You really do need research experience before trying to decide whether either of these careers is for you.
I second this. This whole discussion is very tangential to the op's original post. The op is someone with a sub-par GPA for MD or MD/PhD who has no research experience.
To the op: you need to get straight As from here on out, crush your MCAT, and start doing research now. Improving your GPA will help you no matter what graduate pathway you choose, as far as giving you more options and access to higher quality programs. You will want several years of research experience before applying MD/PhD or PhD. Once you have this, come back and talk to us about where you stand. MD/PhD and PhD are both researcher pathways, the question is whether you want to have a physician component to that. Adding an MD is many years of your life focusing entirely on clinical medicine, and you will very likely have that as some component of the rest of your career.
I was on the fence about MD/PhD programs during undergrad and I was talked out of it by every PhD that I spoke to about the program.
Me too. I got the advice from multiple PhDs that the PhD was more like an "MD/MS". The curious thing is that I would find out later that the most anti-MD/PhD faculty member at my undergrad had a son doing the MD/PhD program at a big name place
😵.
I still decided to do MD/PhD because I had a strong desire to practice medicine as well.
So I'll preface this respones with: I've met people in the real world with similar mindsets and misunderstandings of the MD/PhD pathway as Annaleise. There are many PhDs out there who do not respect the research done by MD/PhDs. My graduate adviser used to call the clinical/translational research in our area "bozo research" because of the low quality research published by MDs in clinical journals. He would frequently quip that all research done by MDs or MD/PhDs is "bozo". I was chided and somewhat outcast by PhDs in the lab just for being MD/PhD and feeling that MD/PhD was equivalent in research experience to PhDs. There were numerous labs at my MD/PhD program that would not take MD/PhDs. This is reality folks. This forum is an echo chamber for pro-MD/PhD sentiments, but there is a stronger anti-MD/PhD sentiment out there.
I wanted a strong research program, and I found that I could not get that from a joint program. I chose to complete a PhD program at a research university, defended last year and am in the middle of a fellowship now. I am sending out applications for 2016 admission to medical schools and I truly believe that PhD before MD was the best choice for me. HONESTLY, MDs may respect the three-year PhD from an MD/PhD program, but I have been to many, many defenses for MD/PhD students and sat on three committees - I did more research during the first year of my engineering Master's than the average MD/PhD student accomplishes during their 3 year PhD.
What is strong to you? In an MSTP nobody is pushing you back into medical school if you are not ready. No MSTP is telling you that you can't be in the most rigorous labs. One of my classmates was initially refused by a PhD-only adviser who refuses MD/PhDs with similar stereotypes that the MD/PhD is not a real PhD. That student went back to that PI and told the PI how serious he was to get a real PhD. The student graduated in a combined total of 8 years with several publications with that PI.
My former program did average about 8 years for recent graduates. We shaved 6 months off of the fourth year of medical school typically, which meant this was a 3.5 year MD and 4.5 year PhD program. There were some 3.5 year PhD graduates, and some 5.5 year (and more) PhD graduates.
There was a time when MD/PhD programs were a lot shorter (
http://publications.nigms.nih.gov/reports/mstpstudy/images/nigmsfig1.gif), but that no longer exists. The national average can be quoted at 8 years (see:
http://weill.cornell.edu/mdphd/bm~doc/are-mdphd-programs-meetin.pdf) and given the upward trend in graduation times I strongly suspect that it is closer to 8.5 for matriculating students today.
I had a different problem. I joined a lab run by and training PhDs, with rare MDs or MD/PhDs. In a little over 3 years after 3 basic science publications (a fourth in review), a F grant, co-PI on some additional grants, and my name on a few provisional patents, I fought my way back into medical school because my lab wanted me to stay longer. I ended up doing a 1 year post-doc to pick up some other techniques in another lab before going back to med school. In total I would end up with 5 first author basic science publications, with one in a big name journal.
