2007 MD/PhD Match

[Doctor&Geek]

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I think that's an extremely bad decision that leads to pedestrian low-risk projects and substandard publication quality.

 

[Circumflex]

I think that's an extremely bad decision that leads to pedestrian low-risk projects and substandard publication quality.

I agree. The real education of a PhD comes from trial and error - learning from mistakes, having the opportunity to be creative and go where the data leads. Even though the amount of coursework is reduced, I can't imagine doing coursework, giving seminars, going to national meetings, being a TA (some places), publishing more than 1 paper, and designing your own experiments (not having the PI tell you what to do) in 2 - 2.5 years. It just seems too rushed.

 

[Doctor&Geek]

I agree. The real education of a PhD comes from trial and error - learning from mistakes, having the opportunity to be creative and go where the data leads. Even though the amount of coursework is reduced, I can't imagine doing coursework, giving seminars, going to national meetings, being a TA (some places), publishing more than 1 paper, and designing your own experiments (not having the PI tell you what to do) in 2 - 2.5 years. It just seems too rushed.

You should get a PhD when you're ready to get one. There are some folks that actually are able to pump out a bunch of interesting publications in 2.5 years, or one nice one in a high-impact journal - with no wasted time or wasted effort. But to consider that a standard benchmark is a serious mistake that lowers standards and potentially wrecks future careers, or at the very least makes it difficult to get job offers, leading to a future in private practice.

I'm of the opinion that one will have to "pay" for a substandard PhD in time spent as a postdoc or (Lord forbid) multiple postdocs. Furthermore, chairs will not offer you a job of any significance or a startup package that would enable future success if your PhD is two BBRC papers. Sometimes people lose sight that the goal is not to get out as quickly as possible - it's to become a functional independent investigator.

 

[gstrub]

It's not a bad decision. 3 years is plenty of time to get at least one high impact paper. Our program does not require too much activity outside of the lab. In my opinion MD/PhD students are quite a cut above your average PhD student in the lab and can easily finish in 3.5 years (maybe 3, but not 2 or 2.5), provided they plan for it ahead of time (selection of the appropriate PI is key to this process). All of our most recent graduates have finished in 3-3.5 years, have multiple publications, and matched at fantastic programs (UCSF-Neurosurgery, MGH, Duke cardiology, etc). I can imagine, though, that I would have quite a different opinion on a 3-3.5 year PhD had I spent 5-6 years obtaining one. Basically our program is designed to have you matching 7 years from matriculation, with maybe enough time for a few months off or a post-doc. That to me doesn't sound like a bad decision at all.

 

[Hard24Get]

It's not a bad decision. 3 years is plenty of time to get at least one high impact paper. Our program does not require too much activity outside of the lab. In my opinion MD/PhD students are quite a cut above your average PhD student in the lab and can easily finish in 3.5 years (maybe 3, but not 2 or 2.5), provided they plan for it ahead of time (selection of the appropriate PI is key to this process). All of our most recent graduates have finished in 3-3.5 years, have multiple publications, and matched at fantastic programs (UCSF-Neurosurgery, MGH, Duke cardiology, etc). I can imagine, though, that I would have quite a different opinion on a 3-3.5 year PhD had I spent 5-6 years obtaining one. Basically our program is designed to have you matching 7 years from matriculation, with maybe enough time for a few months off or a post-doc. That to me doesn't sound like a bad decision at all.

