I personally am not necessarily turned off per se about the PhD route--I like yourself am in the process of applying, although I am completing another professional degree (doctoral level, but not a PhD) now and it is definitely possible or even likely that I will simply stick with this career path instead of adding a clinical psych PhD--unless I get into one of my top few choices for schools. Even then I may end up scrapping the idea, regardless of the fact that I have already sent in all my apps and been thinking about the clinical PhD in addition to my current field for many years. But I think my situation is probably a fair amount different from yours--let's just say I have wandered through life quite a bit, and there are many additional incentives for me to start to really settle down. Among other things, not all of my motives for wanting to do a clinical program are what I would consider legit, even though it has been a long-term goal and interest of mine (e.g. doing it for the title and for further proving myself are factors for me, and probably aren't good reasons, although there are strong interest and career reasons as well).
Although I don't necessarily want an MD personally at this point, and I am not as impressed by the degree as most everyone else seems to be (probably partly because my parents are in medicine), I think if I legitimately had that as an option I would take it instead of the PhD. Unless, as I mentioned, the options were Yale psych v. an average medical school. But if you seriously have a shot at Stanford/Harvard/UPENN/Yale medical schools I think that is a very, very safe bet for you in terms of job security and many lucrative possibilities. On the other hand, if you can get into UPENN or Yale for psych I think those schools are going to give you options that many other clinical psych programs will not--i.e. you will be essentially guaranteed an academic teaching job at the university level if that is what you desire, and you will be in a position of leading the field. Really only those two schools come to mind as having that level of assurance in the clinical psych world (probably Harvard too, just because the name more than the actual quality of their program), but obviously there are still no guarantees. So your options would likely be very good at either a top medical school or a tip-top clinical psych program, and then I suppose I would simply go with the one I felt more passionate about.
The above notwithstanding, when it comes down to it I think you do need to do what you are interested in and not just chase money and prestige. However, making calculated value judgments based on likely options in MD v. psych PhD is wise in my opinion, even if not something that should at all be solely dispositive. If you can find a way to make a surer bet work for you in a way that (in the long term) can match your interests then I think that could be a wise decision.
Your situation is probably different from the vast majority of applicants in that if you meet your target schools in either field you should have a lot of options open to you. If I were you I would absolutely not settle for second best. You have extremely strong stats and research experience and many options available to you. I don't think you should attend anything less than a tip-top clinical psych program if you do go into psych. If you have top medical schools available to you, it just doesn't make sense to go to a second-best clinical program. Which is why I think throwing some medical school apps out there might be a good idea, just to see if you get some offers. I suppose this is easier said than done, because among other things you need to get recommenders to write for those programs, and in general (with both the programs and recommenders) you want to come off as focused and not unsure about your direction (even though it is natural to question this). So, one approach could be to wait and see if you get tip-top clinical programs this year and then apply to top med programs next year if not, but that would be pretty disruptive, so I think sending out maybe 2 or 3 applications to med school top-5 programs now might be ideal if you can finesse the letter requests and do your best to write convincing statements. That way you would have all your options on the table, and wouldn't need to delay another year.
All the above said, I do agree that psychiatry is pretty abysmal (re: just focusing on meds etc), and I understand that it is generally a very different path than doing a clinical PhD in psych. Also, I am a big advocate of following your heart in terms of vocation. It's just that I think taking economic and practical considerations into as much account as possible at the same time is also prudent.
In closing, sorry to OP--I'm actually the one who jacked this thread, but I hope some of my comments may have been useful.
