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Is anybody having doubts about entering an MD/PhD program versus just straight MD? I'm sure not everyone here applied strictly MD/PhD. What to do? This is a hard decision.
Cold feet is normal. Take the above advice and figure it as a job. You will have job security for 6-8 years, and when you are done you will have 2 degrees and an inexhaustible job market and will likely emerge during better economic times. You will also not be saddled with a 6 digit loan, which is of course a nice bonus.
Remember though, it is an interest in research that needs to be your primary motivating factor. The truth is, if you love research before MD/PhD, you can survive. You may emerge hating basic science research, but that's OK, you don't HAVE to do research as a career later. It's the folks that are lukewarm on research to start and just see the financial/prestige benefits that have the most serious problems, IMO.
gbwillner said:It cost them all several years of extreme pain (ala Neuronix) that they are very bitter over or glad that they bailed when they did.
Doing the MD/PhD with money as any consideration at all, except as having the MD as a backup for primarily a research focus, is a big mistake.
So you would recommend an MD/PhD to have an "MD backup plan" for someone considering a career in research?
I can definitely see myself getting a PhD (I don't necessarily need to be helping people, I'm interested in science for science's sake), I'd be hardpressed to get just an MD, but it's something that I think I would find interesting and satisfying.
I was actually asked at an interview by an MD/PhD, if I had to make a choice between MD OR PhD, which would I choose. The "correct" answer is PhD. I said MD, because in science you have no guarantees whereas in medicine, routine although it may become, you have some guarantee of having helped someone. Needless to say, I did not get accepted to that program...
OP:
I can say that my experience as an MD/PhD has been bad. I have almost a visceral revulsion to most of what is characterized today as science. Yeah, I know. The impression that a naive student may have in high school and undergrad is that going into science they will be adding to the record of human knowledge, helping humanity, etc. That's a joke. Most scientific careers end up producing no more than a paragraph or two (or is it sentence?) in a textbook, if you're lucky! The work of science is tedious, the rewards usually rather minimal.
Doing the MD/PhD with money as any consideration at all, except as having the MD as a backup for primarily a research focus, is a big mistake. Doing it for a residency is a mistake. Doing it for prestige is a mistake. Doing it if you're peripherally interested in research but have lots of other interests is a mistake. You really have to be a somewhat obsessive person who can spend most of your life focusing on details and mechanisms that have little impact on the world. If you want to do research that will have a major impact on human health, just do an MD - trust me on that.
To the same question, I said MD to a committee member/dept head/MD-PhD at Columbia and was accepted. I prefaced my statement with the pros and cons of research with each degree, and it was acceptable. To future applicants... know each pathway and the combined degrees to the best of your ability, and do not feel forced to answer the 'correct' way. Maybe you were not meant for that school.
Otherwise, I appreciate everyone's perspective! Very helpful.
From my experience it's not all that bad. By the end of your PhD, if all goes well, you WILL be the world's expert on whatever you've been working on and will receive appropriate attention and recognition. Your papers will be cited, and you will see how your small, perhaps seemingly minuscule contribution leads to a better understanding of the way things work, and how you piece of the puzzle was critical in that process.
I would also argue with the notion that you don't really help anyone with research and that an MD helps more. This is only a matter of perspective. Another way to look at it is that all your patients will die and in the end you may actually do very little to help any of them in any real sense. If you go into IM, you'll likely spend you days figuring out the quickest way to discharge your patients so they can go die somewhere else. In any oncology related field you will be luck to prolong someone's painful demise by 3 months. In rads and path you will only help diagnosing the thing that will ultimately kill most of your patients. On the other hand, adding that little paragraph to our knowledge in science can change the way we treat patients, making therapies more effective. To me it's more like the "teaching a man to fish" analogy. I'm sure you all know it.
Not to sound like a jerk, but I'm actually not having any second thoughts at all. I am so freaking excited!!! The government is going to pay for my med school. I'm never ever going to complain about paying taxes again, because at this point, I'm going to be getting it all back and more! Not only that, but I'll be getting paid. This freaking rocks! With the average human life expectancy going up, I have no problem spending an extra 4 years in school. In the long run, I will be extremely employable for the rest of my life and won't ever have to worry about being out of a job.
I didn't apply to any programs MD only. It took me the first 2 years of my college career to be able to admit to myself that MD/PhD was what I actually wanted. I didn't dare to dream that I could get into a program that only takes a tiny percent of the applicants. I kept making excuses and being afraid, but once I let go of my fear of being rejected from everywhere I applied and just went for it, I knew I was doing the right thing. (I was traumatized by almost not getting into any undergrad programs. I didn't know that it is customary to visit colleges, interview, and actually write full essays on the application instead of just a sentence or one word answer per question. I was so upset when I found out that I had totally screwed up after working so hard to get a good GPA and a good SAT score. Thank goodness Rochester saw through my lack of a visit or interview, and even lack of a secondary application and took me anyway. But I did it! Hence my eternal gratitude to these forums for helping me find the information I needed to succeed this time around. It was good to know that MD/PhD interviews are not optional... )
Also, if I had to choose between the two degrees, I'd go for the PhD over the MD hands down. It really surprises me that so many people would choose the MD. I guess I'm just a weirdo. My grandma is thrilled that she can finally tell all of her friends that she has a grandchild in medical school AND a grandchild who will one day cure her Parkinson's all rolled into one super awesome granddaughter! And that's my REAL motivation for getting the MD as well.
Don't do the MD/PhD if you have any doubts at all, you'll regret it more than anything else in your life.
Also, I would disagree with whoever said that residencies don't care about the PhD. In many fields the PhD is a HUGE card, as long as it is a quality one with publications in good journals. It is not unusual for places to try to recruit you as junior faculty while you are interviewing for residency because they realize that it takes a sort of person who loves misery to pursue hard core research in academic medicine, and those types of people with your skill set AND a willingness to accept punishment are few and far between. It is a tremendous buyers market, except possibly in specialties saturated w/MD/PhDs like rad-onc, etc.
...but there are extremely generous offers on the table - several programs (mostly "top tier") are offering 1) junior faculty positions or the equivalent right out of residency with ~2 years of 80/20 protected research time, no clinical fellowship required, and 2) stipends during residency ranging from 5K to 20K above resident salary. they all expect to retain who they train as faculty.
Thank you all for posting about these opportunities. Given the current research environment (which hopefully will only improve...), it's really heartening to hear that there are faculty jobs on the horizon even starting in residency.
When I was a pre-med the idea of being medical school faculty sounded very appealing. There's a reason they're trying like heck to get MD/PhDs to sign on to their fellowships. There's a reason they try to recruit you early into their residency/fellowship/faculty positions... If they paid well or had some other amazing benefits, they wouldn't be trying to recruit you. Everyone would be banging down the door for those spots. If research was a great gig, every guy with an MD would be trying to grab a spot in a lab. But... Oh yeah... Instead, the section chief spot for a particular subspecialty in a particular very big name hospital goes unfilled for 3 years and is finally filled by an foreign doc who can't even technically practice for a few years. Wonder if he'll bail out as soon as he gets licensed and board certified too?