.med.uni-muenchen.de
Phone: 4400-74480