Tri-I MSTP vs. Harvard NP?

[Plasmodel]

I am so torn between the Tri-I MSTP and Harvard NP (with the possibility of joining as an unfunded MD/PhD affiliate).

I feel they are equally strong in terms of education (both MD and the researchers in my field of interest) and their locations. I think they should be equally good in residency apps for programs on the West coast.

Financially, one would put me in some debt which might mean doing only an MD-only and then going back to research after residency, if I am still interested then. In the other program, while I would be debt-free and earning a small stipend (in NYC!), I would be devoting more years (years I could spend to repay that debt, as others in other threads have argued). I am already 25 years old.

Career-wise, I am still interested in doing a model where I do both research and see patients (ideally) but I have also read/heard/seen how that's so hard and how mstp graduates eventually choose either or see patients only one afternoon a month while doing FT research....

Any advice? I know it comes down in the end to my personal interests/aims etc but any advice in helping me decide will be really helpful!

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[erutha95]

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[plumazul]

I am so torn between the Tri-I MSTP and Harvard NP (with the possibility of joining as an unfunded MD/PhD affiliate).

I feel they are equally strong in terms of education (both MD and the researchers in my field of interest) and their locations. I think they should be equally good in residency apps for programs on the West coast.

Financially, one would put me in some debt which might mean doing only an MD-only and then going back to research after residency, if I am still interested then. In the other program, while I would be debt-free and earning a small stipend (in NYC!), I would be devoting more years (years I could spend to repay that debt, as others in other threads have argued). I am already 25 years old.

Career-wise, I am still interested in doing a model where I do both research and see patients (ideally) but I have also read/heard/seen how that's so hard and how mstp graduates eventually choose either or see patients only one afternoon a month while doing FT research....

Any advice? I know it comes down in the end to my personal interests/aims etc but any advice in helping me decide will be really helpful!

I would choose Tri-I in a New York minute , but I'm much younger than you so that makes a huge difference. I also have no doubt that a life of research is what I want. Are you sure that's what you want? Your two choices are so different.

 

[Fencer]

I am so torn between the Tri-I MSTP and Harvard NP (with the possibility of joining as an unfunded MD/PhD affiliate).
....one would put me in some debt which might mean doing only an MD-only and then going back to research after residency, if I am still interested then. ...
... I am already 25 years old.
...

Do you love doing research? Can you live without thinking of science?

Once you get into MD and residency, doing a PhD is more difficult. You have many competing interests and responsibilities. You are not very old at all to start MD/PhD training. Even if you start your MD/PhD at 27, and you do it in 8 years followed by residency/postdoc of 5 years. That means that you have 27-32 years of professional life expectancy (i.e.: retiring at 67-72). Was is it going to be your footprint in this world? Would you have too many what ifs?

You have two outstanding choices but they are very very different in their career direction. You must reflect, make a sound decision, and do not look back...

 

[LateLabNights]

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[solitude]

This boils down to the question of whether you want to do an MD/PhD or not.

If you're going to do an MD/PhD, I think going to Harvard unfunded is INSANE compared to Tri-I. If you get cold feet about MD/PhD and decide to do MD-only, going to Harvard is a great option.

The fact that you are even considering this probably means you should do the MD only.

 

[debateg]

Career-wise, I am still interested in doing a model where I do both research and see patients (ideally) but I have also read/heard/seen how that's so hard and how mstp graduates eventually choose either or see patients only one afternoon a month while doing FT research....

The classic MD/PhD structure for someone interested in clinical work is full time research with a half day of clinic a week and 2 x 2 weeks attending their subspecialty inpatient. Some people forgo the clinic altogether, although I think that's rarer these days. Is that sufficient clinical contact for you? If not, you're going to have a hard time structuring your career doing basic science. Other breakdowns are possible if you do clinical research, but you really don't need to do a PhD to do that; you can do a masters degree during residency to get you up to speed.

Doing an unfunded PhD is a really bad idea. If you choose Harvard, don't do the PhD and get into research later in life. There will be opportunities for you to do research in fellowship, and if you are successful, you will be on the same footing as the MD/PhD fellow in your lab. Are there any other funded programs you are considering? Any other medical schools that offer good scholarships for MD-only? Don't discount a "lesser" school because of its name.

 

[Plasmodel]

The classic MD/PhD structure for someone interested in clinical work is full time research with a half day of clinic a week and 2 x 2 weeks attending their subspecialty inpatient. Some people forgo the clinic altogether, although I think that's rarer these days. Is that sufficient clinical contact for you? If not, you're going to have a hard time structuring your career doing basic science. Other breakdowns are possible if you do clinical research, but you really don't need to do a PhD to do that; you can do a masters degree during residency to get you up to speed.

