Have I screwed over a Ph.D. app by doing bio research?

[goatcrossing]

Hey all,

I'm a Junior psych major undergrad trying to decide between clinical psych Ph.D. and M.D. to eventually be a mental health clinician/researcher. Since the med school path has more hardline checklist items, I've been fulfilling the prereqs and such for med school while trying to feel out which path I'd prefer. I'm particularly interested in psychopharm, so I talked to a professor of mine to see if there's any pharmacology classes or somesuch I could take to get a better grasp of the -pharm part of psychopharm, and there weren't, but he offered me a research position in his lab (sort of a biochemistry lab) that works with a bit of pharma stuff and I excitedly accepted. While I did a year of some remote, grunt spreadsheet work for a psych lab as well, I would definitely consider this my main research experience.

For med school, this is fine, since research is research, and I'm considering trying to tie it into psych by pitching some kind of psychopharm related project like identifying active ingredients in an understudied ethnobotanical or something.

However, I've been made aware that if I'm considering going for a clinical psych Ph.D., I really should be tying myself into a research topic relevant to clinical psych so I can be a good fit for an advisor. Apparently, the last year-and-a-half + of bio research is essentially time wasted in this regard since it's way too micro, even if I were to tie it into psychopharm. I don't really want to drop the bio project I've been on since I'm already so dedicated to it and it's one of my main hopes for an LoR, but at the same time working in two labs at once sounds like a recipe for disaster. I'm just a bit overwhelmed realizing I need to change course this drastically and seeking any guidance.

Is it too late for me to have a decent app if I start looking for clinical research now? Should I just go full steam ahead on med school since I'm still in good shape there, rather than turn everything around to be competitive for clinical psych? I do have 200+ psych clinical hours and will be doing an honors thesis, if that helps.

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[summerbabe]

Should I just go full steam ahead on med school since I'm still in good shape there, rather than turn everything around to be competitive for clinical psych?

I'd think about what you want your day to day work life to look like and do some more research/networking to figure out what path gives you the best shot.

And your attention turns to psychology, do you have to be accepted into a PhD program immediately after graduation? I'd wager a significant majority of funded PhD students don't transition directly from undergrad for a whole host of reasons.

It seems to make sense for you to have pursued the psychopharm research and if you decide that a clinical psych PhD is the best bet, you'll likely need to spend some post-bac time building up your psychology research CV, which it sounds like you'd be capable of doing.

but at the same time working in two labs at once sounds like a recipe for disaster.

Agreed! Better to maintain your GPA and sanity and be productive in what you've already committed to than get stretched too thin. Good luck!

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

Research in undergrad is more about getting exposure and ideally a poster, pub, etc. Ppl still get in w/o them, but they help. Topics matter less than gaining the experience working in a research lab.

 

[futureapppsy2]

Research in undergrad is more about getting exposure and ideally a poster, pub, etc. Ppl still get in w/o them, but they help. Topics matter less than gaining the experience working in a research lab.

I agree with this broadly, but I think bio benchwork may be too far afield for a clinical psych PhD, if not complimented with some decent psych research experience as well. I had psychopharm bench research experience in undergrad, and it was a good experience, but there are a lot of differences between basic science bench research and psychology research.

 

[Ollie123]

I agree with this broadly, but I think bio benchwork may be too far afield for a clinical psych PhD, if not complimented with some decent psych research experience as well. I had psychopharm bench research experience in undergrad, and it was a good experience, but there are a lot of differences between basic science bench research and psychology research.

100% agree. I'm not super-picky about the type of human subjects research, but there is a big, big difference between someone who worked on an RCT of a drug for kidney disease (maybe not completely optimal, but enough so that the quality of the experience overall would outweigh relevance) and someone who did western blots all day. We'd be having a very different experience if these were psychopharm RCTs or testing basic mechanisms of action in human (or even rodent) models, but it sounds like this was at the far end of the basic science spectrum.

OP - you didn't screw over the app since its fine to have on there, but you definitely want some human subjects research experience. There may be very occasional exceptions (there are a very, very select few clinical psych labs with a "wet lab" component to them) but this is so rare/obscure it isn't worth pursuing. It isn't going to be viewed negatively, it just isn't enough to make you competitive at most programs.