Adding 6th year to PhD?

[StilgarMD]

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Hey All,

I have a friend in a situation who is looking for advice, and I told him I usually get good advice on this forum so I am posting on their behalf.

Basically, they are a 7th year MD/PhD in my program, whose project required setting up a new animal model and new technique in the lab. This took a long time, naturally - they recently finally started getting promising results. Unfortunately, they are also getting to the point where they have to develop their exit plan. They can go back this Summer (~5 months from now) with a Methods paper, or go back the following summer, and use the intervening year to actually finish the project. He very much wants to stay in science after finishing his residency, and wants to make sure they aren't leaving a lot on the table for not maximizing the return on the huge investment of setting up this project. There are clear reasons to stay, but in the context of physician scientists transitioning to faculty positions, will this make enough of a difference to warrant the year?

Any thoughts/recommendations would be appreciated.

 

[9732doc]

tl;dr It's not worth it.

I wouldn't extend unless I was really sure that that extra year would get me a splashy CNS paper, because otherwise, I doubt one more paper is really going to change his prospects that much for post-residency. If he's serious about doing research, he'll have opportunities during and after residency to do more science that will likely bear much more on his post-training career than one more paper from grad school. As long as he has something. The bar is different for MD-PhD compared to PhD's alone. If he were going for a competitive post-doc, I'd say, stay one more year. But if he plans to do residency, I really doubt one more paper is going to change his ability to secure a top notch residency. His MS3/Scores performance will likely have more bearing on that.

Also, what would be necessary to 'finish' the project? it's not great to leave stuff behind. Definitely better to tie up loose ends. But it's not impossible to keep the wheels moving on some science on nights and weekends of lighter rotations during MS3 (note: this is suboptimal but not impossible). I've done this during MS4. but it totally depends on the type of science. Also, he could possibly enlist a colleague to help him finish and share co-first authorship (pending PI approval). If he wants to stay one more year because he loves the lab, I won't dispute that. I felt that way too and stayed longer than I should have. But now in retrospect, I don't think it did anything substantial to change the opportunities I have now.

 

[tomorrowDoc]

So they will finish in 9 or 10 years total right? Did they take an extended time off before starting the md PhD program?

I also took an extra year, but from 4 to 5 for the PhD. The advice I got was, one year seems like ages in your twenties but it will look like nothing in your forties or fifties. If this year can really get them a good paper, and esp since they do want to stay in science then this will be important to stay and finish.

Having a first author research article will be more important than a methods paper, esp if they end up applying for phy sci tracks later on.

 

[StilgarMD]

tl;dr It's not worth it.

I wouldn't extend unless I was really sure that that extra year would get me a splashy CNS paper, because otherwise, I doubt one more paper is really going to change his prospects that much for post-residency. If he's serious about doing research, he'll have opportunities during and after residency to do more science that will likely bear much more on his post-training career than one more paper from grad school. As long as he has something. The bar is different for MD-PhD compared to PhD's alone. If he were going for a competitive post-doc, I'd say, stay one more year. But if he plans to do residency, I really doubt one more paper is going to change his ability to secure a top notch residency. His MS3/Scores performance will likely have more bearing on that.

Also, what would be necessary to 'finish' the project? it's not great to leave stuff behind. Definitely better to tie up loose ends. But it's not impossible to keep the wheels moving on some science on nights and weekends of lighter rotations during MS3 (note: this is suboptimal but not impossible). I've done this during MS4. but it totally depends on the type of science. Also, he could possibly enlist a colleague to help him finish and share co-first authorship (pending PI approval). If he wants to stay one more year because he loves the lab, I won't dispute that. I felt that way too and stayed longer than I should have. But now in retrospect, I don't think it did anything substantial to change the opportunities I have now.

"finish" means actually using the developed platform to gather data and answer a scientific question, and some low hanging fruit in short follow ups. As of now, the timeline is so short that a methods paper is the only thing that can be assured. I know this kind of thing would be a no-brainer for a straight PhD, but I have a difficult time believing we are held to THAT different a standard.

