MD/PHD careers in surgery

[Ttan]

Im curious. If somebody wanted to pursue an MD/PHD degree in medical school, where could this person really excel in the field of surgery with the additional knowledge gained from the phd study and what area of medical study would the phd match up to?

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[jbar]

We have one surgeon who got a PhD in anatomy and then his MD, clearly you can see the overlap. Don't know too many others, sure that they are out there. I could see getting a PhD in neuro science and being a neurosurgeon.

But you should do a PhD if you like research and want to do research, not because of the "additional knowledge" it gives you. In the time it takes to do a PhD you could complete a fellowship in something, imagine that knowledge.

The other thing is it is really worth thinking about time. Are you really going to want to do 5-9 years surgical residency/fellowship after doing 7 years of MD/PhD? That gets you pretty far out.

 

[URHere]

There are plenty of ways a PhD could be applicable to a surgical career, these are just a few:

-Many MD/PhD surgeons focus on a single organ system and test tissues extracted from their patients. For example, someone doing GI research may work as a surgeon doing primarily GI work and then test the excised intestine from their patients (with consent, of course)

-Some look at ways to improve surgical outcomes relating to infection, pain, rate of healing, etc. Granted, this category is more along the lines of clinical research, but you could imagine an MD/PhD collecting blood samples, etc from a patient, subsequently testing them for various compounds, and attempting to correlate the molecular biology with the clinical presentation.

-An MD/PhD surgeon may do research that requires them to have a specific surgical skill. For example, if an MD/PhD is an engineer who designs new pacemakers or surgical material, they may also train and learn to place them in an actual patient.

 

[OPPforlife]

There are plenty of ways a PhD could be applicable to a surgical career, these are just a few:

-Many MD/PhD surgeons focus on a single organ system and test tissues extracted from their patients. For example, someone doing GI research may work as a surgeon doing primarily GI work and then test the excised intestine from their patients (with consent, of course)

-Some look at ways to improve surgical outcomes relating to infection, pain, rate of healing, etc. Granted, this category is more along the lines of clinical research, but you could imagine an MD/PhD collecting blood samples, etc from a patient, subsequently testing them for various compounds, and attempting to correlate the molecular biology with the clinical presentation.

-An MD/PhD surgeon may do research that requires them to have a specific surgical skill. For example, if an MD/PhD is an engineer who designs new pacemakers or surgical material, they may also train and learn to place them in an actual patient.

Bottom line Md/Phd's are bad asses!

 

[Naijaba]

This is a good question, and one that I'd like answered as well. I've heard that neurosurgery is so competitive that most successful applicants are MD/PhDs. Any evidence to corroborate that claim?

 

[lildave2586]

We have a few at my school that are going into cardiothoracic surgery getting phds. I think people like that study medical device stuff.

 

[bigpharmD]

many of the transplant surgeons i work with have a Phd, primarily in immunology

 

[bcat85]

I have an honest question about MD/PhD:

Why does anyone get both degrees? What are they good for? I get the "interest in research" thing, but why not just get an MD and be an MD who does research?

 

[URHere]

I have an honest question about MD/PhD:

Why does anyone get both degrees? What are they good for? I get the "interest in research" thing, but why not just get an MD and be an MD who does research?

Many people will answer this question in many different ways, but this is how I see it. MD/PhD programs are designed for people who want to do clinically relevant research with a high training requirement. For example, imagine someone who wants to engineer medical devices. One could clearly argue that this person should have a deep understanding of the medical field, the issues that relate to such devices in surgery, etc. However, the amount of training they would need for their research is well beyond what they could get acquire during medical school or a fellowship.

I believe that the dual degrees are most appropriate when someone just can't get the training they need with one degree alone. The PhD really teaches students the technical skills they need, gets them a list of publications that will help them with future applications and grants, provides practice for submitting said grants, and so on. In some research fields, the path for an MD-only researcher is very difficult, especially if that researcher has mountains of medical loans to repay and minimal experience funding their own research. The MD/PhD route makes that much easier.

Other people may have additional ideas, but that's my reason for doing it.

 

[45408]

Orac has a blog called Respectful Insolence, and he's an MD/PhD surgeon that does mostly breast cancer work.

We've got an MD/PhD pediatric cardiothoracic surgeon who does heart transplants and congenital heart defects. Her PhD was in immunology. Of course, she started college in '82 and finished her fellowship in '04. Your call.

 

[rwe4me]

There's a newly minted plastic surgeon at Hopkins whose an MD/PhD - his bio looks like he got the PhD before deciding to go for a plastics residency. Maybe he just changed his mind on the scholar thing and wanted the glam plastics gig. He was profiled on the Hopkins series last year - the dancing doc - kinda came across smarmy and toolish - but who knows what he's really like.