Does a truly integrated (translational) career as an MD/PhD exist?

[deleted826437]

As the title states: I am curious if a career exists that truly allows for the integration of bench research and patient care and if so, what field/specialty/PhD topics are most conducive?

I know a majority of MD/PhDs end up doing about 80/20 lab/clinic time, which is fine, but I would prefer to find a topic that directly impacts the patients that I care for during the 20% portion. Does that exist?

Thank you.

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[mega_]

i think the closest to optimal is medical genetics (usually peds). however, it seems that in any field you can carve out the niche if you lucky.

 

[gbwillner]

As the title states: I am curious if a career exists that truly allows for the integration of bench research and patient care and if so, what field/specialty/PhD topics are most conducive?

I know a majority of MD/PhDs end up doing about 80/20 lab/clinic time, which is fine, but I would prefer to find a topic that directly impacts the patients that I care for during the 20% portion. Does that exist?

Thank you.

The answer: Of course there is. Every field has research opportunities that can directly translate to clinical care. However, there is great variety in the quality and quantity of the research opportunities available between fields.

I would have to know a lot more about you and what you consider the be relevant for integration of patient care to say any more.

 

[dl2dp2]

As the title states: I am curious if a career exists that truly allows for the integration of bench research and patient care and if so, what field/specialty/PhD topics are most conducive?

I know a majority of MD/PhDs end up doing about 80/20 lab/clinic time, which is fine, but I would prefer to find a topic that directly impacts the patients that I care for during the 20% portion. Does that exist?

Thank you.

Statistically, this is false. A minority of md phds end up in 80/20 jobs. You can find the relevant documents by googling MDPhDs outcomes. About 20% of all individuals who receive an MDPhD degree combination optimistically will ever have a career doing more than about 75% research. An even smaller fraction do federally sponsored research as principal investigators.

This compares favorably to about 10% of all individuals who receive PHDs in biomedicine who will end up doing more than 50% research, and single digits for federal grant PI.