I think Doctor&Geek was referring to the long term consequences of pushing a short PhD. Sure, you might just happen to become relatively independent early on, learn your lessons and be all set in 3 or so years, but then again you may not. If you are not really ready to be a scientist, this will come out not around the time of the match, but during your postdoc and PI years. Obviously it doesn't matter if you don't plan to run a lab and will never return to research, but it can be a handicapp otherwise. I doubt anyone here is speaking out of jealousy. 🙄

 

[Vader]

It's not a bad decision. 3 years is plenty of time to get at least one high impact paper. Our program does not require too much activity outside of the lab. In my opinion MD/PhD students are quite a cut above your average PhD student in the lab and can easily finish in 3.5 years (maybe 3, but not 2 or 2.5), provided they plan for it ahead of time (selection of the appropriate PI is key to this process). All of our most recent graduates have finished in 3-3.5 years, have multiple publications, and matched at fantastic programs (UCSF-Neurosurgery, MGH, Duke cardiology, etc). I can imagine, though, that I would have quite a different opinion on a 3-3.5 year PhD had I spent 5-6 years obtaining one. Basically our program is designed to have you matching 7 years from matriculation, with maybe enough time for a few months off or a post-doc. That to me doesn't sound like a bad decision at all.

I actually agree with most of this. I do not think it is unreasonable to learn to "do science" in 3-3.5 years, provided one gets things up and running quickly. These days postdocs are the real career launching pad (for both MD/PhDs and PhDs alike). For PhDs, it is more critical to get "high impact" publications during graduate school in order to get postdoctoral positions and garner the qualifications for faculty positions. For those MD/PhDs going straight into science, it is similarly important to get the high-impact papers early.

MD/PhDs who plan to do residency/fellowship are in a slightly different position, as the training is currently broken up into distinct segments. Since there are several years of clinical training after graduation, rather than take 5-6 years for graduate school just to get that extra high-impact paper, I think it would be wiser to get a couple of solid pubs during the PhD and then spend the "extra" years getting high-impact papers during the postdoc, which will directly lead into getting K-awards and eventually R01s.

 

[Doctor&Geek]

I actually agree with most of this. I do not think it is unreasonable to learn to "do science" in 3-3.5 years, provided one gets things up and running quickly. These days postdocs are the real career launching pad (for both MD/PhDs and PhDs alike). For PhDs, it is more critical to get "high impact" publications during graduate school in order to get postdoctoral positions and garner the qualifications for faculty positions. For those MD/PhDs going straight into science, it is similarly important to get the high-impact papers early.

MD/PhDs who plan to do residency/fellowship are in a slightly different position, as the training is currently broken up into distinct segments. Since there are several years of clinical training after graduation, rather than take 5-6 years for graduate school just to get that extra high-impact paper, I think it would be wiser to get a couple of solid pubs during the PhD and then spend the "extra" years getting high-impact papers during the postdoc, which will directly lead into getting K-awards and eventually R01s.

I don't think we disagree at all. The question is not whether or not good science can be done in any particular length of time. The question is whether or not it is wise to guarantee a PhD in X years without otherwise setting a minimum standard. Otherwise it leads to all of the problems that I've written about previously.

 

[Vader]

I don't think we disagree at all. The question is not whether or not good science can be done in any particular length of time. The question is whether or not it is wise to guarantee a PhD in X years without otherwise setting a minimum standard. Otherwise it leads to all of the problems that I've written about previously.

Most definitely... the problem is what should be the standard. For some programs, there is no formal publication requirement, but it is essentially an unwritten rule that one must have them. In biology, a "high quality thesis" is essentially code for "at least one and preferably multiple solid publications", at least at my institution. I know of very few MD/PhD students here who have graduated without publications, or at least a few in submission when they go back to med school. My impression is that faculty here think/operate along the lines of 1) publications in high-impact journals are the sine qua non of biological research, 2) publications are an easy marker for a student's progress, as they must have passed muster from the peer-review process and therefore do not require as much careful evaluation by the committee member, 3) publications in high-impact journals will greatly benefit the student's career such that it is worth tacking on a extra 2-3 years to a PhD if it means getting that paper in Cell, Nature or Science.

In other words, the faculty tend to have the same (if not greater) expectations of MD/PhD students for their PhD, even though the student is clearly walking along a different path. Worse yet, they KNOW that MD/PhD students are over-achievers by nature and would love to have that high-impact paper. We all suffer from CNS disease, after all. Faculty are smart and sometimes use that to manipulate students into staying longer.