So my advice to you is not to paint with such a broad brush. Some people earn very strong 3 year PhDs. Some people earn lousy 5 year PhDs (sometimes not their fault which can be sad...).
http://www.sunycnse.com/PioneeringAcademics/GraduatePrograms/Nanomedicine.aspx
^ This is what I'm referring to. These "2-3-2" programs. 5 year PhD, ok. 3 years, with classes and other obligations, with NO publication requirements? That's entirely different.
The guaranteed 3 year PhD is interesting. These are common in Europe, and they don't seem to have an issue with it. I'm not sure how I feel about them, but I will agree that they can lead to a PhD in name only without serious research. However, MD/PhD programs are not those. MSTPs are not handing out PhDs with no effort and no publications. The vast majority require real basic science research with the same expectations required by the graduate school program. The only things that tend to get trimmed off (though not always) are teaching requirements, sometimes more limited coursework requirements, and the MD/PhDs do their lab rotations while in medical school. These things are worth a year in my opinion.
Now, I have seen MD/PhDs squeak out with no first author publications, and those people have not done particularly well in their future endeavors either. I post on here frequently that the PhD is not of much value to residency programs and thereafter. It is what you are doing that matters. Getting that PhD in name doesn't do a whole lot for you.
If research is your true interest, I would just like to point out that MD/PhD's are NOT equivalent to a PhD in academia.
To academics, the PhD in an MD/PhD program is equivalent to an attendance award for showing up to lab for 3 years. You put in your 3 years and you leave - no matter what you have accomplished in lab and/or if you have any publications. NOT the case for PhD students - My program required a minimum of 2 first author publications in order to defend, but my PI would not even let me think about my defense until after my fourth.
NSF/NIH Graduate fellows, Nature/Cell first authors, Rhodes Scholars and Fields Medal recipients don't graduate in 3 years and they actually publish.
It's up to you - but if you really are interested in research - you will not get that from an MD/PhD program. If you are looking for free medical school or a stipend then sure, but just bear in mind that your degree will be taken with a grain of salt.
This is a stereotype of some in basic science departments, not "academia" as a whole. Academia means so many different things to so many different people that it is almost a useless word.
So I let this kind of talk go in one ear and out the other. Most MD/PhDs are employed as faculty in clinical departments. There are many majority basic researchers who are employed by clinical departments. The most grant funding at my very large, big name medical school was in the department of internal medicine, much of which was basic science. This is where we're trying to get hired, and you won't hear this sentiment there.
I did my PhD at MIT and that's how it is with the Harvard joint program, which is why I declined the MD portion. My post doc advisor (at a different institution) won't even take MD/PhD students for this reason. I also taught at SUNY Downstate and that's how their program was, as well as UTHSC, Albany and Vandy.
If that is true, then it is a massive change from how it used to be. We have an investigator at my institution who did the joint Harvard-MIT program in 13 years. That program had a reputation for a long time of 10+ year graduates. That's also very bad. There needs to be a happy middle there. I have no experience with UTHSC or Albany, but the MD/PhD from Vandy in my residency graduated in 8 years with numerous publications.
And I strongly disagree with the portion about the research experience. MD/PhDs may have more experience in epi and clinical - looking back through other researchers' work to try to find "trends" in their data or patient files - but when it comes to the academic research aspect, it's PhD > MD and PhD > MD/PhD
MSTPs typically don't allow research in epi or clinical. We do end up doing a lot of this in residency because it's easy. I have now published four first author clinical/epi papers in residency (a fifth in review), and I'm not proud of that. I'm fighting hard to get back into basic research currently. But I hope you understand as well that you're strongly derailing your own research by heading to medical school. In medical school and residency it is quite hard to do anything significant in the lab. I would argue that an MD without a residency is not very useful. My post-doc adviser called it "****ing useless" when I told him I was considering not doing a residency. I agree with him now. Publishing in clinical research may very well be your own short-term future given what you're telling us about your own plans.
And 4 years is 4 years. No matter how you spin it, 4 years is not 5 and it's not 6. It's 4 years towards a PhD, compared to other PhD students who were there, in lab, dedicating their time towards their PhD while the MD/PhD students was working on the MD part.
