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We see each other in meetings, but not about specific applicants. The system would so much better if we had a MD/PhD match. The problem is that about ~100 withdraw to medical school. Eventually, those slots are filled with other applicants, ending up with ~ 650 first-year MD/PhD students.
We actually meet nationally to help work out issues regarding your future careers like leveraging our group to push for research-track residencies in every specialty.
Academic centers are becoming the haves/have nots for the research enterprise. The margins in the clinical enterprise is what helps offset paying for the research mission of the institution. The problem that Neuronix's specialty (Rad Onc) is facing is that we all have to produce our salaries. Some specialties are more desirable because they have a greater salary. The problem, your cost to buy your research time is much higher than in traditional low paying specialties like IM, Peds, Neurology, Path.
PDs at programs always talk about how their graduates end up in academic. How do we actually determine the proportion of an MSTP's students that end up in a tenure track position with dedicated research time/start up? It seems like the only way to find out is to individually google graduates and see where they are now....? That wouldn't yield a numerical percentage, but I suppose it would uncover who is in academic medicine and looks to be productive in research still?It's not just salary. My salary is a reflection of the "professional" billing component of what I do, which is only about 20% of the revenue generated from each patient. 80% of the revenue is the "technical" component, which goes to the institution. So the losses are magnified even more than just my salary. Technical specialties lose a ton any time a physician is not treating patients. That money goes to support the money losing departments within the institution.
The other issue is that a lot of research is industry funded. Medical oncology trials generate a ton of money per patient. Industry funding is very common in medical subspecialties even for basic research. Even surgeons have device trials. Rad onc and radiology get almost no vendor funding because of the way radiation and radiology devices are regulated. It's to the point where many cancer centers don't even care about NIH funding anymore. Industry pays several times more per patient for clinical trials, so why bother with the NIH at all?
Still, people love to just point fingers and say "oh that's rad onc's problem" or "that's X specialty's problem" or "you weren't good enough" or whatever it is. I'd like to see the real data--for grads coming out in 2000s -2010s, how many are actually getting majority research positions? Just being in "academics" with one "academic day" a week is a joke. In my specialty you pretty much can't avoid becoming an "academic" physician because the academic institutions are taking over or building next to the private centers. So even if you're 100% clinical, you still get to be in academics with a meaningless academic title. I'm sure MD/PhD directors are claiming victory in these cases because all they seem to care about is that you aren't in private practice. But that's a farce.
PDs at programs always talk about how their graduates end up in academic. How do we actually determine the proportion of an MSTP's students that end up in a tenure track position with dedicated research time/start up? It seems like the only way to find out is to individually google graduates and see where they are now....? That wouldn't yield a numerical percentage, but I suppose it would uncover who is in academic medicine and looks to be productive in research still?