So then what should a program use as a standard? Should there be different standards for PhD and MD/PhD students?

Dealing with the system as is, I think the best students can do is what others here have recommended: get a sympathetic thesis advisor.

In addition, I would add: get sympathetic thesis committee members. Also, keep your thesis comittee to a minimum number of faculty.

 

[QofQuimica]

It's not a bad decision. 3 years is plenty of time to get at least one high impact paper. Our program does not require too much activity outside of the lab. In my opinion MD/PhD students are quite a cut above your average PhD student in the lab and can easily finish in 3.5 years (maybe 3, but not 2 or 2.5), provided they plan for it ahead of time (selection of the appropriate PI is key to this process). All of our most recent graduates have finished in 3-3.5 years, have multiple publications, and matched at fantastic programs (UCSF-Neurosurgery, MGH, Duke cardiology, etc). I can imagine, though, that I would have quite a different opinion on a 3-3.5 year PhD had I spent 5-6 years obtaining one. Basically our program is designed to have you matching 7 years from matriculation, with maybe enough time for a few months off or a post-doc. That to me doesn't sound like a bad decision at all.

I was all ready to be sympathetic to your cause until you posted the above bolded gem. 🙄 Now I say it serves you right if you wind up doing a five year PhD.

I'm sure this is obvious to everyone, but no one has mentioned it: the amount of time people spend working on their PhDs will also depend in part on how much research experience they have coming into grad school. I already had my MS, had spent some time working as a research tech, didn't have to take classes or teach much after the first year, and finished my projects in 2.5 years. This was during the same time that I also studied for the MCAT and applied to med school. My prof actually wanted me to graduate the semester before, but *I* felt that I wasn't ready. Now granted, I basically had no life outside of school for that 2.5 years; I even moved a cot into the lab. But the point is that if someone is sufficiently motivated and has enough projects going so that a few succeed even if a few fail, it can be done. My best friend in the lab, who already had research experience as well, also finished his PhD in 2.5 years. Hey, not bad for a couple of lower-cut straight PhD students. 😉

 

[Doctor&Geek]

UNC (crossreferenced)
Family Practice - Mountain Area/Asheville
Internal Medicine - U of Washington
Internal Medicine - Virginia
Internal Medicine - Yale
Pediatrics - Florida
Pediatrics - UNC
Unknown

 

[microTAS]

cross-referencing between http://deansnewsletter.stanford.edu/ (limited time only) and http://mstp.stanford.edu/students.html will give you an idea about stanford's 2007 mstp match. i'm sure some went to industry as usual

 

[microTAS]

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[dl2dp2]

it's interesting to read all the responses as i talk about this with other MDPhD students.

it has occurred to me (as well as to others) that the length of PhD doesn't correlate very much with the quality. my own personal opinion is that most US PhD programs in the biological sciences are grossly inefficient and stretched out way too long and way too thin, such that you have students coming out that are undertrained for the most part, and way overtrained in a tiny tiny subject matter.

i think if anything PhD programs should be more like the PhD portion of the MDPhD. PhD students should be made to finish things on time. And there are places that are doing that, prime examples include the Watson school at CSHL which promises a PhD in 4.5 years.

secondly, regarding your career. it's not clear to me that your phd research matters at all for your R01 grants. it seems that as long as you are MDPhD and you did a residency and you want to stay in clinically oriented research you'll get a job, and more likely than not in your home institution (i.e. the one you did your residency.) academic department craves MDs that can do just rudimentary research. there has not been a single person that i know of who has an MDPhD and did residency who's having trouble finding a job. Often these highly sought out individuals don't even have a stellar publication record. They get offers left and right because
(1) They have an MDPhD.
(2) They did a residency.

