Change of Heart - MD/Phd

[Anonyme27516]

Hello Everyone: I am currently waiting on my primary application to be verified, but I have had a change of heart in the direction of my medical career. I had been planning to apply just MD as I thought I mostly wanted a clinical career, however, now I am pretty convinced that I actually want to pursue MD/PhD or a MSTP program. I am a little frightened though that my range of schools will be affected.

Currently I have a 3.7 c/sGPA and a 519 MCAT. With More than a year heavy research experience (25 hrs/week). I am definitely a realistic candidate for top 10 and top 20 MD programs, however, I don't feel like I'd be competitive for the MSTP & MD/PhD programs at these top 20 schools. I was wondering what you all think of the situation

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[mistafab]

A few things:

1. You can apply MSTP after a year or two in your MD only program. This depends on if the school has open MSTP slots that are unfilled or not. So long as a spot opens up before M3 then you are golden, can apply for (and hopefully take) an MSTP slot.

2. You can do anything with an MD only that you could do with a PhD - just to be extremely clear. The MD-PhD helps with grant applications a bit but unless you do almost exclusively research then the difference between MD and PhD is only going to be your toolkit (research skillz yo), not your name, holding you back. You gotta understand that if you are planning to do mostly clinical stuff with your career then the PhD is no help. MD is good enough for research since MD does prepare you to be a scientist. The MD/PhD is there to develop and groom the next generation of translational research that will blow our brains out with its ingenuity. Is translational research all you are about? Are you just living and breathing lab stuff, and want to do nothing more but inject it into mice and (eventually) humans? Are you just salivating at the thought of coming up with mechanisms for new drugs? Do you see humans as just a means for seeing patterns that no one else sees, and do you want to take those patterns into a petri dish and blow some bacterial colonies to pieces just to find the next holy grail of hemorrhoid cream? These are very important questions.

3. What is your current application like IF YOU WERE to apply MD/PhD? Do you have a first authorship? Do you have lots of research experience? What about letters from PI's? Do you have ideas for a project? What about research interests? What kinds of things are we talking about here? Give us more info into your background.

Anyway - some things to think about.

 

[Goro]

Hello Everyone: I am currently waiting on my primary application to be verified, but I have had a change of heart in the direction of my medical career. I had been planning to apply just MD as I thought I mostly wanted a clinical career, however, now I am pretty convinced that I actually want to pursue MD/PhD or a MSTP program. I am a little frightened though that my range of schools will be affected.

Currently I have a 3.7 c/sGPA and a 519 MCAT. With More than a year heavy research experience (25 hrs/week). I am definitely a realistic candidate for top 10 and top 20 MD programs, however, I don't feel like I'd be competitive for the MSTP & MD/PhD programs at these top 20 schools. I was wondering what you all think of the situation

Get the MD, then go do a research fellowship.

 

[s_med]

If you think you are competitive for top 20 MD-only programs, you should seriously consider putting your eggs into that basket and then, after (hopefully) gaining admission and matriculating into one of those programs, working towards internal transfer. Top ranked medical schools are generally regarded as such because of the funding they receive and allocate for research, and consequently those institutions tend to have larger MD/PhD programs and likely more seats for internal candidates. If you don't think you are a strong candidate for a top MSTP right now, but you still want to earn both degrees from a top institution, to me this is the most strategically viable route. You will have to work more than your MD-only compatriots on research during MS1-2, but if you're not willing to do that you are frankly not cut out to be admitted to a highly-ranked MSTP.

This approach does not preclude the addition of MSTPs to your current application (contingent upon your completion of MD/PhD-only essays on AMCAS and in secondaries).

Or, as other members here mention time and time again when it comes to academic medicine, you don't necessarily need both degrees. There is plenty of time and opportunities to do research as a physician, even without a PhD.