MD/PhD vs MD with fellowship

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ChemNerd07

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Hi all,

Just wondering if anyone has any insight as to which way is the best to go. I know some doctors that didn't do the PhD portion in medical school and just did a fellowship after their residency in order to perform research as a physician. What are the pros and cons to each option and is it worth it to get the PhD?

I know as a woman going into medicine one doctor that I shadowed said that during her fellowship she was able to have her kids as it was a lot more relaxed.

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Are you referring to a post-doc fellowship or a clinical fellowship? A post-doc is what you need to establish a primarily research career. I suppose there are some clinical fellowships with infolded research that might be sufficient to get a clinical faculty appointment, but I doubt you would be very competitive for independent NIH funding with that alone (especially without a PhD).

I don't think any post-doc I know or have ever met would describe their life/work as relaxed. The post-docs that want independent labs have to work extremely hard. I'm getting the impression that you're trying to say that it might be easier (~more relaxed) to do a MD+ fellowship (I assume you mean post-doc) than to do MD/PhD. I might contend that it would be just the opposite, as an MD only, I imagine you'd have even more to prove during your post-doc and would have to catch up on publications etc to be as competitive as your MD/PhD colleagues.

Just my two cents.
 
Are you referring to a post-doc fellowship or a clinical fellowship? A post-doc is what you need to establish a primarily research career. I suppose there are some clinical fellowships with infolded research that might be sufficient to get a clinical faculty appointment, but I doubt you would be very competitive for independent NIH funding with that alone (especially without a PhD).

This is basically the whole point of the ABIM Research Pathway. Plenty of people have done this as MDs and established themselves as independent investigators (and plenty have not). All of the caveats of the current funding environment and other issues in academia of course still apply whether you have a PhD or not.
 
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Even though a post-doc fellowship alone may not be up to par to the research training you'll receive in a md/phd program, I think it's a solid path into academic medicine. The PD at one of my interviews told me that the majority (~80%) of clinician scientists actually come from the md/postdoc path instead of the md/phd route. He told me that the most important thing to look for in a postdoc fellowship is a good research mentor/lab that will help you develop into a more independent researcher.

I think the biggest plus going for the postdoc route would obviously be the saved time not going for the phd. The con would be the debt and the lack of research training that you would have from not going through the md/phd.
 
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Are you referring to a post-doc fellowship or a clinical fellowship? A post-doc is what you need to establish a primarily research career. I suppose there are some clinical fellowships with infolded research that might be sufficient to get a clinical faculty appointment, but I doubt you would be very competitive for independent NIH funding with that alone (especially without a PhD).

I don't think any post-doc I know or have ever met would describe their life/work as relaxed. The post-docs that want independent labs have to work extremely hard. I'm getting the impression that you're trying to say that it might be easier (~more relaxed) to do a MD+ fellowship (I assume you mean post-doc) than to do MD/PhD. I might contend that it would be just the opposite, as an MD only, I imagine you'd have even more to prove during your post-doc and would have to catch up on publications etc to be as competitive as your MD/PhD colleagues.

Just my two cents.
Sorry I meant more relaxed in comparison to residency. I've heard horror stories about women pregnant in residency.

I come from a state where there are virtually no MDs or MD/PhDs doing research so please feel free to expand on all of this as I'm ridiculously clueless.

I actually know quite a few PhDs that had kids during their training and/or post doc periods. Granted it's super long hours in the lab and a lot of hours writing your thesis, but some how they've all done it. I guess people have also done this during residency but I've been extremely advised against it.

So with the whole MD/post doc how does that all work? Do you get out of medical school, do residency, then do the post doc?
 
For clarification, I'm interested in bench top research. Not so much clinical.
 
This is basically the whole point of the ABIM Research Pathway. Plenty of people have done this as MDs and established themselves as independent investigators (and plenty have not). All of the caveats of the current funding environment and other issues in academia of course still apply whether you have a PhD or not.
This is exactly what I was thinking about. Thank you!!
 
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