Hi everyone!
I am a South-Asian IMG, with a quite twisted experience and background. I am in my mid-thirties, and haven’t done any clinical practice in the past 7+ years. I migrated to Canada seven years ago and have become a citizen now. In the past years I have done a MS in epidemiology, and also worked as a research associate at a university. Currently I work for a provincial prescription drug monitoring program and do work in abuse/misuse monitoring and surveillance. I also have some first author publications, government reports, etc. Over these years, I have grasped a great deal of technical skills required for research like data analysis (and programming), database management, etc. and public health knowledge.
I am interested in research (clinical/medical/health). I know it is quite superficial to say that way, but I like to hear about all the potential options in medicine, para-clinical and other fields. I am not excited about my current situation (public health field is very saturated in North America now with so many PhD graduates in epidemiology) and would like to pursue something different which could use my background in medicine and public health as well as technical skills. Ideally I would like to become a physician scientist in a field intersecting medicine and technology like radiology, neuroscience, clinical informatics or something along that lines. I am willing to do a PhD in order to reach there. I would love it if I could go back to clinical practice if it is possible at all.
I would like to know where I would fit in. Some people advise me to go for Canadian and US medical exams, but I am not sure of my chances of getting matched given that I have a huge gap in clinical practice. Is it possible to do a PhD in radiology and get back to an academic plus research plus/minus clinical position? Or it it reserved for only those who do residency in radiology (or MD/PhD) and come through fellowship programs?
Your thoughts on this would be really appreciated.
I am a South-Asian IMG, with a quite twisted experience and background. I am in my mid-thirties, and haven’t done any clinical practice in the past 7+ years. I migrated to Canada seven years ago and have become a citizen now. In the past years I have done a MS in epidemiology, and also worked as a research associate at a university. Currently I work for a provincial prescription drug monitoring program and do work in abuse/misuse monitoring and surveillance. I also have some first author publications, government reports, etc. Over these years, I have grasped a great deal of technical skills required for research like data analysis (and programming), database management, etc. and public health knowledge.
I am interested in research (clinical/medical/health). I know it is quite superficial to say that way, but I like to hear about all the potential options in medicine, para-clinical and other fields. I am not excited about my current situation (public health field is very saturated in North America now with so many PhD graduates in epidemiology) and would like to pursue something different which could use my background in medicine and public health as well as technical skills. Ideally I would like to become a physician scientist in a field intersecting medicine and technology like radiology, neuroscience, clinical informatics or something along that lines. I am willing to do a PhD in order to reach there. I would love it if I could go back to clinical practice if it is possible at all.
I would like to know where I would fit in. Some people advise me to go for Canadian and US medical exams, but I am not sure of my chances of getting matched given that I have a huge gap in clinical practice. Is it possible to do a PhD in radiology and get back to an academic plus research plus/minus clinical position? Or it it reserved for only those who do residency in radiology (or MD/PhD) and come through fellowship programs?
Your thoughts on this would be really appreciated.
