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How does the phd portion of an mstp program compare to the time spent in med school. Im wondering in terms of time spent in class, in the lab, studying... Is it a more or less intense experience?
How does the phd portion of an mstp program compare to the time spent in med school. Im wondering in terms of time spent in class, in the lab, studying... Is it a more or less intense experience?
I'm not in an MSTP program, but I don't see how that should matter. My experience so far (1st year of the PhD portion) is that the PhD takes a lot more time and effort than the MD. I can't compare to the 3rd and 4th years of med school since I've only completed the first two. For those 2 years though, I didn't have to go to most classes so my schedule was flexible and I almost always got weekends off if I wanted. Now I work 10-12 hour days and most weekends. With that said, I think it ultimately comes down to how productive you want to be during your PhD work.
I'm halfway through the program (middle of PhD) and I'd say that both have their crazy and not so crazy weeks.
As a slight contrast to strangelove, residency directors for the most part don't care at all about your pre-clinical grades.
This really depends on what you want to go into. Highly competetive specialties (which are typically less impressed by PhDs and more impressed by raw medical school performance) do care about your grades in the first 2 years. So, if you want to go into derm or radiation oncology, you may not want to relax too much in your first 2 years, since simply having a PhD will not guarantee you a spot anywhere. If you want to do IM or psych, then by all means relax during your first 2 years of medical school, since most programs are actively recruiting MD-PhDs.
I will say that the PhD years, though potentially more laid back than the MD years, are in a way more stressful because you must rely on your own motivation and there are fewer clearly defined endpoints. If things aren't going well in the lab, you can't just say "It's okay, this will be over in 4 weeks," like you can with a bad rotation.
Oops, I didn't mean to say that preclinical grades matter - they don't. All that matters from that era is your Step I score, which many programs use as a screening tool. Although they might waive that screening tool if you have a PhD. I still think your clinical grades, especially in the clerkship/field you want to go into, are huge. Let's face it, EVERY MSTP'er will match in their chosen field, what I was trying to get at (and didn't do so well) is that it's a question of where on your rank list that happens. If you are doing rad onc where everyone has a PhD or serious research experience, the # of slots is small, and the competition is fierce with a huge % of AOA, lame things like your clinical grades can potentially have a huge effect on where you match. Even in IM, I know people that weren't granted interviews at the top tier places (Hopkins, UCSF, BWH) despite having great PhDs and great test scores...maybe it was b/c they just High Passed IM? Who knows? Admittedly, the non-top tier places (i.e. most of the other top 20 IM programs) will almost embarrass themselves the way they throw themselves at MSTPers and basically beg them to come to their residency program and stay through fellowship to become junior faculty. I'm just saying if you want to shoot the moon, you gotta gun in 3rd year as unfortunate and loathsome as that might be.
your PhD can be a time to do things like play music, read books, write poetry, get married, have children, etc. These are things that you will never have an opportunity to devote so much time to again in your life as a physician-scientist, until you retire.