How does research as an M.D. compare to research as an undergraaduate?

[tdod]

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When I did neuro-behavioral research as an undergraduate, I spent months doing repetitive tasks like running rats through mazes and processing Western Blots. I enjoy the conceptual aspect of research (design and analysis), but my experience indicates that the execution can be quite boring.

How does my experience compare to the research an M.D. (or med student) participates in? For instance, does the M.D./student get to outsource repetitive tasks to research assistants? And/or, is the applied clinical research experience different from that of pure scientific research?


Thanks!

 

[Crayola227]

it's the same but instead of running rats through mazes you go through patient charts to find the ones relevant to whatever study

the only time I've seen someone freed from doing the sort of work you describe is when they are a PI, and actually most PIs just starting out with their lab usually spend as many hours if not more than their grad students doing benchwork

if you graduated and had the right resume you could become a project manager that might be more like what you're thinking

all gotta pay our dues first

 

[aldol16]

I can't answer for MD but can answer for MD/PhD because the latter do the same work that us PhD students do (in my experience, anyway - some might actually be more clinical than basic science but one of the reasons for doing the MD/PhD anyway is because they're interested in basic science). It depends on the field your project is in. If you're in biology, you can't get away from the repetitive tasks but you have more flexibility in coming up with your project and having intellectual input. You will be guided to the extent that you want (if you have a good PI) so if you have no creative skills, you might end up doing repetitive tasks over and over because every time something doesn't go as expected, you'll go running to the PI for advice. If you're creative and like science, you get a lot more intellectual input into research design and when something goes wrong, you can diagnose the problem and move on. It's a lot more rewarding and there's a lot more ownership over your project.

In the end, undergraduates do very little in terms of research whereas MD/PhD and PhD students have a lot more intellectual input. Once you're in a basic science lab as an MD/PhD student, you will likely, over the course of your stint there, have to mentor an undergraduate student (depends on the PI) and in that case, you can delegate some duties to them. I usually give them smaller projects or more repetitive tasks depending on the intellectual promise they demonstrate.