mstp's who leave md for PhD

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How common are the students who decide to drop the MD portion of their schooling to pursue a full PhD?

How about students who decide to drop the PhD portion to pursue a full MD?

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I think Neuronix is grossly overestimating.

The PhD lifestyle is extremely masochistic and sadistic.. the cost/benefit analysis is purely ridiculous.

It takes a special kind of crazy to pursue science, with an emphasis on crazy.

The sexy thing about science is that it drives medicine.

The ****ty part is, well.. the only reward is just your own personal satisfaction.

Society rarely awards dutiful science and unless you truly love it, you'd be better off getting a job as the manager of your local Subway.
 
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I think Neuronix was referring to 1 in 10 dropping the PhD, not the MD portion. You'd have to be completely insane to drop the MD for just a PhD. Completely. Insane.
 
Career suicide... :thumbdown:

Oh please. Plenty of people with PhDs w/o MDs have fine careers. And plenty of MD/PhDs can not legally practice medicine and have fine careers doing basic research.

Yes, it's not as much money as clinical work, but it's better in terms of lifestyle. In my personal experience, people (from techs to PIs) in basic research are much happier overall than purely clinical counterparts. I'll take happiness over $ any day of the week.
 
Oh please. Plenty of people with PhDs w/o MDs have fine careers. And plenty of MD/PhDs can not legally practice medicine and have fine careers doing basic research.

Yes, it's not as much money as clinical work, but it's better in terms of lifestyle. In my personal experience, people (from techs to PIs) in basic research are much happier overall than purely clinical counterparts. I'll take happiness over $ any day of the week.

I agree with the first paragraph. But that is not what we're talking about here--which is dropping the MD to just do the PhD. Not going into the whole thing with the sole desire to be a PhD researcher. Nor finishing the MD/PhD and then going on to a postdoc and research-only career. Instead, we're talking about someone who has already completed 1/2 of medical school, the PhD and then decides not to finish the final 2 years (or less in some cases). That just seems inadvisable (or in gstrub's words "Completely. Insane."), unless there is some ultra-compelling reason to do so.

Different things make different people happy. I have met happy and unhappy people in both clinical medicine and basic science. I can't tell you how many "successful" scientists I have seen that are divorcees, estranged from their kids, neglectful of their families, socially awkward/inept, and completely miserable. There are also a surprising number of people like this in medicine. Honestly--do you really think research is "better in terms of lifestyle"?
 
neuronix, why did your classmate decide to do that? is he/she a super-researcher?
 
neuronix, why did your classmate decide to do that? is he/she a super-researcher?

I'm not exactly certain. I haven't talked to that person in awhile. It seems like they were having a very hard time both in med school and grad school, took some time off to decide whether they wanted to continue either, and eventually settled on coming back to grad school only in a new lab.

PS: I giggled a little with gstrub.
 
You'd have to be completely insane to drop the MD for just a PhD. Completely. Insane.

Why? If we assume that the MD alone (without the residency) won't give you much of a career push, why is it so ridiculous to drop the MD? Clinical practice isn't a walk in the park especially with the 4/5 years of residency that also mean working your ass off. If someone found out that medicine isn't what they wish to do, I don't see how it's "insane" or a "career suicide" to drop the MD. I guess I'm just not with the "do the MD just to secure your future" type of thinking.
 
I guess I'm just not with the "do the MD just to secure your future" type of thinking.

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You will be. You will be...
 
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Why? If we assume that the MD alone (without the residency) won't give you much of a career push, why is it so ridiculous to drop the MD? Clinical practice isn't a walk in the park especially with the 4/5 years of residency that also mean working your ass off. If someone found out that medicine isn't what they wish to do, I don't see how it's "insane" or a "career suicide" to drop the MD. I guess I'm just not with the "do the MD just to secure your future" type of thinking.

