Are primary care and academic medicine mutually exclusive?

[vivax]

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Can I list both academic medicine and primary care as interests if schools were to ask this question? Particularly if the school focuses on primary care? I just don't often see/hear about PCPs doing research or working in large teaching hospitals etc.

 

[SuaveCardigans]

Can I list both academic medicine and primary care as interests if schools were to ask this question? Particularly if the school focuses on primary care? I just don't often see/hear about PCPs doing research or working in large teaching hospitals etc.

Not even close. There is a ton of research done in primary care, and even more physicians that have a role in academia as far as teaching/admin roles.

Now if by research you mean bench work, then I would imagine there are few primary care physicians that do that compared to specialists/subspecialists.

 

[vivax]

Not even close. There is a ton of research done in primary care, and even more physicians that have a role in academia as far as teaching/admin roles.

That's great to hear/learn about!

 

[wholeheartedly]

Definitely can reasonably have interests in both. The hospital I used to work at was a major tertiary place, but still had tons of primary care research going on. Lots of cool stuff too.

 

[aldol16]

You can list both but be aware that there's a difference between academic primary care and community practice primary care. There are overlaps, of course, and you can still do research as a physician who focuses primarily on community practice. Primary care just refers to a set disciplines. Here's an article about those differences in oncology: Making the Choice Between Academic Oncology and Community Practice: The Big Picture and Details About Each Career