MD/PhD

[anactan]

Hello everyone,
I'm currently entering a sophomore as an Undegrad and this is a point when I think that I should seriously consider wether I want to do an MD or an MD/PhD. The truth is, I know for a fact that I want to enter a residency within Surgery, but I also want to be deeply involved in research, patents and Medical companies (please dont tell me that this might be difficult especially for a surgeon, if not impossible, I am very aware of that and I intend to reevaluate that later on). My question that hasnt really been answered in many SDN threads is wether or not doing and MD/ PhD affects your chances at certain residencies, I know the publications thing is a plus, but I would really appreciate a good input from people who actually have experience with this process.

Thank you,

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[GrapesofRath]

Hello everyone,
I'm currently entering a sophomore as an Undegrad and this is a point when I think that I should seriously consider wether I want to do an MD or an MD/PhD. The truth is, I know for a fact that I want to enter a residency within Surgery, but I also want to be deeply involved in research, patents and Medical companies (please dont tell me that this might be difficult especially for a surgeon, if not impossible, I am very aware of that and I intend to reevaluate that later on). My question that hasnt really been answered in many SDN threads is wether or not doing and MD/ PhD affects your chances at certain residencies, I know the publications thing is a plus, but I would really appreciate a good input from people who actually have experience with this process.

Thank you,

Ask enough surgeons who were MD/PhD's and you will find some who tell you that being an MD/PhD instead of an MD affected their residency applications in a way that wasn't necessarily positive. But there's WAY more to this discussion than that and MUCH more to consider.

Either way, you are in the wrong forum. Allopathic, Physican Scientist and residency forums are much better bets for this question. Better yet is do a search function as this isn't some uncommon question that has been asked before.

 

[Lucca]

1. We have a physician scientist forum you can consult to get advice from actual MD/PhD students, residents, attendings if you want more information.

2. To answer your question: While there are surgeon scientists involved in the activities you describe there is very little use in telling you "yes its right for you" or "no its not". The goal of an MD/PhD program is to create basic scientists who will run biomedical labs one day and see patients. Do you feel that you need PhD training to do what you want to do with your career? When you say "patents and medical companies" I assume you mean developing medical devices so it is possible that the training would be beneficial to you but do you want to be involved with research and development (use in patients) or on the business end?

With regards to residency, the wisdom on the PS forum seems to be that your residency chances depend on the residency, the specialty and more importantly your ability to keep up with MD-only students in terms of academics, clinical grades, and Step scores. "A PhD wont make up for being a bad medical student" -- the MD/PhD posters who have gone through ERAS or are attendings repeat this frequently. The PhD is more likely to help in more research-oriented specialties (IM, Path) and in more research-oriented residencies (MGH vs. random community hospital).