There seems to be very strong opinions about this on this site. I would argue that it's not that big of a deal. If, during the course of your PhD you realize you are good at it and enjoy it, and could not think of you career as having a clinical component I think you'd actually be dumb to continue in your clinical training. You want to finish Med school "just for fun" go ahead. And what about residency? You couldn't pull in an academic salary as a clinician without doing residency. At the VERY MINIMUM, doing this assures that you will spend another 5 years before going back to what you want to do, which will require a post-doc of some sort regardless. That means probably 8 years before you are in a position to have your own lab. Just think about it that way. Yes, you have more "job security". But so what? If you don't want to practice medicine and you want to be a basic researcher why would you want that security?
 
If you don't want to practice medicine and you want to be a basic researcher why would you want that security?

If you don't want to practice medicine, you shouldn't go to medical school!

Seriously though...I know several MD/PhDs who, after slaving in the lab, just don't like research that much. I don't know any who are vise versa. I think all the MD/PhDs I know primarily want to be medical doctors who do research.

It's funny...when I interview students, I sometimes ask "if you could do one or the other, which would it be?" The honest students always say MD.
 
If you don't want to practice medicine, you shouldn't go to medical school!

Good advice, that's why I'm only going to grad school. Seriously, figure out whether medicine is for you BEFORE applying.
 
Good advice, that's why I'm only going to grad school. Seriously, figure out whether medicine is for you BEFORE applying.

Exactomundo. Medical school & especially residency is too painful if you really don't enjoy taking care of patients (or their tissue samples or reading their scans in some cases).
 
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Two professors I know, including my PhD advisor, both dropped out of the MD part of MSTP programs to pursue only the PhD. The first was at UCSF, did the preclinical years, but then got really into his research and didn't want to drop it to do the clinical training. He's happy and successful in his career now.

My advisor started out in Stanford's biophysics PhD program, decided he really wanted to do the MSTP and somehow convinced them to let him in, then dropped out after another year because he thought all of medicine was like the MICU (desperate, futile attempts to prolong the suffering of old people who were going to die anyway, was how he put it). Although perhaps not a well-informed decision, I think that too was the right one for him. He's now an HHMI investigator.
 
Two professors I know, including my PhD advisor, both dropped out of the MD part of MSTP programs to pursue only the PhD. The first was at UCSF, did the preclinical years, but then got really into his research and didn't want to drop it to do the clinical training. He's happy and successful in his career now.

My advisor started out in Stanford's biophysics PhD program, decided he really wanted to do the MSTP and somehow convinced them to let him in, then dropped out after another year because he thought all of medicine was like the MICU (desperate, futile attempts to prolong the suffering of old people who were going to die anyway, was how he put it). Although perhaps not a well-informed decision, I think that too was the right one for him. He's now an HHMI investigator.

Despite the success stories, keep in mind that you never hear about the folks who did this and weren't successful.
 
If you don't want to practice medicine, you shouldn't go to medical school!

Seriously though...I know several MD/PhDs who, after slaving in the lab, just don't like research that much. I don't know any who are vise versa. I think all the MD/PhDs I know primarily want to be medical doctors who do research.

It's funny...when I interview students, I sometimes ask "if you could do one or the other, which would it be?" The honest students always say MD.

The rewards of clinical medicine are generally more instantaneous and, let's be honest, the stakes are higher. When you have an ill person, a critically ill person even, before me and you can do something to substantially improve their condition or prolong their life, and when you build a relationship with that person, that's a lot more rewarding than troubleshooting experiments over and over for some unknown result or revising an article or grant application you're sick of looking at for the umpteenth time.

Both have their positives and negatives, but I think the emotionally engaging nature of medicine and the assurance that you've done something for someone makes it more attractive than research.
 
Despite the success stories, keep in mind that you never hear about the folks who did this and weren't successful.

Meh. If you are an MD/PhD and like research so much that you drop the MD, you are probably ALREADY successful.

And in regard to the "if you don't like medicine don't go to med school" comments.... those are as ******ed IMHO as "if you don't want to do research, you shouldn't have gone into the MD/PhD program." EVERYBODY who goes into it probably wants to do both, but along the way they realize it is not for them. They are not CRAZY or STUPID but smart for making a decision that keeps them from wasting MORE of their time.

