postdoc after PhD before MD

[justanotherday]

SO I will enter a lower to mid tier dual program. I want to explore the possibility of doing a postdoc after my PhD years and before returning to my clinical years. The reason why I want to do this is
1. expand my research skills, my PhD will be on Bioinformatics, doing a postdoc in a higher level institution will expand my research scope
2. help me with the match?!(not sure)

I know some people did postdoc after residency (Tom Rando at Stanford), but I rarely know anyone did postdoc after PhD portion of the program.
Any input will be appreciated.

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[gutonc]

Worst...idea...ever.

 

[justanotherday]

Worst...idea...ever.

please elaborate

 

[URHere]

I agree that pursing a traditional post-doc would be a bad idea, but several MD/PhD students at my school have spent an extra "post-doc" year with their PhD labs before returning to MS3 year. For them, it was a chance to finish off the low-hanging research projects and secure some extra publications that would have otherwise been lost to the research ether.

As far as I know, none of those students have regretted the decision, but I'm not sure how much it helped them in the match (if at all). In general, I'd say it's only a good idea to do this if you have a lot of momentum or data that will lead to several publications over the course of a year. Not really something you should be planning to pursue before you even begin your training.

 

[Neuronix]

I did this, and I agree it's a bad idea. More time out of the clinic is bad. Residency programs are unlikely to understand. More research time before residency won't help you later in life. It's not time well served except in very special cases. Save the extra research for fellowship.

 

[dl2dp2]

It's a very bad idea. Generally speaking you should aim to shorten your training, especially clinical training period as much as possible, except for a very compelling reason. An extra year in training can cost you potentially 200k+ of salary. Skills can be picked up later, or even hired.

From a research career perspective, the longer you linger after PhD before you get a full time permanent position, the more likely your clock will run out. Lots of career development grants have a clock now, and as things get more competitive, this trend will only get worse.

I also know people who did this (not Neuronix lol), and unfortunately it's pretty clear this person made a very big mistake. However, if you ask this person, the answer would be "oh sure it was a great idea."

From both clinical and research perspectives, it's a bad idea. Don't make the same mistake.

 

[wholeheartedly]

Also, don't some state licensing boards have requirements that the USMLE exams be completed within a certain number of years after taking the first one? Thought it was 7 to complete all three in some states. They probably give the MD/PhDs longer, but I'd still imagine you could run into trouble adding in postdoc years.

 

[Flavivirus]

agree that for the great majority of people this is not a good idea.
(1) won't help you out in match in general
(2) you really need to get back to your clinical training--it gets harder the longer you're away
(3) science keeps moving forward--will the additional research skills you learn in your pre-clinical postdoc be relevant 4-8 years later after residency +/- fellowship? Maybe? Who knows?

 

[QofQuimica]

Just to give the dead horse one more whack: no, bad idea. You're better off going into a research residency or doing a research fellowship after your training. There's a reason why so few people do what you're proposing, and that's because it makes it HARDER for you to do well in your clerkships and match to residency, not easier.