MS or MD Research

[alexrgross]

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How does an MS or Ph.D. degree in Neuroscience enable an MD to take clinical cases and study them in laboratory models as a scientist? If you work as a physician scientist, performing original reserach this is especially to you.

Is this skill taught in MD school?

 

[typhoonegator]

The skill to perform good research is not taught in medical school. Not even close.

A masters degree is worth 5 original publications in your chosen field. Write the papers and the MS adds nothing. Which would you trust more as a grant reviewer, someone with an MS in biostatistics or someone who has proven their knowledge of biostatistics in 5 original publications? One has theoretical knowledge, one has proven themselves.

A PhD teaches scientific rigor, technique, and hopefully ethics that will allow you to contribute to the body of literature without dumping garbage onto the scientific community. A few minutes on PubMed and you will see that this does not always work out very well.

I am a funded MD neuroscientist. I have neither an MS nor a PhD. An MD is a useful degree in research because it allows a credible bridge between disease models (vitro/vivo/silico) and human applications. While an MD has the access to patients and clinical questions that make for useful research, without additional training the degree itself does not prepare one for a scientific career.

If you want to do original research as a career with an MD, you need to either get a PhD or be prepared to do a lot of work to learn the tools of the trade. The PhD is a structured track with a well-defined set of requirements, but is still dependent to some degree on your lab and mentors. It is also redundant, painful, and delays your potential earning years even further than the MD alone does. However, getting a reputation for good science with an MD alone requires long hours, fellowships, coursework, and is hugely dependent on your choice of mentors. Pick the wrong mentor and you will founder.

That said, you can be a hobbyist researcher with your MD alone. You can do case-series, retrospective analyses, or even some observational cohort studies without funding. These are all good things, worthy of being proud. But if you want to do RNAi work with a Parkin mouse model with the long term goal of developing a high-throughput drug discovery lab, then you'd better have more than an MD and a smile.

 

[black star]

I am planning to get a Clinical Research Associate certification after step 1. I will do an advanced course which takes two months full time, then go into clinical. I want to use my CRA to get into clinical research while in rotations. This is because I am at the bottom of the rank as a US citizen in a carib med school so I need to improve and bulk up the old CV. What is your advice on this? I take step 1 in 3 months.

 

[HarveyCushing]

The skill to perform good research is not taught in medical school. Not even close.

A masters degree is worth 5 original publications in your chosen field. Write the papers and the MS adds nothing. Which would you trust more as a grant reviewer, someone with an MS in biostatistics or someone who has proven their knowledge of biostatistics in 5 original publications? One has theoretical knowledge, one has proven themselves.

A PhD teaches scientific rigor, technique, and hopefully ethics that will allow you to contribute to the body of literature without dumping garbage onto the scientific community. A few minutes on PubMed and you will see that this does not always work out very well.

I am a funded MD neuroscientist. I have neither an MS nor a PhD. An MD is a useful degree in research because it allows a credible bridge between disease models (vitro/vivo/silico) and human applications. While an MD has the access to patients and clinical questions that make for useful research, without additional training the degree itself does not prepare one for a scientific career.

If you want to do original research as a career with an MD, you need to either get a PhD or be prepared to do a lot of work to learn the tools of the trade. The PhD is a structured track with a well-defined set of requirements, but is still dependent to some degree on your lab and mentors. It is also redundant, painful, and delays your potential earning years even further than the MD alone does. However, getting a reputation for good science with an MD alone requires long hours, fellowships, coursework, and is hugely dependent on your choice of mentors. Pick the wrong mentor and you will founder.

That said, you can be a hobbyist researcher with your MD alone. You can do case-series, retrospective analyses, or even some observational cohort studies without funding. These are all good things, worthy of being proud. But if you want to do RNAi work with a Parkin mouse model with the long term goal of developing a high-throughput drug discovery lab, then you'd better have more than an MD and a smile.

Agreed. Or you can do one of the NIH TL1 programs and get a masters in clinical research and be trained/taught how to do good clinical research. That is what I did. Sure you can learn on the job but a mix of book and practical training is the best in my experience.

 

[alexrgross]

In medical school, how does research assistantship get sorted out? Or are MD students encouraged to develop and carry out individual experiments?
I could see this being "school-by-school" basis, depending on the network of scientists affiliated with a particualr school...is that it?

 

[typhoonegator]

In medical school, how does research assistantship get sorted out? Or are MD students encouraged to develop and carry out individual experiments?
I could see this being "school-by-school" basis, depending on the network of scientists affiliated with a particualr school...is that it?

A lot of labs have projects that are either idling or could use an extra set of hands, and MD students who are interested can get involved. This allows you to have sort of your own pet project, but the rest of the lab's more pressing matters won't live and die by your performance. If you cultivate a longer term interest with a PI, then they will know you better and let you do more stuff.

A lot of medical schools have developed resource databases with labs affiliated with the school, providing med students with resources to reach out to PIs in fields they are interested in. There are also often formalized summer research programs in which you work with a PI to develop a research proposal to work on for the summer (and hopefully longer).

PhD wet-lab people often look upon med students with suspicion. Med students tend to be eager but unfocused, and lack a lot of the research foundation that PhD students have. Med students are also busy, and tend to disappear when the lab work drops down on their priority list. You have to overcome that bias if you want to do wet work.

I know a ton of MD scientists, both funded and hobbyist, who have a bunch of ideas/databases/case-series lying around without the time or energy to get to them. If you are more interested in clinical research, these are the kind of people you might want to connect with. The downside is that as a group they are more disorganized, so your medical school isn't going to have a list of them you can call.

 

[human being]

A lot of labs have projects that are either idling or could use an extra set of hands, and MD students who are interested can get involved. This allows you to have sort of your own pet project, but the rest of the lab's more pressing matters won't live and die by your performance. If you cultivate a longer term interest with a PI, then they will know you better and let you do more stuff.

A lot of medical schools have developed resource databases with labs affiliated with the school, providing med students with resources to reach out to PIs in fields they are interested in. There are also often formalized summer research programs in which you work with a PI to develop a research proposal to work on for the summer (and hopefully longer).

PhD wet-lab people often look upon med students with suspicion. Med students tend to be eager but unfocused, and lack a lot of the research foundation that PhD students have. Med students are also busy, and tend to disappear when the lab work drops down on their priority list. You have to overcome that bias if you want to do wet work.

I know a ton of MD scientists, both funded and hobbyist, who have a bunch of ideas/databases/case-series lying around without the time or energy to get to them. If you are more interested in clinical research, these are the kind of people you might want to connect with. The downside is that as a group they are more disorganized, so your medical school isn't going to have a list of them you can call.

I saw your post and tried to find these disorganized individuals unfortunately I could not find one person. Need your help. How do I find these people.

 

[typhoonegator]

A good place to start would be to set up a meeting with the neuro department chair at your hospital, or possibly the residency director. At the meeting, tell them that you are interested in neurology research, and ask if there are any people they can think of that could use some help with a project. If you tell them your research strengths and area of broad interest, they should be able to find something for you, even if it is just a case report or something.

 

[human being]

A good place to start would be to set up a meeting with the neuro department chair at your hospital, or possibly the residency director. At the meeting, tell them that you are interested in neurology research, and ask if there are any people they can think of that could use some help with a project. If you tell them your research strengths and area of broad interest, they should be able to find something for you, even if it is just a case report or something.

I understand