And if you hold applicants who tell you that they would only do medicine if given the choice to be "truthful", that only shows YOUR bias. Sorry, not everyone thinks like you. There is no "right" way.

In reality:
Pre-meds have NO IDEA what med school is really like until they get there...
Med Students have NO IDEA what residency is like until they get there....
And residents have NO IDEA what being faculty is like until they get there.

Everyone who drops out of the PhD portion or people who complete the MD/PhD only to never do research again (which apparently is like 1/2 of all of them) had NO IDEA what they were getting into, and decided they didn't like it when they saw it. Either that or we have a lot of CRAZY and STUPID people in our field.

/end rant
 
The rewards of clinical medicine are generally more instantaneous and, let's be honest, the stakes are higher. When you have an ill person, a critically ill person even, before me and you can do something to substantially improve their condition or prolong their life, and when you build a relationship with that person, that's a lot more rewarding than troubleshooting experiments over and over for some unknown result or revising an article or grant application you're sick of looking at for the umpteenth time.

Both have their positives and negatives, but I think the emotionally engaging nature of medicine and the assurance that you've done something for someone makes it more attractive than research.

Wait until residency. You will do this 1000 x and it gets old. You may find yourself worrying more about the fastest way of getting someone out of your hair and what's on TV tonight than really "saving" anyone. Furthermore, a lot of them won't make it and you may blame yourself for that. Try sleeping well afterwords.
 

there's some logic to it

(1) people in basic science pretend to be "happy" a lot more...cause, you know, if they aren't happy, what else is there? no money, no prestige, nobody cares, etc. so in order not to jump off the cliff, they often lie to themselves in saying that they are "happy"

(2) the filtration rate is pretty high. so those who aren't happy drop out, and we end up with more happy people in basic science. i'm sure the OP talk to PIs at some top school with a big lab and lots of $$, then compared it with some miserable FP clinician squeezing a few cents out of the insurance forms. I REALLY REALLY doubt that the number of miserable dermatologists is higher than the number of miserable tenured professors at harvard. :laugh:
 
to OP, generally speaking people who end up doing that finish their MD, and skip residency...because the left over 1.5 yr of MD is really not that much pain, and it does give you some options to think about.

i think more interestingly, is what does that one year of clinical rotations give you. what kind of insights does it give you. I personally think that it's a lot. you don't really know how medicine works until you sat through rounds every day, or went into the OR, or admitted a patient on-call. you don't really know what doctors care about: getting people out of the door, getting the diagnosis and therapy most efficiently, etc. etc. I personally really believe that you can't do real "translational" research until you went through med school or even residency.

however, translational research has its perils. it's way too applied most of the time to be taken seriously from an intellectual level. a lot of translational research involves cataloging things: phenotype, pharmacokinetics, etc. you don't really "discover" any thing new. but this kind of research do make real world differences in how diseases are diagnosed and managed. i'm beginning to see the appeal in this kind of resarch. for people who want to do this kind of research, MSTP is probably the best way to do it.

on the other hand, if you want to do basic basic research, i'm not sure how much medical school really gives you aside from job security--and maybe prestige in the lay public.

it's interesting--i feel like when i do these rotations, even if i have 0 interest in a particular specialty, i still feel like i'm learning things, and i still feel like it's great training in the end. in grad school, there are long stretches of which nothing gets done...
 
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And if you hold applicants who tell you that they would only do medicine if given the choice to be "truthful", that only shows YOUR bias. Sorry, not everyone thinks like you. There is no "right" way.

I guess I should have phrased that differently. I suppose I have never heard an applicant say they would do PhD only if they had to pick only one. I wasn't suggesting that people weren't being honest.