I know a few MDPhDs struggling to get academic jobs because they didn't do a residency for a variety of reasons. Because they have more time, however, they are often the ones who eventually do publish multiple papers in Nature/Science during postdoc. In the end they tend to get a job as well, but this path seems much more arduous.

Postdocs, even those from the highest quality labs, are relatively easy to get. The competition at that level is not very fierce. However, since postdocs don't have appropriate clinical training, they will never be hired to be attendings at clinical departments, regardless of how brilliant they are. The supply of those who are licensed physicians as well as PhD holding, R01 capable researcher is actually vanishingly small (at least right now, might change as the MDPhD population grows).

So when you look at how our career will turn out eventually, not only do you have to look at who's better "trained" but also the supply and demand in the job market. It's a LOT easier to get a job as a MDPhD later on if you have 1 semistandard paper and graduated in 3 yrs than a PhD who had multiple Cell papers. For the most part, basic science people don't even look at your papers during grad school. It's all about postdoc (where? whose lab?) and the job talk (which is probably the single most important factor) and interviews. I think new grad students, esp. MDPhD students, need to keep that in mind. It's completely counterproductive (in my opinion) to kill yourself and try to publish Nature papers left and right and spend 5 yrs in grad school just so that you "learned" how to do "science" and tried something "risky" and "creative" via "trial and error". I'll tell you right now that most of papers that got published in Nature Science Cell are neither risky nor creative. If you set that as your goal then there's a whole different game that we have to play. You need to get to know the famous people in the field. You need to establish good relationship with the editors, many of whom never had a single R01, but filter out 95% of the submissions before they reach the reviewers. You need a lot of money so you can buy flashy equipment and collaborate with the most flashy people, and be able to push as hard as you can, etc. It has NOTHING to do with how hard you work as a scientist. It teaches you NOTHING as regard to how to do "science". or maybe what i'm talking about is how you do "science"...

I think we're at a point where we should get as far away from bull---- as possible.

 

[mercaptovizadeh]

it's interesting to read all the responses as i talk about this with other MDPhD students.

it has occurred to me (as well as to others) that the length of PhD doesn't correlate very much with the quality. my own personal opinion is that most US PhD programs in the biological sciences are grossly inefficient and stretched out way too long and way too thin, such that you have students coming out that are undertrained for the most part, and way overtrained in a tiny tiny subject matter.

i think if anything PhD programs should be more like the PhD portion of the MDPhD. PhD students should be made to finish things on time. And there are places that are doing that, prime examples include the Watson school at CSHL which promises a PhD in 4.5 years.

secondly, regarding your career. it's not clear to me that your phd research matters at all for your R01 grants. it seems that as long as you are MDPhD and you did a residency and you want to stay in clinically oriented research you'll get a job, and more likely than not in your home institution (i.e. the one you did your residency.) academic department craves MDs that can do just rudimentary research. there has not been a single person that i know of who has an MDPhD and did residency who's having trouble finding a job. Often these highly sought out individuals don't even have a stellar publication record. They get offers left and right because
(1) They have an MDPhD.
(2) They did a residency.

I know a few MDPhDs struggling to get academic jobs because they didn't do a residency for a variety of reasons. Because they have more time, however, they are often the ones who eventually do publish multiple papers in Nature/Science during postdoc. In the end they tend to get a job as well, but this path seems much more arduous.

Postdocs, even those from the highest quality labs, are relatively easy to get. The competition at that level is not very fierce. However, since postdocs don't have appropriate clinical training, they will never be hired to be attendings at clinical departments, regardless of how brilliant they are. The supply of those who are licensed physicians as well as PhD holding, R01 capable researcher is actually vanishingly small (at least right now, might change as the MDPhD population grows).

