Nature of RadOnc research

[Vesh]

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I am an undergraduate student who is planning on pursuing an MD/PhD after I graduate and I had some questions regarding the type of research that Radiation Oncologists do.

I am a biomedical engineering student and I primarily joined BME because I liked the fusion of technology in medicine as well as using math and physics in medicine. Although I enjoy my major, I have affirmed that I am less interested in the engineering of the equipment and more interested in the use of such tech with patient care and I far prefer interacting with patients. I have shadowed in a number of different specialties (IM, Family, Peds) but my favorite thus far has been the time I spent in Radiation Oncology. I think its an incredible area of medicine and it combines all the different facets of my interest in medicine and technology into one discipline.

As a result of this interest, and my interest in MD/PhD, I emailed the Medical Physics department at my school looking for any opportunity to do undergrad research. I am pretty blessed to have access to one of the best Medical Physics programs in the country and I am starting research with a professor this week. From what the professor described to me, the research is more applied research and we will mostly be working in the hospital. My question is (and I ask this because I some people on this forum are physician scientists) what is the nature of research that occurs in Radiation Oncology. Is it more applied/clinical as opposed to basic sciences? Is the research a Medical Physicist conducts far different from that of a RadOnc? I know some of my pre-med classmates are only looking to get into research that gets published, but I would rather pursue something I am genuinely interested in as opposed to scrounging for publications? Is this foolish for someone looking at MD/PhD?

*Disclaimer - Although I really do like RadOnc, I realize it is naive, perhaps even stupid, to hone in on a specialty during undergrad and I am definitely open to other specialties. I realize I probably won't know what I want to do till MS3, but for now, I am loving RadOnc, and I think brachytherapy is the coolest thing in the world lol.

 

[Neuronix]

The professional forums are for medical students or above. What you are asking is really a pre-MD/PhD question, so I have moved your question to the MD/PhD forum.

To answer your question, radiation oncologists perform mostly clinical research. That is, they look at outcomes of patients undergoing novel treatments, or similar. This research, in general, is much easier to publish. Basic science research within radonc usually involves looking at the basic biology of cancer cells. Typically, this looks at radiation repair pathways within cancer cells or animals in order to give more information about how and what to treat with radiation.

MD/PhD programs train in basic science research. MD/PhD programs are set up (with rare exceptions) to train you to become a majority basic science researcher. You do not need a PhD to do clinical research. You have posted that you are more interested in patient care, and it would seem that you have no basic science experience, so I am unclear why you are interested in MD/PhD programs. If you are serious about basic research, you will want to obtain several years of experience before applying to MD/PhD. The research you seem to be describing is clinical research. This is fine for medical school, it is fine if you wish to apply in rad onc, but it is not basic science research for applying to or performing in MD/PhD programs.

For more background reading, please see the stickies at the top of this forum.

 

[Vesh]

I apologize, I wasn't quite sure where to post and I didn't know this forum was here.

I realize my motivation for doing MD/PhD is a bit unclear so I would like to clarify. I had not even considered the idea of doing a PhD until last semester when I was tasked to work on a project in tissue engineering for a PhD candidate for a biomedical engineering course. The project, although primarily an engineering project, had a large research component to it and there was a lot of bench wrok that was associated with it. I thoroughly enjoyed doing the lab work and reading the associated literature and I considered a basic science research component to my future career as a possibility. When I said that I enjoyed working with patients, I meant that interacting with patient in some degree would be something I value in a career and a reason I do not want to stick strictly with engineering. As a physician scientist I realize the patient time can be very limited, but I like the fact that there is an opportunity to interact with patients while still conducting research. Now again, my work in tissue engineering was for an eng. course and does not qualify as formal research and although I did email professors in that department, I got a response from a well known medical physicist at my school and jumped at the opportunity. Obviously the work is not like traditional benchwork with hypothesis driven research, but I think RadOnc is very interesting and I wanted to take advantage of this opportunity. If basic science research in biomedical engineering would suit me better, I think I will pursue that more aggressively. Thank you

 

[strangeglove]

Just because the research is with patients doesn't mean it is "clinical" like clinical trials. The fact that your research mentor is a medical physicist (and presumably a PhD) suggests that the research may be patient oriented or even disease oriented, but may still qualify as "bench" research if you are, for example, analyzing their tumor gene expression patterns in the lab or using their disease process as a model for studying normal biology.

 

[Vesh]

Ya, I met with my mentor today for our first session and the research definitely isn't as "clinical" as I had expected (not a bad thing though). I will be spending all my time in the hospital, but his research concerns brachytherapy and trying to improve imaging techniques in order to localize the seeds more accurately. Although it is more physics than biological research, it is incredibly interesting. In addition, there are some clinical trials going on with RadOnc that he wants me to be involved with. So in some ways, I guess I am getting the best of both worlds in terms of research?

 

[Neuronix]

This is a borderline case. I think different MD/PhD PDs are going to see it differently. If anything, it falls most closely in line with engineering research, which some programs don't particularly care for or try to limit. Thus, these positions are somewhat more competitive than usual.