I was just saying that in my observation, most applicants are initially most interested in becoming medical doctors. It is much easier to get into a straight PhD program than straight MD, for a variety of reasons (more pre-recs, MCATS, need better grades, etc). This is just my opinion, but I think MOST applicants start off being interested in attending medical school and THEN discover they also like research and decide to pursue MD/PhD. I think the other way around is less common.
 
there's some logic to it

(1) people in basic science pretend to be "happy" a lot more...cause, you know, if they aren't happy, what else is there? no money, no prestige, nobody cares, etc. so in order not to jump off the cliff, they often lie to themselves in saying that they are "happy"

There's also a sales pitch. Every PI needs indentured servants, errr grad students and post-docs, to actually do the work. They are in short supply. If you don't put on a happy face, you will never get students, and you will fail. You need to make a sales pitch to all students so you can recruit and no negative word of mouth gets around about you. You also need to be a politician if you're going to keep your job. You need to keep your institution happy by only saying good things. If you don't put on a positive face for students who come by, especially students who are interviewing, you will stop getting students sent to you.

(2) the filtration rate is pretty high. so those who aren't happy drop out, and we end up with more happy people in basic science. i'm sure the OP talk to PIs at some top school with a big lab and lots of $$, then compared it with some miserable FP clinician squeezing a few cents out of the insurance forms.

Also true. You will only meet the successful PIs. Otherwise you'll never interview with them and they'll probably not be in academics. You'll never interview with or be purposely paired with a private practice or mostly clinical MD/PhD. As such it's very hard to actually meet one even if they comprise around 50% of all MD/PhD grads. You'll never meet with that PhD who doesn't have funding and is about to lose their lab and their job. Well, you might run into one, but they're temporary, and no department chair of program director is going to have you go meet with them.
 
I guess I should have phrased that differently. I suppose I have never heard an applicant say they would do PhD only if they had to pick only one. I wasn't suggesting that people weren't being honest.

I was just saying that in my observation, most applicants are initially most interested in becoming medical doctors. It is much easier to get into a straight PhD program than straight MD, for a variety of reasons (more pre-recs, MCATS, need better grades, etc). This is just my opinion, but I think MOST applicants start off being interested in attending medical school and THEN discover they also like research and decide to pursue MD/PhD. I think the other way around is less common.

Weird. Is this a common opinion/what you see in your program? All of the MD/PhD candidates (meaning, in MSTPs currently) I know started out being most interested in research, and secondarily interested in being clinicians.
 
I started on the med side and then later got interested in research. I think that's how most of my classmates got here. Or it was the, well I want to do research but I want to be sure I'll have a job angle. Or the, my parents will kill me if I don't go to med school angle.

It seems to be that you have to be a top pre-med if you want to do MD/PhD. The guys that are shooting for research tend not to take the pre-med requirements, tend not to fight like hell for every A like a pre-med, and then don't really care about a MCAT score. There's this mentality "ohhhh those gunner pre-meds *rolleyes*". That is unless they get interested in med school or MD/PhD very early on in college, but even then are they interested in research first? Perhaps. But I'm not sure I've met many like that.
 
Everyone who drops out of the PhD portion or people who complete the MD/PhD only to never do research again (which apparently is like 1/2 of all of them) had NO IDEA what they were getting into, and decided they didn't like it when they saw it. Either that or we have a lot of CRAZY and STUPID people in our field.

I agree. However, it should be noted that these two possibilities are not mutually exclusive. ;)
 
Weird. Is this a common opinion/what you see in your program? All of the MD/PhD candidates (meaning, in MSTPs currently) I know started out being most interested in research, and secondarily interested in being clinicians.

At my program, I've seen a spectrum. Most of us are hybrids. Some are much more oriented one way or the other. I know someone who flirted with the idea of not going back to med school after the PhD, but then came to his senses. Now is going into one of the ROAD specialties (and still planning to do 80% research). :)
 
I guess I should have phrased that differently. I suppose I have never heard an applicant say they would do PhD only if they had to pick only one. I wasn't suggesting that people weren't being honest.