So when you look at how our career will turn out eventually, not only do you have to look at who's better "trained" but also the supply and demand in the job market. It's a LOT easier to get a job as a MDPhD later on if you have 1 semistandard paper and graduated in 3 yrs than a PhD who had multiple Cell papers. For the most part, basic science people don't even look at your papers during grad school. It's all about postdoc (where? whose lab?) and the job talk (which is probably the single most important factor) and interviews. I think new grad students, esp. MDPhD students, need to keep that in mind. It's completely counterproductive (in my opinion) to kill yourself and try to publish Nature papers left and right and spend 5 yrs in grad school just so that you "learned" how to do "science" and tried something "risky" and "creative". I think we're at a point where we should get as far away from bull---- as possible.

What a refreshing response. I have no idea where the truth lies, but it's nice to hear a perspective other than "stay another year and churn out that Science paper" junk, because people always aspire to the publication and very rarely get it, and we are talking about an entire year of one's life - we don't live forever, and time shouldn't be wasted needlessly when we're already doing a very time-consuming track anyway.

 

[Doctor&Geek]

2007 Residency Match Results

So I guess you're making me do it.

Stanford (crossref)
Pediatrics - Stanford
PMR - U of Washington
Psychiatry - UCSF
Radiation Oncology - Harvard

Indiana (crossref)
Anesthesiology - MCW
Internal Medicine - Vanderbilt
Internal Medicine - Yale
Pathology - Indiana
Pediatrics - Cincinnati
Pediatrics - UCSD
Psychiatry - Indiana

 

[Circumflex]

You need a lot of money so you can buy flashy equipment and collaborate with the most flashy people, and be able to push as hard as you can, etc. It has NOTHING to do with how hard you work as a scientist. It teaches you NOTHING as regard to how to do "science". or maybe what i'm talking about is how you do "science"...

I think we're at a point where we should get as far away from bull---- as possible.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "It" in the 2 sentences above. Surely you don't mean that you don't have to work hard as a scientist to be successful. By scientist, I mean someone who comes up with ideas and designs experiments - not the one actually performing the experiments. Although, I can't think of a single well-known scientist who did not work hard in the lab. I agree that to be successful, you have to be somewhat of a politician, but you also have to be creative in how you approach problems. If you can't back up the talk with knwoledge and insight, people just call you a "tool" behind your back.

I also agree that many PhDs receive inefficient training. But, you have to admit that learning from mistakes plays a huge role in any kind of education. If someone holds your hand throughout and does not allow you to screw up, then what's the point? You could just read all this crap in books. The goal is to be able to formulate independent thoughts and it is tough to streamline that type of education.

 

[dl2dp2]

by "it" i mean publish in NSC, and get a tenure track job at Harvard

what does it mean "successful"? success != R01 grants in the 10s of millions with an HHMI. the later should be more appropriately called "devious". 😛

i agree with your definition of scientist. and by that definition most graduate students are not scientists. they are slave laborers. (incidentally most of them from countries in which most slave laborers reside in the first place.)

i agree that if you want to get anywhere in life you have to work hard. i never intended to say that if you play the politics you won't have to work hard. au contraire. you have to work very hard to play the politics! politics isn't easy! and that's in addition to produce somewhat solid work, which isn't as hard as you make it out to be.

working hard != being a scientist. being scientist is about what you have to do IN ADDITION to working hard. some people seem to think that spending time in the lab, per se, can satisfy that requirement. i disagree with that.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "It" in the 2 sentences above. Surely you don't mean that you don't have to work hard as a scientist to be successful. By scientist, I mean someone who comes up with ideas and designs experiments - not the one actually performing the experiments. Although, I can't think of a single well-known scientist who did not work hard in the lab. I agree that to be successful, you have to be somewhat of a politician, but you also have to be creative in how you approach problems. If you can't back up the talk with knwoledge and insight, people just call you a "tool" behind your back.

