I'll start off by saying that I earned my JD a while back (non-practicing though), so I'm coming from the legal pov rather than the medical one. I don't know what MDs think about it, but I really don't understand why MD/JD joint programs exist. The fact that they do is undoubtedly misleading.
I am looking to start school in order to obtain my MD/JD. I am passionate about becoming a psychiatrist (MD), and opening my own psychiatric institution. I feel like my JD would assist greatly with that, and even with working with insurance companies, etc. What are your thoughts? Do you think there is an easier way to go about that without having to obtain my JD? I'm thinking the JD is going to be more beneficial more for the knowledge that I would be obtaining, rather than the fact that I could practice law as an attorney.
I think that you should try to be much more specific regarding exactly how you think a JD would help you achieve these goals. Really specific--like which classes and which skills taught in law school do you believe would translate to these activities, and why. TBH, I'm not seeing the connection. Running an institution depends more on organizational management skills (more like what you'd get in an MBA or even HR program) than legal knowledge. Working with insurance companies is much more an administrative function than a legal one.
Are you interested in forensic psychiatry?
Because these things require deep expertise. That requires education and experience. A person cannot simultaneously become a master in both. A jack of all trades is a master of none. Either the person is going to loose all medical training by attrition , or is going to loose all legal expertise by attrition. And if you practice half law half medicine you will only be half as good as the person who practices his/her craft full time.
The practicing attorney that does med mal cases will have no idea what the standard of care is in a particular specialty because they would not be able to keep up with changes .
I completely agree with these points, particularly the bolded portions. There is no reason for anyone to attend law school unless they wish to actually practice law, meaning that they intend to do things that one needs bar admission to do. But more to the point, both the JD and MD are professional, not academic, degrees. They are designed to teach a skillset beyond just imparting knowledge. Neither a JD nor an MD is qualified to practice independently right upon graduation. The postgraduate training process is formalized for MDs through residency, but the same thing exists informally for JDs. New attorneys do a lot of low level, highly supervised work during their early years. This is why you don't see newly minted lawyers immediately opening up their own practices unless they've had extensive experience in a particular area before law school. This means that unless you actually go into legal practice and accumulate years of experience, you will not have the knowledge of a practicing lawyer and will still need to hire one with experience in that area to ensure that you are adequately managing risk.
Regarding medical malpractice (if that is a factor in this), expert witnesses are those who have extensive experience practicing in their fields, as the court is interested in understanding what a "reasonable professional" would have done in a given situation. As libertyne said, only those who have significant experience and remain current in their fields will have credibility speaking to that. Having a JD would not make someone a better expert witness, since witnesses are only called upon to testify to their particular realm of knowledge, the standard in that particular field rather than to legal standards.
Not to discourage you from an MD/JD program, but I would spend time talking to professors, professionals and also admissions counselors about what others have done with this combination.