There's really hardly anything surprising about that. Even for me (I'm more interested in research than medicine), I would state that I would pursue an MD rather than the PhD, and the simple reason is that you can always do research after you finish your MD, but you can never treat patients after your PhD. I think chosing MD is actually the "correct" answer if the question is asked during a formal interview, because there's no way you'll be a physician-scientist (with a research majority career) with a PhD. I don't think that says much about people's primary interests (in research or medicine).

The rewards of clinical medicine are generally more instantaneous and, let's be honest, the stakes are higher. When you have an ill person, a critically ill person even, before me and you can do something to substantially improve their condition or prolong their life, and when you build a relationship with that person, that's a lot more rewarding than troubleshooting experiments over and over for some unknown result or revising an article or grant application you're sick of looking at for the umpteenth time.

Both have their positives and negatives, but I think the emotionally engaging nature of medicine and the assurance that you've done something for someone makes it more attractive than research.

I think that's really up to the person, and I don't think it's safe to generalize that medicine is "more rewarding". Much of the work in medicine I believe is very structured, and someone else in your place would've probably taken the same exact procedure or a very similar one. So really how much of it is up to "you" personally rather than the system in general? The rewards of a scientific discovery are more long-term but have the potential to be far more influential over the lives of many, many people. I think it all depends on your personality on what you could think is more appealing.
 
It's funny...when I interview students, I sometimes ask "if you could do one or the other, which would it be?" The honest students always say MD.

Hmm. I would say PhD, in a heartbeat... Disadvantage?
 
Hmm, well, I've never encountered somebody who dropped either part of the (MD or PhD) MSTP program. However, from those who've completed the program...I've been told you usually drift one way. I know quite a few professors who have an MD, but don't use it...and have done really well from themselves in their respective fields. I also know other dual degree folks (PharmD, DVM, DDS, etc.) who've done the same, and vice versa.

I think folks just go with what works for them...

And in regards to UG folk, you really have no idea what you're getting into til you get into it...and I think that goes for all doctorate programs + residencies/post-docs.
 
I think Neuronix is grossly overestimating.

The PhD lifestyle is extremely masochistic and sadistic.. the cost/benefit analysis is purely ridiculous.

It takes a special kind of crazy to pursue science, with an emphasis on crazy.

The sexy thing about science is that it drives medicine.

The ****ty part is, well.. the only reward is just your own personal satisfaction.

Society rarely awards dutiful science and unless you truly love it, you'd be better off getting a job as the manager of your local Subway.

Hahaha, at first I was gonna say...you have no idea, but [un]fortunately, you do, lol.
 
No disadvantage there. Not sure there is a right answer to that question as long as you see yourself with a majority research career down the line with either degree.

I agree that it depends on the person and their motivations for pursuing the combined degree. If you come into it thinking you really want to do research, and that for some reason (and I've heard some valid ones from time to time, I'm just not going to name them because a lot of people would disagree about what constitutes a valid reason in this case) you feel that going through medical school will enhance your ability to do the research you want, then it wouldn't surprise me for you to say that you would do the PhD if you had to do only one.

If you come into it hoping to be both a practicing physician as well as a researcher, then I would expect someone to say MD, just because the MD is the less restrictive degree. I was more along these lines and so would always say MD.
 
I started on the med side and then later got interested in research. I think that's how most of my classmates got here. Or it was the, well I want to do research but I want to be sure I'll have a job angle. Or the, my parents will kill me if I don't go to med school angle.

It seems to be that you have to be a top pre-med if you want to do MD/PhD. The guys that are shooting for research tend not to take the pre-med requirements, tend not to fight like hell for every A like a pre-med, and then don't really care about a MCAT score. There's this mentality "ohhhh those gunner pre-meds *rolleyes*". That is unless they get interested in med school or MD/PhD very early on in college, but even then are they interested in research first? Perhaps. But I'm not sure I've met many like that.

Several of my college friends, myself included, are like that, so I guess you just haven't met enough people yet.
 
when I was at my interviews and was asked that question, i responded MD and I am someone extremely motivated to pursue research (just started my program. I want to be one of the 80/20 type MD/PhD's when all is said and done but obviously things can change)..