I also agree that many PhDs receive inefficient training. But, you have to admit that learning from mistakes plays a huge role in any kind of education. If someone holds your hand throughout and does not allow you to screw up, then what's the point? You could just read all this crap in books. The goal is to be able to formulate independent thoughts and it is tough to streamline that type of education.

i disagree that you can learn much from making mistakes. most big shot researchers i know started publishing in Nature/Science in grad school and earlier on in postdoc. and the goal is not be able to "formulate independent thoughts". the goal is very concrete. it is
(1) learn to write a grant that'll get funded
(2) learn to write a paper that'll get published, and the games it involves to get it published in a high profile journal
(3) learn to manage the people and the money once you have your own lab
(4) other things, like how to give a talk (very important, and i'm not talking about the content, vis-a-vis "insights and knowledge". I'm talking about presentation, organization, "selling", articulating ideas in a clear way, making crap ideas sound sexy as hell. believe me that's not easy.) and how to form collaborations.

learning techniques is important to the extent that it'll help you accomplish the above four goals. and once the above four goals are satisfied, the "independent thoughts" come automatically. if the above four aren't satisfied, it doesn't matter if you can independently think pigs to the moon you won't get a job.

the reason that most PIs resist streamlining and thus won't make it happen is that an old grad student is very valuable once they are properly trained. they won't let go! it's a purely selfish motive. At least have two tracks in grad school... don't make everyone suffer!

if u are TRULY a genius, like Albert Einstein published what one paper on Brownian motion and one on relativity in 1905, and became world famous after...or like Watson and Crick sit around and drink beer and sexually harass women and take one peak of some pics they didn't make and write one monologue in Nature and get the Nobel... for the rest of us, you don't just have to work hard, you have to work "smart" (if you will). There are lots of papers that don't get into NSC not because of poor quality. There are lots of excellent researchers who can't make it not because they don't work hard. Life is complicated. I'm just trying to distill some simplicity out of this morass of bull**** that the institutions feed us continuously.

 

[Vader]

and the goal is not be able to "formulate independent thoughts". the goal is very concrete. it is
(1) learn to write a grant that'll get funded
(2) learn to write a paper that'll get published, and the games it involves to get it published in a high profile journal
(3) learn to manage the people and the money once you have your own lab
(4) other things, like how to give a talk (very important, and i'm not talking about the content, vis-a-vis "insights and knowledge". I'm talking about presentation, organization, "selling", articulating ideas in a clear way, making crap ideas sound sexy as hell. believe me that's not easy.) and how to form collaborations.

This is the most explicit and truthful assessment of academic science in the U.S. that I have read. 😉

I would be VERY apprehensive about NOT doing a residency after finishing my MD/PhD.

 

[tr]

On point, sluox. Absolutely.

Somebody should sticky that post for future generations of starry-eyed undergrads. 🙄

 

[solitude]

the greatest line of a great post:

if the above four aren't satisfied, it doesn't matter if you can independently think pigs to the moon you won't get a job.

 

[MinDsnatch]

Sluox, purely out of curiosity, what phase of training are you in?

on the flip side, we are encouraging scientists-in-training to devote more time improving political skills (no connotations intended) - such as presentation, salesmanship, cultivation of powerful relationships, collaboration, management, and procurement of grants.

The quality of science and pace of discovery obviously will take hits. Another words, the current system (thriving and healthy) will punish anyone genuinely focused on asking the right question, making important discovery, producing flawless experimental data, but lacking the genius of Einstein and the luck of Watson&Crick.

Unfortunate but neccesary.

 

[Dr. Dawg]

MUSC

Obstetrics-Gynecology- UCSD
Medicine-Pediatrics- Tufts Bay State
Medicine-Preliminary- MUSC
Surg-Prelim/Neuro Surg- Emory Univ SOM
Orthopaedic Surgery- Indiana Univ Sch Of Med

 

[Newquagmire]

UCSD - EM
HUP - Neuro
Stanford - Rad

 

[Doctor&Geek]

NYU (crossreferenced)
Internal Medicine - Albert Einstein/Montfiore
Internal Medicine - BU
Ophthalmology - WashU
Pediatrics - NYU
Radiation Oncology - Harvard