DVM to PhD or MD/PhD (Repost from "What are My Chances" board)

[vetgirl3493]

I hope duplicate posts aren't against the rules, I wasn't sure where my questions fit in.

I've looked around and can't find a situation exactly like mine, so I thought it was worth a new thread. Please forgive my verbosity but I thought I would be as complete as possible in my introduction so questions I'm asking to be answered could have a decent "history"

Ed Summary:
BS in biology/English SCL 1998, DVM MCL 2004, BS in psychology SCL 2008

Research Experience:
Cornell Leadership Program in Vet Medicine 2001 - Animal Behavior
Summer research 2002 in cardiology and neurology at Auburn CVM
Toxicology research elective during clinicals in vet school
Only publication is an abstract I generated from (what I thought was just a silly little) midterm project on heartworm disease epidemiology for a basic statics class during my last bachelor's.

Work Experience:
Full time vet with emergency call at 1st clinic for 2 years after DVM
Back to school for psych training and working part time at 2nd clinic, now full time there.
Taught psychology as an adjunct professor in 2007. With no prior teaching experience I stepped in and handled 4 sections of introductory psychology and around 400 students.

Cool Stuff About Me:
I became a Mensa member at 13 and I appeared on Jeopardy in 2001. I practice MMA (mostly jujitsu and thai boxing), play guitar/piano/Irish tin whistle.

GOALS AND ADVICE NEEDED SECTION
I am unhappy in private practice in veterinary medicine. I always wanted to be a researcher/educator (hence my research experience during vet school). I applied to a neuroscience program the year after veterinary school and was rejected, so I resigned myself to private practice.

Issues: In addition to the typical vet life complaints I feel like as as thinker/researcher I am not being utilized to my capacity in practice. The only parts I enjoy are the client education and counseling and the research behind the difficult cases. Plus I'm in a work environment that downplays those aspects. I'm having difficulty in surgery (3 reasons - our lights are pitiful, I don't have enough hands to properly handle the tissue and I get panicked about intraabdominal bleeding that I can't visualize through this damn tiny incision I'm dragging organs up through). I despise being on call (not at current job but most others) and having to be the receptionist, technician, doctor and cashier all in the middle of the night. Plus I've been bitten three times in 2 weeks and caught scabies 5 times in the last 2 months. I'd like to be able to formulate a diagnostic and treatment plan for the mysteriously ADR 14 year old cat that doesn't revolve around a $50 budget.

Here's the part that sounds exaggerated and egotistical but it's relevant and I swear I speak the truth. The students I taught in psychology said I was the best teacher they ever had - I received amazingly high accolades from my sections and was begged to stay and teach more, thought I could not without more training. I worked more hours and wore myself out far more than I ever had as a vet but I was nothing but pumped and half-manic I was so happy doing it. On the veterinary side, almost all clients that I service and all the technicians and support staff I've worked with say I'm the best diagnostician and most enthusiastic caring vet they've ever met. BUT I'M NOT HAPPY as a vet . . . it doesn't matter how good I am at it.

I want to teach and research and learn for the rest of my life. I want to spread knowledge like Typhoid Mary. I would be happy doing research in a variety of areas, but my real issue is that I would like to be able to take a broader view of whatever it is I study. I like studying patterns of disease /epidemiology (but not the dirty details of genetics, molecular stuff, bacteriology or virology). I like behavior, especially the study of behavior of groups. Of animals, people, intraspecies, all of it. Normal behavior and abnormal behavior interests me, but I don't want to treat animals or people in private practice full time.

I am having difficulty deciding what program and what degree will get me to where I want to be (faculty member at a university doing research that is NOT limited to vet med). I spoke with a very nice director of a program at an Ivy League institution who said I might be an excellent candidate for their MD/PhD program if I took a neuroscience or imaging approach to the PhD part. I have looked at some clinical psychology programs that I like, but the pairing of DVM and human psych PhD just seems weird and incomplete without the MD. Same with the social psychology programs . . . they just seem too narrow and too thinly funded for my situation. My recommendations will be top-notch (I think) and I plan to lay down my GRE and MCAT scores quite tight.

Advice, questions, criticisms, etc. are appreciated. Except please don't lambaste me for not being happy as a vet or ask me why I went to vet school (umm, thought it was what I wanted but was wrong). There is no changing the past at this point, and I just want to move forward to a better place. I'm only 33 years old, I'm still in debt from vet school but very depressed at the thought of working it off at my current salary and work conditions.

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[Scottish Chap]

I hope duplicate posts aren't against the rules, I wasn't sure where my questions fit in.

I've looked around and can't find a situation exactly like mine, so I thought it was worth a new thread. Please forgive my verbosity but I thought I would be as complete as possible in my introduction so questions I'm asking to be answered could have a decent "history"

Ed Summary:
BS in biology/English SCL 1998, DVM MCL 2004, BS in psychology SCL 2008

Research Experience:
Cornell Leadership Program in Vet Medicine 2001 - Animal Behavior
Summer research 2002 in cardiology and neurology at Auburn CVM
Toxicology research elective during clinicals in vet school
Only publication is an abstract I generated from (what I thought was just a silly little) midterm project on heartworm disease epidemiology for a basic statics class during my last bachelor's.

Work Experience:
Full time vet with emergency call at 1st clinic for 2 years after DVM
Back to school for psych training and working part time at 2nd clinic, now full time there.
Taught psychology as an adjunct professor in 2007. With no prior teaching experience I stepped in and handled 4 sections of introductory psychology and around 400 students.

