Becoming a Physician Scientist: MD-only and MD/MS Student Experiences

MD-only (applied MSTP, but decided otherwise for personal reasons)

1) What type of pathway are you taking to become a physician scientist, and how far along are you?
MD. Will matriculate in the fall.

2) What general advice do you have for people who want to become physician scientists by the same route you took?
Research as an undergraduate is a must. You have to know whether you are suited for research and the academic life. That said, you should do research and avoid scut work as much as possible. Start with scut to learn about the field and techniques, but that's not what you will do as a researcher. Once you get there, immediately start to think about independent projects. Tear away completely if you can. Depending on the school, PIs can be very welcoming of undergraduates doing independent work. Fact is, there is a lot we don't know and you will get exposed to that very quickly.

3) What application advice would you give to people who want to follow your track?.
Apply to research-heavy MD schools, especially those that support both MD and MSTP physician scientists. This does not mean look at the NIH grant numbers, it means figure out where the money is going. If it's going in clinical research, and you like that, go to that school. If it's going to biomedical research like bioengineering and you like that, go to that school. If you've done substantial research, do not be afraid to flaunt it to offset whatever other weaknesses you have (lack of volunteering was mine). Lastly, know your research in and out and be able to talk intelligently about similar research.

4) What do you wish you had done differently if you could do it all again?
I kept saying 'we' rather than 'I' when talking about my research. You don't say 'I' usually when giving conference presentations, so I didn't do that here either. I think this led to a false impression that the research was 'directed' or otherwise not independent. Talk about your research on your AMCAS and during interviews, but what you say reflects on you, so be aware of the exact wording. Also, if you're an engineer of some type, make sure you present your research as hypothesis-driven, not technology-driven. Even though in engineering it's really a lot of both, this is not well understood by scientists who are not in the field.

MD-only

1) What type of pathway are you taking to become a physician scientist, and how far along are you?

I am finishing first year of medical school. I'm also a reapplicant, but I knew I wanted to do medical research from the get-go, so I pursued a graduate degree between applications. Now in med school, I am in a formalized research-track within my MD program. I'll spend my MS1 summer doing research (had to write a grant to get funded), take a research elective or two during 3rd year, and I'll write and defend a thesis that summarizes my work.

2) What general advice do you have for people who want to become physician scientists by the same route you took?

First, from the beginning of college, prepare yourself for being in a MD program. Assuming you've decided to dedicated your life to getting an MD (a hurdle unto itself), and assuming you are on-course with respect to grades, MCAT prep, etc., find yourself a good research mentor.

Ideally, a mentor is someone you trust and who has your best interests (i.e. developing your abilities) at heart. As a ugrad student, mentors don't need to be a 'big name', or have a lot of grant money, or even someone in medicine - just having someone backing you up, showing you what it means to do research, is the most important thing.

At this point you're 'kicking the tires' of the career path, and a mentor's job is to clear out the red tape so that you have as rich and educational experience as possible. Learn whatever tools you need to conduct your assays, or studies, or whatever, but focus on the process of refining a hypothesis, designing an experiment that tests that hypothesis, and including good controls. Knowing what your results mean (both what you expect to happen, and what your controls confirm or deny) is also very important. Other things like stats and protocol design sort of shake out of the process from there.

Once you have someone taking you through a small project or two, decide if you want to commit a portion of your life to answering questions definitively, which is all research really is. If one of those definitive answers is: 'I hate research!' that's ok! Academia and research isn't for everyone.

3) What application advice would you give to people who want to follow your track?

Getting a grad degree before med school (like I did) is the harder road. Applying to programs with combined degrees (MD/MS), or to MD schools with formalized research programs like mine, are the way to go. Why? I don't see myself dedicating 100% of my time to research - why get a clinical degree, suffer through residency, and not use it? - so the combination of degrees strikes a good balance for me. As a MD with a MS, I'll have much of the research experience and skills of a PhD, but in much less time. When you get there, you'll have to work harder than most of your peers because you're trying to develop two skill sets at once.

As others have said, if you have done research prior to applying to medical school, then know it inside and out. Know the questions you were trying to answer with that project, why your answer is good/bad/need bigger N, and know how to make it immediately relevant to a layman. You need to do this in two sentences, because physicians get hit with this sort of thing all the time (on the wards it's called presenting a patient) and you need to convey the value of your work to them quickly. It's also good research and teaching practice, because the best educators make hard stuff accessible.

4) What do you wish you had done differently if you could do it all again?

I wish I hadn't had to reapply! As it is, my career path has opened up many opportunities. My mentor in med school also has a MD and a MS, and he's been incredibly supportive of both my scientific and clinical pursuits (which is important to developing skills as both a scientist and a physician). My school's research-track is also headed up by very good, supportive people, so I've been lucky.

MD-only

1) What type of pathway are you taking to become a physician scientist, and how far along are you?

I am a tenured faculty at a research oriented medical school who is primarily a government-funded researcher doing what would most generally be called "translational research" with some things that would be more closely called "patient-oriented research".

2) What general advice do you have for people who want to become physician scientists by the same route you took?

There is no short-cut to a research-oriented career. You do not have to do additional degrees but you almost always need to have a mentored training period of 3 to 5 yrs before setting up an independent research program. That mentored training can come after you finish your specialty fellowship or anywhere up to then. The benefit to waiting until fellowship to do serious translational research is that you have a good idea of what you want to study and, as it moves into faculty time, you are paid as a faculty member.

3) What application advice would you give to people who want to follow your track?

At each stage of your training, be honest about what you want to do during the application process. You'll get good advice and be guided to the institutions that can help you accomplish this.

4) What do you wish you had done differently if you could do it all again?

Not much I'd have done differently although my decision to spend 3 years at the intramural progam at the NIH in Bethesda cost me a lot of $$. Still, even that was a great experience.

For more Q about this sort of thing, post your question on the "academic medicine" thread in the mentoring forum.

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=392633