Masters during med school or residency?

[CyberMaxx]

Hi all, I am a second year medical student interested in vascular (and also general) surgery who is trying to decide whether it makes more sense to take a year off after M2 to do a masters program, or wait until residency and try to fit it in then (perhaps during dedicated research time?).

I am really interested in doing computational research in the future, but after working on a project during M1 I realized that I really need some more programming and math skills to be productive. I have been accepted into a great masters program which would let me focus on building those skills, but the problem is that my longtime girlfriend is in the same year as me in med school - so taking a year off would make matching much more difficult. While we are both willing to work with this (I could limit myself to applying to a single region, she could potentially also take a year off if necessary), I don't want to make things so complicated if I could easily just get this training later.

With all of that being said, does anyone have any insight on whether it makes more sense to take time off now vs. during residency? Or how likely it is that an integrated vascular (or also possibly general) surgery residency would let me take time to do an unrelated masters program?

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[mimelim]

It will be difficult to do in most integrated vascular programs. We are one of the more flexible programs (2 residents per year, completely department funded, not dependent on grants or outside funding) and it would be possible at our program, but only if well thought out and setup in advance. This would be a nightmare at most of the programs I know. Dedicated research time is research time. You have more free time, but you do have commitments and you are expected to produce something during that time. If I had to guess, the majority of programs would not let you do it at all and only maybe a handful (4-6) would it be really feasible. But, I would talk to a bunch of programs/PDs about it. That is also only if it is actually somewhat related. If it is truly unrelated to what is going on in the department, you will find little to no support for it. It is one thing for someone to already be in a program and to get interested in something unrelated. It is another for a program to take on someone who is going to have split interests from the get-go and will take them out of doing something productive for the department.

Thus, it would be much better to do this before residency.

 

[vhawk]

Or after

 

[CyberMaxx]

It will be difficult to do in most integrated vascular programs. We are one of the more flexible programs (2 residents per year, completely department funded, not dependent on grants or outside funding) and it would be possible at our program, but only if well thought out and setup in advance. This would be a nightmare at most of the programs I know. Dedicated research time is research time. You have more free time, but you do have commitments and you are expected to produce something during that time. If I had to guess, the majority of programs would not let you do it at all and only maybe a handful (4-6) would it be really feasible. But, I would talk to a bunch of programs/PDs about it. That is also only if it is actually somewhat related. If it is truly unrelated to what is going on in the department, you will find little to no support for it. It is one thing for someone to already be in a program and to get interested in something unrelated. It is another for a program to take on someone who is going to have split interests from the get-go and will take them out of doing something productive for the department.

Thus, it would be much better to do this before residency.

Thanks for the great response! Not to be too hypothetical here, but would it be drastically different if I decided to go the general surgery + vascular fellowship route? Or do you think I would run into the same challenges of the general surgery residency program wanting my research to be within the department/not spent on an unaffiliated engineering degree?

 

[mimelim]

Thanks for the great response! Not to be too hypothetical here, but would it be drastically different if I decided to go the general surgery + vascular fellowship route? Or do you think I would run into the same challenges of the general surgery residency program wanting my research to be within the department/not spent on an unaffiliated engineering degree?

Same thing. Attrition is a problem in general surgery programs, some as high as 25%. Our GS program lost a resident after he spent 2 years in the lab doing semi-related research and then decided, **** it, not going back to being a resident and has another career lined up because of the more unrelated stuff.

 

[Dr.LeoSpaceman]

The only chance you have to do a degree (of any kind) is if you can sell your program on why it will be valuable to them, as well as you. That generally means that you need to have a research project lined up where you can show them that the degree will be an important part of completing the research project. So it's not that the degree is unrelated, it's that it's not actually benefiting the department. Now if you could find somewhere where the skill set offered in the Master's can be applied to a surgical research topic, then you would have a better chance. For instance if you were working with a PI to develop some new vascular graft and wanted to get a Master's that covered materials science, you might be able to make it work.

This goes the same for anyone wanting a Master's in Clinical Research/Public Health. Simply saying you want to go take classes for two years is not a reasonable use of time in the eyes of a PD/Chairman, especially at places that offer salary support during that time. You need to have a public health/health services research focused project that you are working on at the same time.

So basically, don't count on being able to do it during residency. To make it work you would need quite a bit to line-up in your favor. To be honest, the logistics of matching off-cycle with your girlfriend would be easier to figure out than making this work in residency. Either do it now, or plan on doing it after.

Sidenote: I would offer caution about making career/life decisions based on "long term" significant others who aren't spouses or fiance(e)s.

 

[thedrjojo]

I got an MPH during my research years (in addition to doing my research which has netted 5 first author publications + several more in the pipeline) that was not only encouraged, but paid for, by my program/PI. Currently 3 of the lab residents in my program are following my footsteps (I trailblazed it) and are pursuing MPH's or certificates from the school of public health. So definitely doable via general surgery during research years (now, granted mine was night classes so didn't interfere with my daytime activities).

 

[CyberMaxx]

Thanks for all of the thoughtful advice, I really appreciate everyone who took the time to reply. I've decided to go ahead with the masters program now. So for now its back to step 1 studying...then on to differential equations in July! 😀

 

[ThoracicGuy]

Thanks for all of the thoughtful advice, I really appreciate everyone who took the time to reply. I've decided to go ahead with the masters program now. So for now its back to step 1 studying...then on to differential equations in July! 😀

Just curious, but what will this masters program add for your future career?

 

[CyberMaxx]

Just curious, but what will this masters program add for your future career?

I want to have an academic career, and the type of research I am taking time off to pursue is what I would like to do in the future. After trying to learn on the job this past summer, my mentor and I came to the conclusion that I would really benefit from some more formal programming/bioengineering courses to get me to the point where I can independently work on projects in this field. This program will give me a chance to have a year in his lab where I can hopefully be very productive (especially since I have got a few things started) and also pick up some of those skills where I am deficient. Basically this program will give me some protected time to learn programming/bioengineering skills so that I can do this type of research going forward.

 

[ThoracicGuy]

I want to have an academic career, and the type of research I am taking time off to pursue is what I would like to do in the future. After trying to learn on the job this past summer, my mentor and I came to the conclusion that I would really benefit from some more formal programming/bioengineering courses to get me to the point where I can independently work on projects in this field. This program will give me a chance to have a year in his lab where I can hopefully be very productive (especially since I have got a few things started) and also pick up some of those skills where I am deficient. Basically this program will give me some protected time to learn programming/bioengineering skills so that I can do this type of research going forward.

Fair enough, but I guess I'm just not clear how an engineering program relates to general surgery. I did time in a lab. My PI was a MD/PHD and we did research in a cancer related field.

 

[CyberMaxx]

Fair enough, but I guess I'm just not clear how an engineering program relates to general surgery. I did time in a lab. My PI was a MD/PHD and we did research in a cancer related field.

The lab does vascular surgery research. Modeling hemodynamics of disease states, the effects which different surgical options would have on those parameters, 'virtual surgery' and surgical planning, etc. They also have physical experimental models but I'm more interested in the computational work.

 

[ThoracicGuy]

The lab does vascular surgery research. Modeling hemodynamics of disease states, the effects which different surgical options would have on those parameters, 'virtual surgery' and surgical planning, etc. They also have physical experimental models but I'm more interested in the computational work.

Sounds interesting. Get some good step scores and go for that integrated vascular training.