Education/Career Advice

[ActiasLuna]

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Hello everyone. I have been browsing the content on this forum for the past week. On top of that I have been browsing other Internet-related content on MD, PhD, and MD/PhD information.

Before I ask my question I will give some background info on myself. I am transferring as a junior from a California CC to a UC in September (my major is bioengineering or biomedical engineering). For the past two-three years I was set on applying to an MD/PhD program and focus my PhD on biomedical engineering. Now that I am a junior I have to start thinking more about my education past a bachelor's degree. After looking more into an MD/PhD I discovered that I am not willing to commit myself to 10+ years of education and career preparation. I need to be honest with myself. I have since decided that I am willing to commit myself to either med school or grad school...not both.

Despite not wanting to follow the MD/PhD route anymore, I still want to follow the career route previously intended. I want to work with organ and tissue engineering. I feel that I can get there without the MD/PhD. These are the degree routes I was thinking about: MD in cardiology or a PhD in medical engineering and medical physics from HST.

Let's get down to the questions.

1. My concern is that with a PhD I might be limiting myself since I want to work in the industry or private sector -- not academia. How successful are biomedical engineering PhDs in finding jobs in non-academic areas? What kind of job prospects can I hope for?

2. I can't seem to determine whether a PhD is better to have than an MD in biomedical research. Is there truly an advantage of having a PhD over an MD if I wish to conduct some research on the side? A lot of opinions that I have found are mixed. I don't see why an MD couldn't do research too.

3. Which MD specialty would be the best to have if I want to do research? I thought cardiology would be good since I want to focus on the heart for tissue engineering. I would like to work on any part of the body.

Thank you for taking the time to read my post. Any replies would be greatly appreciated. It is hard to gain this sort of advice because of where I live (isolated).

 

[gbwillner]

1. My concern is that with a PhD I might be limiting myself since I want to work in the industry or private sector -- not academia. How successful are biomedical engineering PhDs in finding jobs in non-academic areas? What kind of job prospects can I hope for?

2. I can't seem to determine whether a PhD is better to have than an MD in biomedical research. Is there truly an advantage of having a PhD over an MD if I wish to conduct some research on the side? A lot of opinions that I have found are mixed. I don't see why an MD couldn't do research too.

3. Which MD specialty would be the best to have if I want to do research? I thought cardiology would be good since I want to focus on the heart for tissue engineering. I would like to work on any part of the body.

Thank you for taking the time to read my post. Any replies would be greatly appreciated. It is hard to gain this sort of advice because of where I live (isolated).

1. PhDs go into the private sector ALL THE TIME. It is a common pathway. You just don't see them as often as you are currently in the academic setting. I don't think a PHD-only will limit you, based on what you want to do.

2. If you want to do "research on the side" then there is no advantage. If you want to exclusively do research or primarily research, then there is a huge advantage; primarily you will be a scientist vs. someone who is a physician and has to learn to do science. MD onlys can do research too, but the experience has to come in somewhere.

3. If you know you want to work on the heart, then cards is great, and everything else is not as good. If you want to work on any other tissue type, then cardiology becomes practically useless. Other specialties are more broad and can be good for all types of tissues, like pathology, where you have access to the actual tissue. There is no "best" specialty for research, but MSTPs traditionally go into Medicine, Path, and Peds (in that order). Medicine has subspecialties, cards being one of them.

In general, many people will tell you to do the MD, because of the whole research thing doesn't work out you still have a good job. However, if you know you want to do research and are not particularly interested in patient care, you should strongly consider the PhD, especially if you are worried about the length of training- a PhD will take you 4-7 years after your bachelor's, and then a 2-3 year post-doc or industrial post-doc (or in some cases no post-doc in industry). The MD will cost you 4 years of med school plus 3 years medicine residency plus 3 years cards fellowship. Then you will also likely need a post doc as well. You can see that 10+ years is a huge underestimation of what MD/PhDs actually go through.

 

[BarmyArmy]

As far as the length of programs goes, most PhD finish around year 6 while MDPHDs finish around 7.5. So in reality you will only be putting in 1.5 extra year if your pursue MDPHD. So if you do not want such a long training period, your best option is to get an MD.

 

[StIGMA]

As far as the length of programs goes, most PhD finish around year 6 while MDPHDs finish around 7.5. So in reality you will only be putting in 1.5 extra year if your pursue MDPHD. So if you do not want such a long training period, your best option is to get an MD.

