JD/MD uses

[Babooshka]

Hey everyone,

What are the potential uses of a dual JD/MD degree aside from malpractice law?

--Cheers,

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[potato51]

Maybe if you want to be a doctor and a future politician, or if you want to work in patent law in various medical related industries.

Off topic here - whenever I think of JD/MD I think of the Betty Broderick story. You know, the woman who put her husband through med school AND law school, had and raised his kids, then killed the guy when he cheated on her with his secretary and moved her into their house.

 

[tulane06]

I know some MD/JDs....they are primarily malpractice lawyers who get rich by suing doctors.

 

[Babooshka]

potato, thanks for the reply.
tulane06, i know some doctors who get rich off killing people. stop trying to hi-jack this thread.

Keep the replies coming, I'm looking for feasible and creative ways to use a JD/MD degree.

 

[tulane06]

Haha, I must have hit a sore spot.

 

[drmota]

potato, thanks for the reply.
tulane06, i know some doctors who get rich off killing people. stop trying to hi-jack this thread.

Keep the replies coming, I'm looking for feasible and creative ways to use a JD/MD degree.

i wouldn't attack tulane06 like that. it is a legitimate claim and something you should be very cautious about at interviews. i'm not saying that you would want to or will become a malpractice lawyer but doctors are very sensitive to the matter. a short anecdote of a friend of mine who is an M1 at BU med now: his dad is an MD turned malpractice lawyer. he said EVERY school he interviewed at (6 of them) asked him about his father and why he became a malpractice lawyer. despite the fact that it SHOULD be completely irrelevant. i also have no idea how they knew his dad was a malpractice lawyer. he must be pretty infamous.

but to answer your question, there's the flip side to malpractice law. you could try to enact legislation to protect doctors. furthermore, if you became involved in hospital management, you could do the same on a micro-level. good luck.
-mota

 

[justskipee]

Maybe if you want to be a doctor and a future politician, or if you want to work in patent law in various medical related industries.

Off topic here - whenever I think of JD/MD I think of the Betty Broderick story. You know, the woman who put her husband through med school AND law school, had and raised his kids, then killed the guy when he cheated on her with his secretary and moved her into their house.

mashed Potato51 is funny, we should do a comedy act together.

 

[Law2Doc]

i wouldn't attack tulane06 like that. it is a legitimate claim and something you should be very cautious about at interviews. i'm not saying that you would want to or will become a malpractice lawyer but doctors are very sensitive to the matter. a short anecdote of a friend of mine who is an M1 at BU med now: his dad is an MD turned malpractice lawyer. he said EVERY school he interviewed at (6 of them) asked him about his father and why he became a malpractice lawyer. despite the fact that it SHOULD be completely irrelevant. i also have no idea how they knew his dad was a malpractice lawyer. he must be pretty infamous.

but to answer your question, there's the flip side to malpractice law. you could try to enact legislation to protect doctors. furthermore, if you became involved in hospital management, you could do the same on a micro-level. good luck.
-mota

Just bear in mind that for every malpractice case there are two lawyers -- one for the plaintiff and one for the defendant. Thus you could just as easilly specialize in defending doctors if you wanted to deal with medmal. But you really do not need an MD to do medmal. 99.999% of all those lawyers who work in medmal do not have MDs. So spending 4 years getting an MD, plus a residency perhaps, to be a lawyer is not a particularly good use of your time.
The most useful way to use the combination of degrees, in my opinion, would be to go into health policy, as mota alluded to. There are a variety of academic paths you might take, especially in terms of medical ethics, where the two disciplines overlap significantly. Hospital administration also might provide opportunities to combine the degree. There might be managerial positions which allow you to use both degrees in the pharmaceutical industry, and at medical consulting firms as well. But bear in mind that because so few people have this combination of degrees, there is not any existing "path" for this combination -- you would be trailblazing -- having to sell your powerful combination to firms that, because they never considered it, do not realize they have such a need. Far more people back into the dual degree situation by career changing than seek the dual degree approach, so you tend to see people switching to the other industry in total. Good luck.

 

[potato51]

mashed Potato51 is funny, we should do a comedy act together.

<---- I used to do comedy myself. Then I did this show about a JD/MD couple. Saucy woman, that Phylicia Rashad.

 

[spaceman_spiff]

Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee, the Senate Majority Leader, is an M.D., and while I'm pretty sure he doesn't hold a JD, if you were interested in doing something like he does, like make health care policy on the health committees and address issues like AIDS and bad mcdonalds food, i'm sure an MD/JD would be pretty awesome. but who would want to make health care policy for a living?

 

[Law2Doc]

Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee, the Senate Majority Leader, is an M.D., and while I'm pretty sure he doesn't hold a JD, if you were interested in doing something like he does, like make health care policy on the health committees and address issues like AIDS and bad mcdonalds food, i'm sure an MD/JD would be pretty awesome. but who would want to make health care policy for a living?

No. He doesn't have a JD (slacker )
You don't have to be a senator or politician to work on health policy -- there are a large number of federal agencies which are involved in health and healthcare related legislation and policies. People who go into policy do so because it is an important job and you can have a huge impact on millions of people.

 

[attaboybambeeks]

No. He doesn't have a JD (slacker )
You don't have to be a senator or politician to work on health policy -- there are a large number of federal agencies which are involved in health and healthcare related legislation and policies. People who go into policy do so because it is an important job and you can have a huge impact on millions of people.

its a very very dumb dual degree

 

[Law2Doc]

its a very very dumb dual degree

I certainly wouldn't do it as a dual degree.

 

[TheMightyAngus]

its a very very dumb dual degree

I agree. Few if any jobs use both degrees efficiently.

 

[Law2Doc]

I agree. Few if any jobs use both degrees efficiently.

True, but that's largely a function of the fact that there are so few JD/MDs out there. Goes back to my "trailblazing" comment above. It's a chicken and egg thing.

 

[Babooshka]

its a very very dumb dual degree

Why's that?

 

[Doctor Bagel]

well, i'm going to be a jd/md or jd/do, and i doubt i'll get much use out of the jd, but that's largely because of personal preference. i really want to be a clinician and am not particularly interesting in policy or academic work, and i'm especially not interested in litigation in any form (or any traditional legal work for that matter), so it's a loss for me. eventually, i might get bored with just being a clinician and try to get some leverage from that jd, but i don't know.

i've got to admit that i agree with the others on this thread in that there's not much advantage in actively pursuing both degrees because there's no clear path that requires both degrees. for medical malpractice, an md is overkill. for working as a medical expert, the jd is overkill. i think an mba or mph would be every bit as useful as a jd if you're interested in administration or other business work, and both degrees are probably easier to obtain. a law degree is a weird degree that's sort of general but only really necessary if you want to practice law.

the people i know with both are usually your usual career changers. they were lawyers and are now doctors, or they were doctors and are now lawyers. there were a few physicians in my law school class, and they were all moving towards just practicing law. the md probably helped them land big firm jobs, but that's it. getting on law review would do the same thing and be a lot cheaper.

 

[Severus]

off topic... babooshka, vwi govoritye po-russkie?