Dumb Question— In terms of perceived academic rigor, is there a difference between PhD's obtained in MD/PhD programs vs. simply obtaining a PhD?

[moralis]

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As seen in the title, this might be a dumb question.

I have noticed that in many PhD programs, the average time to finish is somewhere around 6(?) years. However, it seems that the average amount of time taken for an MD-PhD is somewhere around 4 years. Due to this difference in completion time, would PhD's obtained from MD-PhD programs be perceived as less rigorous in terms of graduation standards? Do graduates of MD-PhD programs publish more/less papers in their PhD time than a normal PhD student?

 

[ValentinNarcisse]

No. You save time due to credit from medical school for course work, and your rotations are shorter. Generally (of course there are exceptions) the average caliber of an MSTP student is far higher than that of a graduate student. Also, if you apply your medical school discipline to graduate school, you quickly find yourself working several more hours than your PhD colleagues. They are in no rush, after 6 years, many more years of post-doc await them. You have a lot more training ahead of you in terms of residency and fellowship - which is motivating. Finally, some self-selection of project by MD/PhDs probably help keep graduation time low. X-Ray crystallography or making a mouse and characterizing its phenotype, would not be prudent choices for a PhD project.

 

[kepler16b]

I generally agree with Valentin. MD/PhDs get some classes and rotations out of the way during M1 and M2, and they carefully select safe PIs and might pick lower risk projects. However, to answer the question in your post title, some people might perceive that the PhD portion of the MD/PhD is a PhD "lite". That's just the nature of people not understanding MD/PhD training and/or protecting their egos.

 

[CheGuevaraMD]

MD/PhDs are usually higher caliber students than those only pursuing PhDs (MD admission standards are higher), but their research is often worse. Most research, especially in biomedical science, takes time and luck, so artificially constraining the time to degree just leads students to pick out easier, less interesting projects. Finally, MD/PhDs are ‘owned’ by the medical school so there is a lot of pressure on their grad PI to pass them through. The main source of attrition in PhD programs is fatigue, not outright failure - students are told they aren’t ready to defend enough times that they just quit. MD/PhDs don’t face this obstacle. Overall, I would say MD/PhDs fall somewhere between MD + masters and pure PhDs in terms of research quality.

 

[mdphd_applicant]

People love to diss MD-PhDs as not doing a "full" PhD. At some point it becomes a meaningless gatekeeping exercise because you're still getting research training and working on a long term project. No one really cares about the "rigor" of your PhD, because the MD-PhD program as a whole is far far more rigorous than a PhD only.

 

[MSTPadvocate]

Our MSTP students graduate with many more first author publications and many more total publications than our graduate students.

 

[Neuronix]

Due to this difference in completion time, would PhD's obtained from MD-PhD programs be perceived as less rigorous in terms of graduation standards?

Some people do perceive this yes. Opinions are opinions. Most graduate departments have some standards that students have to meet to earn their PhD.

Do graduates of MD-PhD programs publish more/less papers in their PhD time than a normal PhD student?

I don't know that we have data on this. I have seen some MD/PhD students publish a lot and others not publish so much. Number of papers is also a challenging metric as that neglects impact factor and such.

 

[dl2dp2]

In this day and age, "simply obtaining a PhD", ironically, generally equates to the end of your academic career, if your PhD is below a top 10 institution. However, MD/PhDs from an average institution (say a large state school) still has a solid shot at an academic career IF they do their residency at a leading department.

If you get a PhD in biomedical sciences from a top lab at a top school, you *might* have a chance to get a tenure track job in a basic science department (overall average is around 30-50%). The rest of the PhDs end up in industry or some other unrelated job where the "rigor" of the training does not really matter--it's the name on the diploma (i.e. McKinsey says let's hire a PhD in cancer biology from Harvard to show our client how prestigious we are!) rather than the content of the training that's getting them the job.

So I'll leave it up to you to decide if one is more "rigorous" than the other.

There are also other interesting tidbits, which I've only learned recently. The number of individuals who have consistent and continuous ongoing NIH/other federal funding support, as a function of total number of people tenured at R1, is actually relatively small. The predominant model at say at a large state school in a basic science dept is sporadic funding that lasts sporadically, rather than the canonical pure soft money positions. So one might say the kind of jobs, as a mode, a PhD takes (i.e. teaching and mentoring undergrads) are very different from the kind of jobs MDPhDs take (primarily clinical).

 

[aaugh]

Like others have said, answers will vary. I would argue that MD/PhD students are not of a higher caliber, just ones with different goals. Some of the students in my program have struggled. I currently sit on our steering committee as a student member and despite someone's research experience and background, sometimes you just don't know how a student will do once they matriculate. At our institution, some faculty prefer us while some faculty despise us.

The reason it takes PhD students 6 years to graduate is because like us, their first 2 years are often spent taking coursework and picking a lab. If you think about it this way, they spend an equal amount working full-time in their thesis lab.

The number of publications for MD/PhD and PhD students wildly varies. It is completely dependent on the project and the amount of luck you have. For instance, I will be lucky if I get one publication from my dissertation project. My PhD has been one of tribulations but I won't divulge further here. I know students who graduated with multiple publications, but many of these were nearly finished by previous labmates, no one else would write the paper, the student contributed intellectually very little with project design and was treated as a technician, and/or the PI wrote the paper for them. I know PhD students who have also graduated because it has been 6+ years with no sign of progress, a PI who couldn't care less, and their committee pushed them out. Standards to graduate are adjusted all the time. Both PhD and MD/PhD students can end up in miserable situations (e.g. abusive PI) and this will also factor into their productivity. Research output doesn't equate to whether or not you "earn" your PhD and if you've learned how to answer scientific questions. Whether or not admissions and residency programs take note of this is another conversation for another day.