Doing an unfunded PhD is a really bad idea. If you choose Harvard, don't do the PhD and get into research later in life. There will be opportunities for you to do research in fellowship, and if you are successful, you will be on the same footing as the MD/PhD fellow in your lab. Are there any other funded programs you are considering? Any other medical schools that offer good scholarships for MD-only? Don't discount a "lesser" school because of its name.

Thanks for all your comments. If I were to attend HMS, the PhD portion would be funded as a normal PhD student as I would to formally apply to such a program in my second year of medical school. To join Harvard as an affiliate of the MD/PhD program, I am told, could possibly qualify me for competitive funding for MS3 and MS4 (their version of internal admissions). So, the PhD portion will be funded; MS1/2 will not; MS3/4 possibly (depending on the competition).

 

[mercaptovizadeh]

As appealing as the Harvard name is, the Tri-I is likely to offer you mentors of equal caliber as Harvard-MIT. I mean, Rockefeller is one of the very best places in the world to get a PhD in biology or chemistry. So essentially you'd be paying $200K for the Harvard name and would be (maybe) getting an equivalent research experience through an un-structured program.

There's no contest here. Do the Tri-I.

 

[mercaptovizadeh]

Thanks for all your comments. If I were to attend HMS, the PhD portion would be funded as a normal PhD student as I would to formally apply to such a program in my second year of medical school. To join Harvard as an affiliate of the MD/PhD program, I am told, could possibly qualify me for competitive funding for MS3 and MS4 (their version of internal admissions). So, the PhD portion will be funded; MS1/2 will not; MS3/4 possibly (depending on the competition).

I know the feeling. I myself struggled to choose between a top 15 MSTP and a top 5 MD only. In the end I made the right choice with the MSTP. You have to decide for yourself how important not having that debt will be. I personally do not think a Harvard degree is $200K worthier than a Cornell degree, at least not in medicine.

 

[KingBert]

I was the administrator for the NIH MSTP for 17 years and am very familiar with this dilemma. If you truly want to become a research physician then this is a no-brainer. The Tri-I is the only way to go. If you go to the Harvard program, aside from taking on a large debt, the prediction for you becoming a serious researcher as well as a physician is much less than 50/50. I advised many students about a similar choice and many of them came back to me after a year or two at Harvard and told me that they regretted their choices. I am also speaking as a former member of the Harvard faculty. It is a wonderful medical school program, and is one of the programs that has a long history of training physicians who do research...anywhere from full time to dabbling. However, in today's research climate it is much easier and more effective to join an integrated program right off the bat then try to break into the research world later, with shorter, piecemeal or interrupted training.

Good luck, whatever you choose.

 

[StIGMA]

I was the administrator for the NIH MSTP for 17 years and am very familiar with this dilemma. If you truly want to become a research physician then this is a no-brainer. The Tri-I is the only way to go. If you go to the Harvard program, aside from taking on a large debt, the prediction for you becoming a serious researcher as well as a physician is much less than 50/50. I advised many students about a similar choice and many of them came back to me after a year or two at Harvard and told me that they regretted their choices. I am also speaking as a former member of the Harvard faculty. It is a wonderful medical school program, and is one of the programs that has a long history of training physicians who do research...anywhere from full time to dabbling. However, in today's research climate it is much easier and more effective to join an integrated program right off the bat then try to break into the research world later, with shorter, piecemeal or interrupted training.

Good luck, whatever you chOse.

All posts are date-tagged. I presume that you know that someone deciding on schools in 2013 would have already made their decision.

It is very common to cite people being happy or unhappy with decisions mid-way through the MD/PhD training. How happy someone else is, or a random collection of someone else's are, is meaningless. Long-term in either case the average MD or MD/PhD student will not be an R01-funded scientist. I'd also suspect that someone who pursues PhD training would be more likely to pursue a scientific career than someone who did not pursue PhD training.

"Today's research climate" shouldn't be a primary consideration on whether to pursue MD/PhD training. Who knows what funding will be like 15 years later when (and if) one is looking to start a lab. There are many very valid arguments to why post-doc or PhD training during/after residency is superior to MD/PhD training, especially with how fast science is advancing now. I disagree that you can definitively state MD/PhD training is "more effective" than starting research after clinical training to "break into the research world," especially without defining explicitly what you mean.

Finally, MD/PhD is the most interrupted path to a research career that I know about. Why do you think MD/PhD training is not interrupted research training (undergrad/postbac research>medicine>PhD>medicine>residency/research>postdoc>medicine/start a lab>balance medicine w/ lab)?