how to pursue clinical microbiology

[jfar18]

Hi folks,

I want to work in clinical microbiology, but I am not sure what path is best.

I could do the med school route, followed by residency in clinical pathology, and then a fellowship in medical microbiology.
I could also attend a Medical Laboratory Scientist program for 15 months, get certified by the American Society for Clinical Pathology, work in a microbiology lab and eventually get my specialists' certification.
There is also the PhD route.

Anybody have any insights?

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[wahaha]

Hi folks,

I want to work in clinical microbiology, but I am not sure what path is best.

I could do the med school route, followed by residency in clinical pathology, and then a fellowship in medical microbiology.
I could also attend a Medical Laboratory Scientist program for 15 months, get certified by the American Society for Clinical Pathology, work in a microbiology lab and eventually get my specialists' certification.
There is also the PhD route.

Anybody have any insights?

The quicker route may be the MLS program. In order to get your speciality in microbiology, you must work fulltime for at least two years in a microbiology laboratory. The level of autonomy and feeling like a real microbiologist varies depending on the infectious disease physician and pathologist(s) in the hospital. I rotated through my state's heatlh department and the MLS microbiologists seemed to enjoy their work more. The cases there are also more interesting and they have greater automony working under an epidemiologist. But if you're seeking to be the one investigating and diagnosing, then ID physician is your best bet. Maybe even consider doing ID epidemiology. MLS is good stepping stone career. I'm almost done with my internship and planning on going into epidemiology/biostatistics.

 

[Benedictus123]

What's your level of education right now? What sort of experience do you have in microbiology?

If your goal in life is to work in clinical microbiology, I'd say your best bet is to do the MLS thing you described. The downside might be that you'd get stuck running the same 96 well plate assay 100 times a night every night for two years, and you wouldn't have much ability to move up in your career.

Getting an MD and specializing in path would definitely shatter any glass ceilings you might have with an MLS, but it's a long hard slog and to do all that just so you could work in a lab...seems overdone and not a compelling reason to go to med school.

A PhD is only appropriate if you plan on doing research. I guess you can get one to become an overqualified glorified lab tech, but that seems so pointless. PhDs are way harder to achieve than SDN likes to pretend, especially at quality universities.

 

[mvenus929]

Why do you want to do clinical micro?

If you just like working in a lab, and find micro interesting, I suggest the MLS certification. It's the shortest path, so if you decide that's not what you want to do, you can always go back for more schooling later. Also, it'll give you the chance to work in different areas of the lab. And if you do end up deciding to do medical school, you will know so much more than your colleagues and actually understand what tests to order and what they will tell you.

If you want to do research, then either the MD or PhD route is probably best.

If you have no desire to work with patients, ever, I highly suggest not doing the MD route. I've seen too many people with interests in radiology or path come through med school and are worse off for it because they were forced to interact with patients for two years.