Either way, don't think of yourself as better than PhDs. Arrogance breeds contempt.

 

[Naruhodo]

Also, this is clearly a premed/healthcare oriented forum so you have to realize that very few PhDs without MDs are even seeing your question, let alone replying to it. If you posted your question over at Gradcafe you'd have a very different readership and likely different responses. People often chose to see the positive in their own in-group, which isn't a bad thing as long as one acknowledges the bias. I think you've got enough replies, with many nuggets of wisdom (@aaugh clearly knows of what they speak), but I just thought it was worthwhile to point out the context in which your question was asked.

 

[dl2dp2]

Either way, don't think of yourself as better than PhDs. Arrogance breeds contempt.

Well, there's a difference between achieving specific career goals (get an R01, make a million dollars, getting board certified etc) and being "better" as a person. I would suggest that you not equate the two, which would then truly "breed contempt". Achieving a myriad of career goals cannot be easily dimensionally reduced to a single spectrum of "better" vs. "worse", more or less "rigorous", etc. etc.

It's best to just focus on the numerical end result--if you end up in MD/PhD it's far more likely 10 years down the line that you'll be in an academic institution doing mostly academicy things than if you only get a PhD, especially the PhD comes from anything below top 10-20. This is just a fact. Whether this is causal to the "rigor" of the underlying, or "caliber" of the students, etc. is seemingly immaterial to the decision at hand, if you are truly agnostic to the very distinct quality of the careers these tracks would provide.

Also, this is clearly a premed/healthcare oriented forum so you have to realize that very few PhDs without MDs are even seeing your question, let alone replying to it. If you posted your question over at Gradcafe you'd have a very different readership and likely different responses. People often chose to see the positive in their own in-group, which isn't a bad thing as long as one acknowledges the bias. I think you've got enough replies, with many nuggets of wisdom (@aaugh clearly knows of what they speak), but I just thought it was worthwhile to point out the context in which your question was asked.

While there is an in-group effect, it doesn't mean that people in this group are not INFORMED of the potential differences (or should I say repercussions) of choosing a comparable allied career track. I can only reasonably infer that people here examined potential ramification of becoming a dentist, a physical therapist or a nurse, before embarking a career as a doctor--or, for that matter, becoming a pediatrician vs. a radiologist. Pointing out clearly the distinct nature of these tracks as factual information does not equate to "bias" against the professionals engaging in these tracks.

 

[Old MD-PhD]

Add my 2 cents. I had PhD after MD, and have been a physician scientist (general surgeon) in an academic institute in the past 20 years.

PhD training "rigor" is almost entirely dependent on PI, student and lab environment. Schools or departments MSTP/PhD tracks have little impact.

After training, finding academic positions and being successful (tenure, funding, publications etc) depend on what the MD/PhD or PhD could produce, not where they graduated.

Good to see next generation MD/PhDs. My daughter is applying in this cycle.

 

[wandering star]

Also, this is clearly a premed/healthcare oriented forum so you have to realize that very few PhDs without MDs are even seeing your question, let alone replying to it. If you posted your question over at Gradcafe you'd have a very different readership and likely different responses. People often chose to see the positive in their own in-group, which isn't a bad thing as long as one acknowledges the bias. I think you've got enough replies, with many nuggets of wisdom (@aaugh clearly knows of what they speak), but I just thought it was worthwhile to point out the context in which your question was asked.

At the risk of resurrecting a moderately stale thread, I have to chime in here. I am a PhD sans MD; I’m currently working as a basic scientist faculty member in a Top 25 school.

My stereotype of an MD working in research is that they’ve taken a clinical question, analyzed the data at their institution, and are now presenting it at a conference. Advantages include direct clinical relevance; disadvantages include less critical thinking. For example, they might take a statistical test at face value without thinking through all of the assumptions. The test might not really be relevant to their questions.

My stereotype of a PhD working in medical research is the inverse: they might have a very deep understanding of the basic components of the system but it may be harder to connect this to patient care. Wandering for 5 years somewhat aimlessly during the PhD process can help build a basic understanding because you start to ask “why” to everything.

An MD/PhD has dual training. When I interface with one as a researcher, I can generally expect that I can talk at a more basic level than I could otherwise. Rather than simply talking through patient management, I would expect that they can better comment on the underlying data, how it could be extrapolated, etc.

On the spectrum of basic vs translational vs clinical work, I think PhDs are best at basic research, MDs are best at clinical work, and dual training might be best in translational work where you can appreciate both conversations fully.

I don’t really bother with “prestige.” Everyone around me has lots of degrees. It doesn’t really matter. Any graduate with any degree might have been a superstar or just scraped by. As an undergraduate I felt a distinction between different levels of prestige. Now maybe I’ve just become habituated.

To the OP, commenting on graduation times: I’ve observed that this isn’t a function only of work accomplished but also field norms. A third-year grad student might have a great discovery that would be enough for a hitherto unproductive 7th year student to graduate. But because there are only in Year 3, their PI thinks, this is great talent, let me keep them around for another two years. When someone is “ready” to graduate is unfortunately highly subjective, and for MD/PhDs I think the bias is to push them a little bit earlier and also to pick safer projects too.

 

[gbwillner]

I think there is far more variability in the rigor of a PhD between a top medical school and an average one than between an MD/PhD and PhD alone.
When I did my PhD as part of an MSTP I was in grad school. There were no special MD/PhD points handed out. I had to do what all other grad students did. In my experience, MD/PhD in general are just better students in that, again in general, they have a more stringent filter to get there.