Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community  

Go Back   Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community > The Academy > Tilted Knowledge and How-To


 
 
LinkBack Thread Tools
Old 04-17-2005, 08:21 PM   #1 (permalink)
Go Cardinals
 
soccerchamp76's Avatar
 
Location: St. Louis/Cincinnati
MD/PhD

I have a lot of time to decide about this, but I have an interest in being a doctor. Recently, however, I decided that biomedical research would be interesting and many med schools have M.D./Ph.D. programs. However, the program usually lasts 7 years. The main question I have to ask is, are the benefits there for adding the addition doctorate degree?
__________________
Brian Griffin: Ah, if my memory serves me, this is the physics department.
Chris Griffin: That would explain all the gravity.
soccerchamp76 is offline  
Old 04-26-2005, 06:40 PM   #2 (permalink)
Tilted
 
Location: Two skips to the left
That's a good question, and the exact same one I had back when I was getting ready to graduate from college. I think you have to try to decide what you want to do with your career. Would you like to spend your career in academic medicine or would you like to go into private practice? It's tough to figure all that out until you've had some exposure to academic medicine. Back when I was graduating from college in the mid '90's, I was stuck with the same decision that you are facing. Molecular biology was just starting to explode and I had really enjoyed some independent research that I did as an undergrad. I decided to take a couple of years off before going to medical school to "try out" research. After 5 years of research, I finally decided to go back and get that medical degree. What I've found so far in my young medical career, is that a PhD is not entirely necessary to stay within academic medicine and do research. I do say that with some reservations though. You have to try to incorporate as much research as you can into your undergrad and med school years. That's pretty hard to do. The years in med school are pretty tough; there isn't much time for outside activities like research. The final opportunity to do research without doing a PhD is during residency. If you don't do a PhD and want to do research in you should try to go to a residency program that is steeped in academic medicine and research. In my residency program, at a rather well known program in beautiful Baltimore, MD, I'd estimate that about 1/3 of my colleagues have a PhD. There are still plenty of opportunities for the rest of us to do research.

In some ways, I think there are some downsides to having a PhD in medicine. At least in my institution, the MD-PhD folks often get pigeon holed into non-clinical areas. So if you still want to see patients, it is often difficult to do so.

This is a topic I could talk about for quite a long time (I guess I already have). The above represents my thoughts, as someone who opted against getting a PhD.
alpo is offline  
Old 04-27-2005, 06:27 PM   #3 (permalink)
Crazy
 
School is a lot better than work. And in grad school with a RA/TA position you get a free ride.
BAMF is offline  
Old 04-27-2005, 09:53 PM   #4 (permalink)
Détente
 
Bossnass's Avatar
 
Location: AWOL in Edmonton
How long do you want to stay in school?

A Ph.D, at least a med-lab research based one, is a 4-5 year commitment. Most medical undergrads require four years, then add 2-7 in residency. From my local understanding (I'm soon to marry a med student who very seriously considered the MD-Ph.D route), doing research doesn't take away from any of the other requirements.

So you're looking at probably 4 years of your first degree, unless you are exceptional and get in sooner. Best case scenario, if you work hard from day one, you can get both the MD and the Ph.D in 6 years. I would guess that 7-8 or 9 is more accurate. Then you still have some residency to complete, and my understanding of the time requirements for a thesis writing researcher and a resident are greater then 24 hours per day.

Of course, what is an extra couple years in the big picture?
Bossnass is offline  
Old 04-28-2005, 04:20 PM   #5 (permalink)
Go Cardinals
 
soccerchamp76's Avatar
 
Location: St. Louis/Cincinnati
Well, usually, you would not do the residency if you go to the MD/PhD route because of the research aspect. If you want to practice with a PhD, then yes, you would.
__________________
Brian Griffin: Ah, if my memory serves me, this is the physics department.
Chris Griffin: That would explain all the gravity.
soccerchamp76 is offline  
Old 04-30-2005, 09:19 AM   #6 (permalink)
Insane
 
It also depends on what kind of research you want to do. When you say biomedical, there's really two kinds:

1) Clinical research, which is all about statistical correlations between sicknesses, lifestyle things, medicines, etc. Stuff like taking statistics on how much of a new drug will cause side effects, or correlating obesity and diabetes. Note I said correlating, and in my probably biased opinion (but someone back me up if they agree), you're just doing correlations, and as we all (should) know, correlation doesn't mean correlation

2) Basic science or engineering research, where you actually go look at the molecular mechanisms that cause disease, or if you are into biomedical engineering type stuff, then inventing new drug delivery systems, or biomedical machinery, diagnostics, etc.

That said, the PhD really would only help if you're interested in basic science or engineering research. You can do clinical research as an MD. There are of course MD's who do basic science research, but I'd say that's the exception, not the rule.
Amano is offline  
Old 04-30-2005, 03:13 PM   #7 (permalink)
Junkie
 
eribrav's Avatar
 
Location: upstate NY
Let me sum it up for you:

Waste. Of. Time.

Decide now if you really want to be a laboratory researcher. If you do then go get a PhD and forget the MD.

If not then just go to medical school. You can still do plenty of clinical research with your MD, while you continue to see patients and earn a living. Trust me, because that's the situation I'm in now.

You really, really don't want to add on more years of training than you have to. It turns out life really IS better when you have a paying job and don't work like a dog like you will in residency/fellowship etc. You're already going to be watching your Computer Sci/Engineering etc. friends going out and earning a great living while you slave away at school on meager loans, without financial security. Don't add more years of servitude to the already long uphill road you're facing
eribrav is offline  
Old 05-01-2005, 08:33 PM   #8 (permalink)
Enhanced With Psychotrophics
 
Location: Snakepit
Agree with Eribrav. If you are going to research, then get a PH. D. The extra letters arent worth the extra years for doing research. If you are going to practice....the extra letters might be equivalent to the time it takes top pay off student loans. Finish as quickly as possible and get on with your life, I loved being a student, but I loved finishing my education also. Interestingly enough, my experience was that the double degrees didnt enhance careers as much as you would expect.
__________________
"When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That's relativity. - Albert Einstein
Snakedance is offline  
 

Tags
md or phd

Thread Tools

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are On
Pingbacks are On
Refbacks are On



All times are GMT -8. The time now is 11:45 PM.

Tilted Forum Project

Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.7
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.
Search Engine Optimization by vBSEO 3.6.0 PL2
© 2002-2012 Tilted Forum Project

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360