Cool Stuff About Me:
I became a Mensa member at 13 and I appeared on Jeopardy in 2001. I practice MMA (mostly jujitsu and thai boxing), play guitar/piano/Irish tin whistle.

GOALS AND ADVICE NEEDED SECTION
I am unhappy in private practice in veterinary medicine. I always wanted to be a researcher/educator (hence my research experience during vet school). I applied to a neuroscience program the year after veterinary school and was rejected, so I resigned myself to private practice.

Issues: In addition to the typical vet life complaints I feel like as as thinker/researcher I am not being utilized to my capacity in practice. The only parts I enjoy are the client education and counseling and the research behind the difficult cases. Plus I'm in a work environment that downplays those aspects. I'm having difficulty in surgery (3 reasons - our lights are pitiful, I don't have enough hands to properly handle the tissue and I get panicked about intraabdominal bleeding that I can't visualize through this damn tiny incision I'm dragging organs up through). I despise being on call (not at current job but most others) and having to be the receptionist, technician, doctor and cashier all in the middle of the night. Plus I've been bitten three times in 2 weeks and caught scabies 5 times in the last 2 months. I'd like to be able to formulate a diagnostic and treatment plan for the mysteriously ADR 14 year old cat that doesn't revolve around a $50 budget.

Here's the part that sounds exaggerated and egotistical but it's relevant and I swear I speak the truth. The students I taught in psychology said I was the best teacher they ever had - I received amazingly high accolades from my sections and was begged to stay and teach more, thought I could not without more training. I worked more hours and wore myself out far more than I ever had as a vet but I was nothing but pumped and half-manic I was so happy doing it. On the veterinary side, almost all clients that I service and all the technicians and support staff I've worked with say I'm the best diagnostician and most enthusiastic caring vet they've ever met. BUT I'M NOT HAPPY as a vet . . . it doesn't matter how good I am at it.

I want to teach and research and learn for the rest of my life. I want to spread knowledge like Typhoid Mary. I would be happy doing research in a variety of areas, but my real issue is that I would like to be able to take a broader view of whatever it is I study. I like studying patterns of disease /epidemiology (but not the dirty details of genetics, molecular stuff, bacteriology or virology). I like behavior, especially the study of behavior of groups. Of animals, people, intraspecies, all of it. Normal behavior and abnormal behavior interests me, but I don't want to treat animals or people in private practice full time.

I am having difficulty deciding what program and what degree will get me to where I want to be (faculty member at a university doing research that is NOT limited to vet med). I spoke with a very nice director of a program at an Ivy League institution who said I might be an excellent candidate for their MD/PhD program if I took a neuroscience or imaging approach to the PhD part. I have looked at some clinical psychology programs that I like, but the pairing of DVM and human psych PhD just seems weird and incomplete without the MD. Same with the social psychology programs . . . they just seem too narrow and too thinly funded for my situation. My recommendations will be top-notch (I think) and I plan to lay down my GRE and MCAT scores quite tight.

Advice, questions, criticisms, etc. are appreciated. Except please don't lambaste me for not being happy as a vet or ask me why I went to vet school (umm, thought it was what I wanted but was wrong). There is no changing the past at this point, and I just want to move forward to a better place. I'm only 33 years old, I'm still in debt from vet school but very depressed at the thought of working it off at my current salary and work conditions.

Welcome to SDN. If I didn't know any better, I'd believe you're so discontented with your profession that you may even be a little depressed.

You almost perfectly fit the profile for a veterinary pathology residency program at an academic institution. When I worked at Hopkins, several of the DVMs I worked with were earning their PhD at the same time as doing the residency (in comparative pathology). Think about that. I have a friend with a DVM from Tufts who lasted a year in private practice. He hated it for many of the same reasons that you do. He did the Hopkins comparative pathology residency, he has his PhD, and he's now on his second RO1 with a very proliferative research lab.

MD/PhD is a stretch and it will be hard to make a convincing argument for admission. The MD will be effectively wasted if your major intent it to conduct research, and you certainly do not need any more clinical acumen. It will be a waste of time and a waste of government money, and I would sway you away from that based on what you've posted. I once interacted with an MD/PhD from Canada that hated medicine, so he went back for his DVM. While in vet school, he worked in the ER (was board-certified) to pay for it. That was an interesting way to go, but clearly it was going against the grain.

Good luck with your decision!

P.S. Cross-posting is against the terms of service on SDN, but I think your application is most definitely non-traditional so we'll leave this one open for now.

 

[vetgirl3493]

Thank you for your gracious reply. Sorry about the reposting, I had a feeling that was incorrect but I didn't take the time to find the rules and read them, sorry.

That's the kind of information I was fishing for, I think. I am pretty darn good at pathology (some of my best diagnostic moments unfortunately revolved around not being able to do any tests or treatment and only seeing the answer on a no-charge post-mortem). Come to think of it, I try to post every single case that I can, whether it's my case or not.

I'm just more jazzed about doing research and thinking about psychology and behavior. I can still do that on the pathology end, but I would rather be evaluating the behaviors rather than the tissue affected by the experiment.

I would prefer to not disclose details of my medical history, but rest assured I am under treatment. And interestingly enough my signs manifest as panicked anxiety rather than lingering on the depression. Either way, my profession is clearly causing me distress and I am trying to find the best path out.