Wow, two threads in short succession about medical physics.
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/thr...l-physics-for-phd-with-no-background.1203304/
Hello everyone, I am looking for insight into the plausibility and general effectiveness of what I have been considering after my undergraduate studies. I am currently planning on receiving a degree in physics with a possible emphasis in medical physics within the next 2 - 2.5 years. I have been strongly considering attending a graduate program in medical physics such as the one at
UW Madison, I am not sure if I would go for the M.S. degree or really go all in and go for a PhD. After this I would actually like to attend medical school with intentions of going into surgery. So really I am looking for any input here, similar personal experiences, insight into what MD admissions might think about this, or M.S. vs PhD values.
You should have enough research experience by the time you're a junior to decide whether you want to go to medical school or graduate school. If your goal is to become a physician, you should do an MD or MD/PhD.
An MS will be an expensive holdover with little to no benefit for a surgical career. Medical physics degrees are generally used to train clinical physicists for radiology and radiation oncology departments. You can do research with a PhD in medical physics, but again, it's typically applied to those specialties.
-I really just enjoy most medical physics concepts and classes, I am mostly considering this route to improve chances at an upper tier med school, however I could see myself just doing without the MD and being employed in research.
If your goal is to use your graduate degree to get into an "upper tier med school", I think you're thinking about this all wrong.
First, there are no guarantees you'll ever get into the "upper tier" (whatever that is), no matter what you do.
Second, your grad school GPA can only hurt you. Everyone knows grad programs are easy and ignore grad GPAs, except when they aren't, and then that low GPA will hurt you. An MS isn't going to make you a much stronger candidate for MD/PhD programs as long as you have significant undergrad research, which you do.
Third, a lot of people like me are going to ask you "you did a medical physics degree to become a surgeon?!" It doesn't make sense.
Fourth, I don't know what an "upper tier" (whatever that is) med school is going to do for you that any other medical school isn't.
Really the issue here is that you need to commit to something. You don't need to do that quite yet. But soon. Seek whatever experience and advice you will need to commit. You can always change course or add degrees later if you change your mind, but once you're in grad school/med school and beyond it becomes a lot harder to change.