MSTP question

[Hemichordate]

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Does it decrease your chance of getting an interview/acceptance if you say that you prefer to go into the medical field (as a doctor, not a professor) instead of the research field after you complete the program?

I get the feeling that a lot of programs emphasize research, and rightly so, but I'm just curious whether emphasizing medicine puts me at any kind of a disadvantage.

 

[hiyaman]

why would you do MSTP when you have no intention of doing medical related research? For free tuition?

 

[itellitlikeitis]

Does it decrease your chance of getting an interview/acceptance if you say that you prefer to go into the medical field (as a doctor, not a professor) instead of the research field after you complete the program?

I get the feeling that a lot of programs emphasize research, and rightly so, but I'm just curious whether this puts me at any kind of a disadvantage.

Considering that the whole purpose of creating the MSTP program by the NIH is to generate researchers, it might hurt you chances just a little bit

 

[Hemichordate]

To Hiyaman: No, I meant that since everyone chooses either to go into clinical practice or research after finishing MSTP, do the admissions people tend to favor the ones who choose research over the ones who want to go into medical practice?

I just said that doing research as part of MSTP will make me a better physician, with the added skills of research at my disposal. I'm just afraid the adcoms will think I'm too intent on practicing medicine with little intent of pursuing research as a career.

 

[itellitlikeitis]

No, I meant that since everyone chooses either to go into clinical practice or research after finishing MSTP, do the admissions people tend to favor the ones who choose research over the ones who want to go into medical practice?

Hmm... let me rephrase it slightly differently? The MSTP program's purpose, THE sole purpose, is to generate researchers. How's that?

 

[Hemichordate]

Hmm... let me rephrase it slightly differently? The MSTP program's purpose, THE sole purpose, is to generate researchers. How's that?

Good enough. 😀 Guess I'll have to modify my essay a bit.

 

[itellitlikeitis]

Good enough. 😀 Guess I'll have to modify my essay a bit.

Just a wee bit 😉

 

[fish89]

all MSTP ppl care about is your research. if you tell them you want to practice medicine they might as well throw your application out the window! the most disappointing thing a MSTP program can ever do is make clinicians!!! 👎 if youre even asking this question, you obviously dont know what the purpose of an MSTP program even is. why bother applying MSTP? also, why lie and say you want to do research if you really don't? you're only wasting your time and the NIH's money.

 

[Hemichordate]

all MSTP ppl care about is your research. if you tell them you want to practice medicine they might as well throw your application out the window! the most disappointing thing a MSTP program can ever do is make clinicians!!! 👎 if youre even asking this question, you obviously dont know what the purpose of an MSTP program even is. why bother applying MSTP? also, why lie and say you want to do research if you really don't? you're only wasting your time and the NIH's money.

Sorry, I should have said MD/PHD, but I felt that it was interchangeable with MSTP, so whatever, that's what I meant. And AMCAS has the same essay for both MD/PHD and MSTP programs. Also, I do really care about doing research (which is why I wanted to do this dual program in the first place), but I also want to pursue a medical career, so I feel this is the best compromise.

I'm not saying I'm going to change my essay completely- I'm probably just going to downplay my zeal for clinical experiences and talk more about how
research will be better for me in that respect.

 

[JJMrK]

Does it decrease your chance of getting an interview/acceptance if you say that you prefer to go into the medical field (as a doctor, not a professor) instead of the research field after you complete the program?

I'd say yes. Based on what I've heard from the MD/PhD folks, the "correct" answer to the question "Why MD/PhD?" is something like: I want to run a basic science lab with access to patients for translational research. Obviously people do it for a variety of other reasons, but apparently that's what interviewers want to hear. Also, don't do it for the money.

 

[itellitlikeitis]

Sorry, I should have said MD/PHD, but I felt that it was interchangeable with MSTP, so whatever, that's what I meant. And AMCAS has the same essay for both MD/PHD and MSTP programs. Also, I do really care about doing research (which is why I wanted to do this dual program in the first place), but I also want to pursue a medical career, so I feel this is the best compromise.

I'm not saying I'm going to change my essay completely- I'm probably just going to downplay my zeal for clinical experiences and talk more about how
research will be better for me in that respect.

I think you should really consider why you are applying for these research programs. MD/PhD programs do not fully fund students (or at least there aren't any that I know of- some offer partial funds, mostly just during your PhD years) unlike MSTP programs. Both are designed to create researchers and like fish89 said, it is considered a failure if a person goes through either programs to wind up becoming solely a physician

There's no reason why you should spend those 4+ years getting a PhD degree if your heart and soul is not into research. If you want to do research, you can still do so with an MD only degree.

