must an MD/PhD teach?

[rleung3]

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Hi,

I am wondering whether or not teaching is required for an MD/PhD who decides to lean towards academics? Can an MD/PhD just do research as part of his/her academic responsibilities to medicine?

 

[Circumflex]

It depends on the specific job situation. In general, most academicians have some type of teaching responsibility. Teaching takes many forms. Some are required to give lectures to medical, nursing, allied health students as part of a class. Usually, clinicians oversee residents and students on their service and may give a seminar every now and then. For instance, being a surgeon on a service with residents and students is a type of teaching.

The type and amount of teaching you will do will depend on your clinical specialty and how much grant money you bring in. The more grant money you have, the more likely you will be able to negotiate a lighter teaching load.

 

[Auraraptor]

IIRC Yale, yes TA; Penn, No TA

 

[SupergreenMnM]

I would hope yes...teaching is traditionally part of the PhD degree. Though MD/PhD is not a traditional PhD I would suggest that you may fear teaching more now that after you have a chance to actually do it; I actually love teaching even though the first week of my first year doing it I thought I was going to die 😉

 

[Neuronix]

Penn, No TA

It's department specific. Among the basic science departments only Neuroscience at Penn requires you to TA, usually an undergrad lab. I think forcing grad students to TA is just getting free labor out of them.

I could TA if I chose to, as could any graduate student. I don't want to because I'm busy enough and I want to graduate ASAP. But if I did choose to TA I'd get paid a couple thousand dollars. If the department requires TAing, you don't get squat.

As for faculty, I can't remember who posted it, but there was a great, pointed post awhile back that basically said: MD/PhD professors don't want to be teaching. If they are teaching it's because they usually get forced to teach by various means. It doesn't count towards tenure. What counts when you're faculty is clinical revenue and/or grant renevue. That's the kind of thing that feeds your family or gets you tenure. At Penn, I hear they stopped paying professors for giving medical lectures. They essentially require it as a part of certain faculty positions, so they have to do it. The professors that have a major role in running the courses are such big name, tenured, or emeritus that they can get away with it without feeling like they desperately need to be somwhere else.

The situation for a straight PhD is much different. A sizeable percentage go to small Universities that have major teaching responsibilities. This is very rare for a MD/PhD, however.