As I said before, the streamlining built into my MD/PhD program is worth a year. Our MD/PhDs were averaging 4.5 years in the lab, and our PhDs were averaging 5.5 years in grad school. I think that's pretty darn similar, but it's a matter of opinion.
There's also a large push to get MD/PhDs out of the PhD portion faster because they're on university money, not an individual PI's grant. So they tend to get "accelerated," and some basic requirements are cast aside. The quicker they get out their MD/PhDs, the more spots open up for next cycle.
You'd be upset too if someone got your same degree for half the work, and therein lies a major reason why PhDs are hesitant about MD/PhDs
That is false. MD/PhDs are on the university's dime for medical school, not for graduate school where they become the responsibility of the adviser. There are some minor exceptions, like sometimes the MD/PhDs are funded for the first year of grad school when the adviser is not yet certain. The pressure comes from other MD/PhDs to "streamline". That is, unlike many PhDs who spend the first year getting their feet wet in labs and teaching to fund themselves, the MD/PhDs go straight into the lab without teaching. Grad school requirements that have to do with cell biology or other medical topics can be thrown out given that the student just spent the past 2 years learning about the biology of medicine.
My MD/PhD program also insisted on thesis committee meetings every 6 months to make sure I was on track. My grad program, and certainly my lab, wanted these annually. In my particular case, my grad school chairman had little interest in my graduation time. My thesis commitee was deadlocked on whether I was ready to graduate. So my MD/PhD adviser came to the meeting. He did nothing and said nothing at the meeting. He ate his lunch. Magically, an agreement was made that I was ready to graduate. Had this not happened, I would probably have spent another year in that lab. Does this mean I don't have a real PhD?
There will be phd students who work hard and those who don't and same goes for md/phd students...some will work hard and some won't.
Second this. There are a lot of anecdotes flying around. This is fine, but the stereotyping is ridiculous.
I applied for travel grants because my PI didn't even want to spend $250 on a hotel room for a conference where I was presenting research for HER lab.
That's painful. You are now making me glad I was in the lab I was in
.
Just an honest to goodness PhD who is sick of seeing MD/PhDs and trying to act like it's the same thing.
It's not.
And no, it's not better either.
I've been publishing for 9 years, consistently, and have my own R01. I think I'm fine.
You have an R01, and you are applying to medical school? OK, sounds legit. Do your students / post-docs know about this?
Yes. Professors and fellows can go to school too.
Harsh judgments aside, R01s after a K99/R00 is not that uncommon for fellows/adjuncts and is pretty common in research universities when you're getting tracked to professorship.
This is where this whole conversation goes into bizzaro-land. It is not common for fellows to get R01 grants. Usually the K99/R00 is enough to track you into the professorship position. If you do have an R01, that's fantastic. That's your ticket into a tenure track professorship where a second R01 will likely lead you to tenure and a reasonably stable science career. That's great! The R01 funding rates are down in the 10% range, and are extremely competitive. Thus to get one at all is excellent, and to get one as a fellow is outstanding. So it seems very strange to me that you're going to throw one of these away and just go off to medical school.
Edit: I'm pretty sure my motivation for medical school is not your business.
Of course it's not "our business", but you started this discussion, and we are all going to find it very strange that you're going to "give away" your R01 grant, a major achievement, to go to medical school. So yes, I am also pretty darn curious about this. This is where the whole discussion goes from MD/PhD stereotypes off the deep end.
It started because I said some 2-3-2 programs give PhDs as attendance awards for putting in 3 years of work. Those are programs where they spend 3 years doing "research" and have no publication requirements. If they don't publish and deliver mediocre defenses, what exactly is that PhD for?
This may not be the "norm," but I have seen it happen, and I do not feel that PhDs are not something to hand out lightly. Just the same way, I'm sure, you would not like to see MDs handed out lightly.
I'm in agreement with this. I just suggest that you please respect our community by understanding that this is not the norm for MD/PhDs, and many MD/PhDs disagree with guaranteed 3 year PhD pathways as well.
