PhD students: making research and publishing

PhD student time is very interesting in the life of researchers. Many of them are young graduates, without or with very few experience in the field of scientific research. During four years, they must become experts in a narrow field (virtually, the subject of their PhD thesis), but at the same time they have to be trained for research and for publishing. Is it possible? It is mandatory! PhD students start with a one year training in the basic field of research during which they attend different courses regarding how to search the literature, how to perform research, how to perform statistical analysis, how to prepare a paper, where and how to publish and so on. Following this training year, together with their mentor (the coordinator of the PhD thesis), the PhD student starts working on the thesis. And this means reading as much as possible significant published data regarding his/her subject, proper research (basic, experimental, or clinical), and finally preparing papers for publication (in the beginning as abstracts for different meetings and later as original articles in dedicated journals).Participation of PhD students to different meetings is important to improve the quality of their research as an exercise for oral presentations. On the other hand, oral presentation is useful because the paper is open for discussion and corrections can be made during and after the oral presentation. During last ten years, there were organized conferences for PhD students and young doctors, particularly in Târgu Mureș and Timișoara. It was a good opportunity to show results, to discuss and to cooperate.This is why in December 2016, the Doctoral School of Victor Babes University of Medicine and Pharmacy decided to organize a scientific competition between PhD students, in an interesting scientific session. The top 10 PhD students (according to the cumulative Impact Factor of their first author publications) were invited to present their scientific research in a 12 minutes oral presentation followed by discussions, in an open scientific session. Also, the other PhD students were invited to send abstracts for a poster session. The best papers from both oral and poster sessions were rewarded with consistent prizes. This supplement of Research and Clinical Medicine journal is the result of the PhD poster scientific session. It is in the intention of the Doctoral School to follow very closely the scientific results (published papers) of our PhD students, and the best publications will be rewarded. The abstracts published in this supplement can be read and discussed by the other PhD students, by the Academic society and maybe followed by interesting suggestions for the authors. It is our intention to continue to organize such scientific meeting and to transform them from events to a tradition.