 

[tr]

If your friend wants to stay in basic science, and especially if s/he wants to stay at all close to the PhD field, I'd suggest staying the extra year for a good paper.

 

[StilgarMD]

If your friend wants to stay in basic science, and especially if s/he wants to stay at all close to the PhD field, I'd suggest staying the extra year for a good paper.

Yea he does... Thanks for chiming in. For anyone else who happens to be in a similar situation reading this one day, another thing to consider, which he heard from someone else, was that if you need to go mad and burnout just to finish your PhD on time, there is a good chance it will show on your performance on clerkships when you get back (doubly so if any loose ends require you to dedicate time after you've started them).

 

[ganglia777]

Yea he does... Thanks for chiming in. For anyone else who happens to be in a similar situation reading this one day, another thing to consider, which he heard from someone else, was that if you need to go mad and burnout just to finish your PhD on time, there is a good chance it will show on your performance on clerkships when you get back (doubly so if any loose ends require you to dedicate time after you've started them).

There really shouldn't be a stigma against taking more than 4 years to do the PhD, but there is. Does he/she really want to be stressing about this paper during a 90 hour per week surgery rotation?

He/she should take the 6th year. If he/she doesn't take the full year to get the paper, the time can be used to either do extra electives, to work a postdoc or a second job to make extra money. I was in the same position as OP, except I was on my 6th year and decided to take 7. I am expecting 10 more publications (papers + abstracts) as a result, so it was worth it. Don't worry about not finishing in 4 or even 5 years. In the grand scheme of things, 7 vs 4 is not a big deal.

 

[Neuronix]

So they will finish in 9 or 10 years total right? Did they take an extended time off before starting the md PhD program?

I also took an extra year, but from 4 to 5 for the PhD. The advice I got was, one year seems like ages in your twenties but it will look like nothing in your forties or fifties. If this year can really get them a good paper, and esp since they do want to stay in science then this will be important to stay and finish.

Having a first author research article will be more important than a methods paper, esp if they end up applying for phy sci tracks later on.

I am of mixed feelings about this.

On the one hand, people who will be evaluating you for research do expect a few decent first author papers out of a PhD unless you get a top tier first author paper.

On the other hand, I disagree with "one year seems like ages in your twenties but it will look like nothing in your forties or fifties." There are a lot of extra years in this training pathway. The old way was a 6-7 year MD/PhD program directly after a 4 year undergrad and a 5 year fellowship. So you were getting your first job in your early to mid-30s and if you started in the good funding times when grant funding rates were 40%+, things were a lot different trying to establish your career.

Nowadays, by the time you finish taking that year off before the MD/PhD program, then take a decade to do the MD/PhD program, and finally 6 years for residency and fellowship (many specialties have added 1+ years to their training pathways), you'll probably be about 40 by the time you get your first job, struggling to get your first R grant, and possibly dealing with difficult financial issues from making so little for so long and possibly infertility issues trying to start a family at 40.

So I'm not saying you should never take extra years. But make sure they're really worth it.

 

[eteshoe]

There really shouldn't be a stigma against taking more than 4 years to do the PhD, but there is. Does he/she really want to be stressing about this paper during a 90 hour per week surgery rotation?

He/she should take the 6th year. If he/she doesn't take the full year to get the paper, the time can be used to either do extra electives, to work a postdoc or a second job to make extra money. I was in the same position as OP, except I was on my 6th year and decided to take 7. I am expecting 10 more publications (papers + abstracts) as a result, so it was worth it. Don't worry about not finishing in 4 or even 5 years. In the grand scheme of things, 7 vs 4 is not a big deal.

Same is happening to me. Life has been a lot less stressful once I decided to not kill myself trying to finish fast and just focus on tying up all the loose ends before jumping back into the clinic frying pan.

 

[ganglia777]

Same is happening to me. Life has been a lot less stressful once I decided to not kill myself trying to finish fast and just focus on tying up all the loose ends before jumping back into the clinic frying pan.

"frying pan" is still a generous description.