The "goal" of MD/PhD programs is to produce physician scientists. If you had to chose between MD or PhD, the only option that provides the opportunity to become a physician scientist is obviously MD. Therefore, I feel like MD is the correct answer.

I could be completely off base but I just feel that if you answer PhD, then your motives for wanting to do an MD/PhD program in the first place might be a little ill formed or cloudy, I don't know i'm at a loss to find the correct way to describe the motives....

Hmm. I would say PhD, in a heartbeat... Disadvantage?
 
I could be completely off base but I just feel that if you answer PhD, then your motives for wanting to do an MD/PhD program in the first place might be a little ill formed or cloudy, I don't know i'm at a loss to find the correct way to describe the motives....

I think this is a bit off base. I would also say PhD in a heartbeat (and indeed I did). In fact, I've been told by a PD that those who answer PhD are more likely to continue with a majority research career (based on his/her own experience).

Honestly, none of us can truly know what we want to do with our lives and our training at this stage, which is something I think the older members of SDN have tried to impress upon us. There's just too much that can happen between now and the end of the program and we really have NO clue what it's actually like to treat a patient or to be a fully functioning grad student. To question other people's motives based on a simple multiple choice question is absurd. We're doing this because it's an incredible opportunity regardless of how you think you're going to use it (which will probably change 7 or 8 years from now).

However, this reasoning would never work at an interview and sadly you have to put on that smile and speak about your motives with absolute certitude.
 
i agree with ^ in saying that those who say PhD are more likely to continue a research career. but it would be dumb to leave mstp for a straight phd
 
Many good points within that statement and I completely agree with you that what we envision our career path at present will undoubtedly change as we gain experience both in medicine and basic science, as you said 7-8 years is a long stretch of time and many things can happen within that period.

i also agree that the answer to whether you would pursue an MD or a PhD if you had to chose is not a simple multiple choice question but I will for better or worse stick to my logic..

There are numerous examples of MD's who have absolutely spectacular research careers. To my knowledge, there are no Phds that can treat patients (although there are a number of cool translational type PhD programs that are funded by HHMI, I think there are at least 12 around the country at different institutions that give Phd students clinical experience).

Again I will return to your valid point that we have no clue what we will be doing in 7 or 8 years, but if you chose PhD, you really don't have a choice about pursuing basic science or medicine whereas if you chose MD, both are still available for you....

Anyways, as others have stated, there is not a correct answer to this question... It is however a fun topic to discuss...

I think this is a bit off base. I would also say PhD in a heartbeat (and indeed I did). In fact, I've been told by a PD that those who answer PhD are more likely to continue with a majority research career (based on his/her own experience).

Honestly, none of us can truly know what we want to do with our lives and our training at this stage, which is something I think the older members of SDN have tried to impress upon us. There's just too much that can happen between now and the end of the program and we really have NO clue what it's actually like to treat a patient or to be a fully functioning grad student. To question other people's motives based on a simple multiple choice question is absurd. We're doing this because it's an incredible opportunity regardless of how you think you're going to use it (which will probably change 7 or 8 years from now).

However, this reasoning would never work at an interview and sadly you have to put on that smile and speak about your motives with absolute certitude.
 
PhD in clinical psychology or neuropsychology = patient contact/treating patients
 
PhD in clinical psychology or neuropsychology = patient contact/treating patients


I looked for a "foot-in-mouth" icon but I couldn't find one. Thanks for clearing that up for me...
 
Honestly, none of us can truly know what we want to do with our lives and our training at this stage, which is something I think the older members of SDN have tried to impress upon us.

:thumbup:
 
I looked for a "foot-in-mouth" icon but I couldn't find one. Thanks for clearing that up for me...

No problem... I should have said that I do agree with your main point, however, that by and large a PhD is in 99% of cases NOT a path to clinical contact/patient care. :)
 
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