MSTP and MD/PhD programs are designed to attract a different crowd of people whose goal in life is to form that bridge between research and medicine- but from the research arena. When applicants to these programs, research programs, are evaluated, they look for folks who can not only succeed (accepted applicants are almost always above the average stats for the MD only acceptances), but have shown a history of research commitment and seem like the type of applicants who will go through the program with a strong commitment to ultimately pursue a research career (they only have a limited number of spots because even if its an MD/PhD program that is not fully funding your fees, they are still investing a ton of money to take in a student outside those tangible fees that you see in your bill). The whole program is longer (8+ years without residency or post-doc period) than an MD only program, in the long run you'll be making less money than your MD only colleagues (sure you'll come out debt free but your peers will have 4+ years of earning on top of you that will more than make up for it), etc etc. If you don't want to become a researcher, just stick with an MD

 

[Musclemass]

Sorry, I should have said MD/PHD, but I felt that it was interchangeable with MSTP, so whatever, that's what I meant. And AMCAS has the same essay for both MD/PHD and MSTP programs. Also, I do really care about doing research (which is why I wanted to do this dual program in the first place), but I also want to pursue a medical career, so I feel this is the best compromise.

I'm not saying I'm going to change my essay completely- I'm probably just going to downplay my zeal for clinical experiences and talk more about how
research will be better for me in that respect.

It may be more than just your essay that needs to be changed. You seem very uninformed about factors that concern a pretty major decision in your life.

MSTP and MD/PhD programs are mostly comparable, thought the former tend to be larger, a bit more organized as "programs", are partially NIH funded, and are viewed by some as being more prestigious. Almost all medical schools that do research offer PhD programs, so there's not anything magical about allowing students to pursue a dual program.

Oh, I forgot to ask, what are you writing essays for? You're either waay late for this cycle or way early for a future one.

 

[ElChamaco]

To Hiyaman: No, I meant that since everyone chooses either to go into clinical practice or research after finishing MSTP, do the admissions people tend to favor the ones who choose research over the ones who want to go into medical practice?

I just said that doing research as part of MSTP will make me a better physician, with the added skills of research at my disposal. I'm just afraid the adcoms will think I'm too intent on practicing medicine with little intent of pursuing research as a career.

I'm surprised that no one has pointed out that this statement is incorrect. The idea behind the MSTP is that you will have a split research/clinical career. Not that you will choose on or the other. Choosing one or the other would be doing and MD or doing a PhD. Now whether some people eventually abandon clinical practice to do research solely or (more likely) the other way around is a different story. The intention is to have a combined training program for a combined career.

Hemichordate, you don't seem to have a great deal of familiarity with the MSTP structure or mission. It seems a bit odd that you are intending to apply to this track.

 

[URHere]

Although some of this has been touched on already, I want to make a couple of comments after reading this thread:

1) MSTP programs and MD/PhD programs are not really two separate entities with drastically different structures and purposes. "MSTP" is merely the term for an MD/PhD program that receives some of its funding from an NIH training grant. Many MD/PhD programs are of comparable size to MSTPs, and are fully funded programs.

2) All dual MD/PhD programs wish to train physician scientists. Ideally, this means training students who will go on to work predominantly in the research arena - spending about 70 or 80% of their time in a lab setting, and the remainder in clinic. Sure, some MD/PhD graduates realize that they cannot meet their goals with this sort of time split, and they end up choosing between research and clinical medicine, but I think that nearly all of us start out longing for that balance. More than that, I think that program directors select for students who want both a clinical and a research career because it means that the money spent on an MD or on a PhD is less likely to be wasted on someone who won't use it.

3) If you have no intention of running your own lab once you graduate, why on Earth would you choose to spend 3-5+ years of your life specifically learning to do that? Earning a PhD will not give you some magical insight into the foundations of medicine as a whole. No, it will merely make you an expert on Protein X in micro-field Y, who knows a heck of alot about writing papers and grants, lab politics, and troubleshooting experiments. The PhD is meant to prepare you for life as a PI. If that isn't something that you want, you would be wasting your time (and everybody else's) by earning a PhD.

My advice is to think long and hard about what you want. If you truly just want to practice clinical medicine, you would be better served by looking at 5 year MD/MS programs or pursuing a research fellowship after you earn your degree.

 

[itellitlikeitis]

The idea behind the MSTP is that you will have a split research/clinical career. Not that you will choose on or the other. Choosing one or the other would be doing and MD or doing a PhD.

Ehhhh the shear amount of time required to run a lab will consume most of your time. For the MD/PhD PI's I've worked with or talked to before, the split was heavily biased towards the research portion where it was something like 80% lab related, 20% clinical.

 

[StephBee]

I'm going to agree with everything everyone before me has said, though I do want to point out one thing.
90% of the MD/PhDs I've met actually end up going into private practice. SIlly, I know but I've met a lot of mudphuds and only 3 still do research. Given, most have been older so it's entirley probable that they started out doing research after med school and then made the move to private practice later on.

That being said, it's entirely possible for you to do MD/PhD, do research for a few years, then gear more towards clinical stuff but telling an Adcom or interviewer that is going to get a rejection pretty quickly.

 

[ElChamaco]

Ehhhh the shear amount of time required to run a lab will consume most of your time. For the MD/PhD PI's I've worked with or talked to before, the split was heavily biased towards the research portion where it was something like 80% lab related, 20% clinical.

I didn't say that it was an even split, but the idea is that you will do both, as in your examples of physician-scientist with the "typical" 80-20 split.

 

[mvenus929]

If you just want to get a foundational science background, why don't you just do an MD program and do research on the side? There's the summer after your first year, plus a good portion of fourth year and various times in between where you can do research, so I don't get why you want to do an MD/PhD just to get the research experience.