MD/PhD's as an aggregate work much harder than PhD students over the course of those 7-8 years. With the same work ethic, beginning skills, and planning it would be feasible to complete a PhD in 5 years (or even less in the UK for instance, and assuming post-grad training is similar). Regardless, you really cannot throw up time and compare them, because what you will be doing during those years and what you will be preparing yourself for in a career will be quite different.

 

[soundnin]

agree with everything said so far, especially gbwillner's point by point response, but wanted to add that surgery could be a specialty with strong ties to tissue engineering/organ regeneration/fabrication kind of research. the lab i'm currently at is under a MD who is a transplant surgeon, and we do exactly that kind of research.

 

[ActiasLuna]

Thank you for responding!

The MD will cost you 4 years of med school plus 3 years medicine residency plus 3 years cards fellowship. Then you will also likely need a post doc as well. You can see that 10+ years is a huge underestimation of what MD/PhDs actually go through.

Exactly. Thanks for putting that in perspective. This is a hard decision.

Regardless, you really cannot throw up time and compare them, because what you will be doing during those years and what you will be preparing yourself for in a career will be quite different.

Agreed. I am just scared that I will get caught up dedicating myself too much and not get anything out of it. I don't want to grow bitter. lol


How is an M.S. degree with an M.D. looked upon?

agree with everything said so far, especially gbwillner's point by point response, but wanted to add that surgery could be a specialty with strong ties to tissue engineering/organ regeneration/fabrication kind of research. the lab i'm currently at is under a MD who is a transplant surgeon, and we do exactly that kind of research.

I have given that specialty some thought. It would certainly make sense too.

This is such a tough decision. I need to start a pro/con list. heh

 

[BarmyArmy]

I have also worked with several ortho surgeons who are very into tissue engineering. So Engineer undergraduate + surgical career seems very feasible.

 

[gbwillner]

I have also worked with several ortho surgeons who are very into tissue engineering. So Engineer undergraduate + surgical career seems very feasible.

Actually, I would strongly advise you NOT to go into a surgical specialty unless you are absolutely certain you would not do anything else.

1. Surgical residencies are typically much longer than medical ones. The shortest is general surgery, which is 5 years. Add a minimum 2 years for a fellowship
2. Residencies are not research friendly. You will not really be able to do any research during residency or fellowship, so that if you really want to get back to science you will likely have to take a LOA and later resume your residency
3. Residents are typically matched for their hard work, and being basic-science oriented will do you very few favors in the match (at most places)
4. And finally, your job. Institutions will pay you big bucks... but not for research. They may tolerate it, but they hire you to be in the OR. It's not impossible to run a basic science lab in surgery, but getting there is very difficult compared to other specialties. That means spending 50-80% of your time clinically, which is not conducive to being a productive scientist. You will likely have to rely heavily on post-docs or others to run much of the lab for you.

Again, if your goal is only to do research "part-time" then surgery is fine, and an MD only is fine. A PhD would be a waste of time. But if your goal is to be an expert in tissue engineering, then the reverse is true. An MS is a waste of time regardless of what you want to do.

 

[ActiasLuna]

Actually, I would strongly advise you NOT to go into a surgical specialty unless you are absolutely certain you would not do anything else.

1. Surgical residencies are typically much longer than medical ones. The shortest is general surgery, which is 5 years. Add a minimum 2 years for a fellowship
2. Residencies are not research friendly. You will not really be able to do any research during residency or fellowship, so that if you really want to get back to science you will likely have to take a LOA and later resume your residency
3. Residents are typically matched for their hard work, and being basic-science oriented will do you very few favors in the match (at most places)
4. And finally, your job. Institutions will pay you big bucks... but not for research. They may tolerate it, but they hire you to be in the OR. It's not impossible to run a basic science lab in surgery, but getting there is very difficult compared to other specialties. That means spending 50-80% of your time clinically, which is not conducive to being a productive scientist. You will likely have to rely heavily on post-docs or others to run much of the lab for you.

Again, if your goal is only to do research "part-time" then surgery is fine, and an MD only is fine. A PhD would be a waste of time. But if your goal is to be an expert in tissue engineering, then the reverse is true. An MS is a waste of time regardless of what you want to do.

Thank you for the insight. I really appreciate it. You brought up a lot of good points. I am certain that I will not do surgery.
I have been reading a lot lately about how an MS is useless. That makes my decision easier. heh What about an M.Eng?

I am tempted to go for the PhD and do private sector/industry.

 

[bd4727]

I think GBwillner's 2 posts are right on. One other thing that I would comment on:

What would be ideal (although I realize someone unrealistic at this stage) is to decide how much of your career you want to spend doing research (ie 20% of time vs. 80% of time). Because I think this can inform you better, given the amount of money you would have to put up to go to medical school versus PhD.

