Can I do it all? clinical and academic and research?

[funshine]

---

Members do not see this ad.

I was always under the impression that if you work for a university-affiliated hospital, you can be a practicing physician in the clinic AND teach as a prof AND do research in lab. Sounds like an insane amount of work, but fun 🙂 --i'll need the variety. I was told that a physician must choose to focus on either on the clinic (seeing patients) or research...and do the other on the side. Is this true?

I just hope some of you can clear up exactly what is reasonable for a physician (MD only) to do. I'm in the process of writing my secondaries, and I don't want to say "I want to do it all" if it just makes me look idiotic, thanks 🙂

PS:
Just to make sure I have it clear...

clinical = seeing patients

clinical research = scarce to find, from what I hear? Is it mainly MD/PhDs who get the clinical research positions?

academic medicine = teaching medical students

research = research

thanks!

 

[fantasty]

Sure you can do it all. It's hard to do, but it was a classic model in ages past. This was the "triple threat" in academic medicine. In other academic circles, it's teaching, research, and "service" - with service typically meaning administration, committee work, consulting, etc.

I think of "academic medicine" as having all three (or at least 2) of these components and being at a university-based system / teaching hospital. But, I don't think it's unreasonable to let programs know that your long-term goal is get an academic position and do each of these.

As for clinical research, this is really any "patient-oriented research" and, no, you don't need a phd. Clinical research is anything related to the care of patients - can be diagnostic, epidemiologic, or related to treatment/prognosis/survival (or quality of life, quality of health care services, etc). Most MD/PhD physician scientists are working on "biomedical" (read as basic science) research, although some of us are doing clinical research. To become a clinical investigator in clinical research, you might get another degree as you go (such as a MS or an MPH from a K30 program). But, an MD is sufficient in most cases to become a clinical researcher. And, some fields are a probably easier to do clinical research in than others.

 

[Bobblehead]

I think it's best to be honest and state what you think you want for yourself. No one seriously expects you to know where you'll end up in 10 years but the game is played the same everywhere as everyone is going for an "academic" career. Broadly there are a number of ways of staying in academics but the bottom line is that there has to be something that will support your salary, be it billing from clinical services, grants that you've won, industry, your division in exchange for administrative duties, etc.

The triple threat is hard to do nowadays with clinical reimbursements down, NIH funding at a low point in its cycle and most people wanting a "life" outside of medicine. Essentially you'll end up doing teaching for "free" and for most academic physicians the service months are a necessary evil to accomplish before they can get back to their research. That doesn't mean some don't like their clinical service but it does limit your time in the lab or in clinical investigation which will likely be your main funding source.

There are some clinician-teacher tracts now that focus on clinical service and teaching but they're not as well established as the clinician-investigator paths (either basic science, translational, or clinical research). While an MD may be sufficient for clinical investigation an MPH or MS will only help your cause and help you to stand out when you write for NIH funding. Additionally you'll likely need the tools from the formal classwork that you'll get on your way to the MPH/MS.

 

[funshine]

finished the secondary; thanks, you two 🙂

i do want to pursue research at some point during my career. I'm not applying to any of the joint MD/MS/MPH programs though, b/c I haven't taken the GREs. Anyway, I figure once I actually get into the regular MD program, it should be easier to get in the other programs should I decide I want to pursue another degree later on.