For instance, if you do Cards and just dabble in research, you can quickly make up the >200k in debt you accrued and will basically be like all other practicing cardiologists. However, if you do cards and spend 80% of your time doing research, your pay will be more in line with an RO1 funded PhD's than it will be like a private practice cardiologist's, in which case I would argue you wasted 200k.

This is the impetus behind MD/PhD traing, in that it takes away the disincentive for MD's to pursue a mostly research career. So if you really want to be a cardiologist but mostly do RO1 type research (which Cardiac tissue engineering will be for next 50yrs) then you should not necessarily discount the idea of the MD/PhD track even though it is an extra couple of years, since it may save you more than a couple years salary in the long run.

 

[gbwillner]

For instance, if you do Cards and just dabble in research, you can quickly make up the >200k in debt you accrued and will basically be like all other practicing cardiologists. However, if you do cards and spend 80% of your time doing research, your pay will be more in line with an RO1 funded PhD's than it will be like a private practice cardiologist's, in which case I would argue you wasted 200k.

Interestingly, it doesn't always work this way, and salary can be variable by specialty and by institution. At my institution and in my department, research-oriented faculty get the same pay as the clinical-only staff. You just have to pay a lot of it yourself though grants. I've been told in other departments what you say is true, and research facutly are just on a lower pay scale. I do think, however, that once you start getting R01s then you can probably re-negotiate your salary, since you can pay off a lot of it yourself. I guess I'll find out when I get there.

 

[foo]

Hello everyone. I have been browsing the content on this forum for the past week. On top of that I have been browsing other Internet-related content on MD, PhD, and MD/PhD information.

Before I ask my question I will give some background info on myself. I am transferring as a junior from a California CC to a UC in September (my major is bioengineering or biomedical engineering). For the past two-three years I was set on applying to an MD/PhD program and focus my PhD on biomedical engineering. Now that I am a junior I have to start thinking more about my education past a bachelor's degree. After looking more into an MD/PhD I discovered that I am not willing to commit myself to 10+ years of education and career preparation. I need to be honest with myself. I have since decided that I am willing to commit myself to either med school or grad school...not both.

Despite not wanting to follow the MD/PhD route anymore, I still want to follow the career route previously intended. I want to work with organ and tissue engineering. I feel that I can get there without the MD/PhD. These are the degree routes I was thinking about: MD in cardiology or a PhD in medical engineering and medical physics from HST.

Let's get down to the questions.

1. My concern is that with a PhD I might be limiting myself since I want to work in the industry or private sector -- not academia. How successful are biomedical engineering PhDs in finding jobs in non-academic areas? What kind of job prospects can I hope for?

2. I can't seem to determine whether a PhD is better to have than an MD in biomedical research. Is there truly an advantage of having a PhD over an MD if I wish to conduct some research on the side? A lot of opinions that I have found are mixed. I don't see why an MD couldn't do research too.

3. Which MD specialty would be the best to have if I want to do research? I thought cardiology would be good since I want to focus on the heart for tissue engineering. I would like to work on any part of the body.

Thank you for taking the time to read my post. Any replies would be greatly appreciated. It is hard to gain this sort of advice because of where I live (isolated).

If you decide to have a career as an engineer, you will be reinventing yourself multiple times during your career because science and technology will advance. As an engineer, you will be committing yourself to a lifetime of learning so you don't become obsolete after a few years. So don't focus too much on the 10+ years of formal education for an MD/PhD, because no matter what, you are committing to a lifetime of ongoing education.

If you want to work as an engineer, doing "R&D", in the private sector, let me manage your expectations a bit. It's mostly "r&D" (in general, real "r"esearch is much less important than lucrative "D"evelopment). I would make a counterintuitive argument and suggest that a "Masters" degree in engineering might actually make you into a more employable candidate than a PhD would (in the private sector, PhDs are sometime viewed as "too academic" and not "pragmatic enough").

Competition in the private sector is global. Big companies will look for the least costly way to do their r&D, in whatever country. So you will be competing with superb engineers all over the world during your career. If you want to follow a technical track (as opposed to a management track), therefore you should try to pick your niche early and become a domain expert in that field (if you are a generalist, you will have less job security, and companies will be weighting: "do we hire/use that costly/experienced older engineer, or the two cheaper/new graduates?"). If you love being an engineer, none of what I said will discourage you (because if you love what you do, you will never "work" a day in your life)...

My advice: MD/PhD will open up so many more doors for you, so just go for it!