Parental Profession(s)

[solitude]

I'm just curious what everybody's parent(s) do for a living, and how this has affected their decision to pursue the MD/PhD and become a professor. The vast majority of MD/PhD PI's, students, and applicants I have met are children of an academic or two academics, mostly children of basic scientists, physicians, or physician-scientists, but some of academics in unrelated fields. I'm trying to determine if this is the general trend, or simply a result of the circles in which my family and I run.

But anyways I'll start--my father is a physician-scientist (although he does not have both degrees), and I hope to eventually be a fourth-generation professor after all of my training. I definitely do not want to be a scientist because of familial pressures per se. Rather, I feel that I have chosen this profession because of the vast exposure to science from my family, and the deep respect my family affords towards science and academia/learning in general.

Perhaps I should make this a poll so that it's anonymous?

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[JayQuah]

Dad's a software salesman, mom was a technical editor until i graced her with my presence.

 

[lundysd]

Pilot and Flight Attendant (briefly). In fact, I'm the first person in my family not to do the flying thing (military or commercial)

 

[SeventhSon]

my dad is a phrarmacist in academia who helps coodinate clinical studies between the university and drug companies. got me interested in drug research. mom is a teacher.

 

[MrMunkily]

dad's a basic scientist, mom's a physician (GP)...

makes for a good though obvious joke set up in interviews.

 

[shortyganoush]

My parents are both psychologists, and I'm an only child. That made for an interesting childhood. My grandfather was a psychiatrists. And yet I don't really care about the brain or behavior, except in the sense of econ.

 

[Neuronix]

My dad is a truck driver (with chronic illness) and my mom is a frequently unemployed schizophrenic. I'm the first member of my extended family to graduate from college.

 

[ClarinetGeek]

My parents own an insurance agency, where my dad is the agent and my mom is office manager. Neither of parents have college degrees. Except for a second cousin, I will be the first to graduate from college in my extended family.

 

[CaipirinhaQuinho]

pops has a pharmacy degree from brazil which translates to a pharmacy tech here in the states, he also runs a karate school.

mom is an admin. assist.

no college for either. no one in my family has any idea what i do.

 

[Thundrstorm]

My dad is an executive in the computer industry. My mom is a stay-at-home mother turned stay-at-home grandmother. My sisters and I are the first people in my mom's family to graduate from college, and I will be the first person with a graduate degree on either side. I'd say the only influence my parents had on my choice of careers is that they always emphasized education and demanded that I go to college, and they supported me when they realized I was a little science nerd as a kid.

 

[fantasty]

My dad was a gas station attendant for my uncle's station, and my mom cleaned houses. Academics was not a high priority where I'm from.

 

[solitude]

Wow I'm way impressed with some people's decisions to pursue the double degree from such modest backgrounds, when you could go for the big bucks with the straight MD. It's also refreshing to see such diversity in future mudphuds. I guess my intuitions were wrong!

 

[cadilakgrl]

my dad is an mechanical engineer- used to make navigational equipment for planes, then hair-removal machines for doctors, now works for a company that makes automated machines for biotech companies. mom is a secretary in a doctors office. neither one has a degree higher than a masters. i wasn't influenced by them at all to be a physician/scientist and they are pretty much clueless to what it means (when i told my mom about columbia, she was like "where is that"!). but my parents did a great job of helping me with school projects and pressuring me to get good grades

 

[kassie]

Dad was a dancer/TV repairman
Mom was a SAHM but before was one of his employees and a former engineer but quit before I was born.

Brother both in business.

I'm an oddity in the family. Some might even say black sheep...

 

[GradTX]

Both of my parents majored in math. Mom ended up teaching junior high and Dad is a programmer. Both of them wonder why I don't have a "real job" yet.

 

[Hurricane]

At the time of my application, my mom was a school nurse (she's retired now) and my dad was a school bus driver (now he's a land and right-of-way agent, which means he researches title records to find out who owns and negotiate the rights to land needed to build things like pipelines, cell phone towers, etc.)

I was the first person in our family to get an advanced degree. My little brother is graduating from law school this year too, and going on to get an LLM next year. So I think our parents did an ok job

 

[Reimat]

My dad's a programmer, my mom's a homemaker (never finished college). First in my family to go into medicine or get an PhD - guess I wanted to kill 2 birds with one stone

 

[Reimat]

Wow I'm way impressed with some people's decisions to pursue the double degree from such modest backgrounds, when you could go for the big bucks with the straight MD. It's also refreshing to see such diversity in future mudphuds. I guess my intuitions were wrong!

I think because many of us grew up in homes where no one in the family had been in medicine, there was no one to question/discourage the idea of doing a dual degree. I'm sure if I had relatives who were MD's, they would have been pushing the MD only path since I was young. However, as it is now, not a single person in my family really understands the dual degree. But, they all support the fact that I want to pursue advanced schooling in general.

 

[huknows00]

Very true! Both my parents were engineers, no one in my extended family is in medicine, and all my friends are in business. I think if we have too many ppl in medicine around us we would feel more pressure against dual-degrees.

 

[solitude]

Very true! Both my parents were engineers, no one in my extended family is in medicine, and all my friends are in business. I think if we have too many ppl in medicine around us we would feel more pressure against dual-degrees.

Well I don't know about this. I have a number of relatives in medicine and they are all very supportive about me pursuing the dual degree. In fact many lament that the dual degree was not available back in their day (yes quite old relatives), or that they chose not to pursue it and instead chose the straight MD. I suppose a lot of it will depend on the type of medicine that the relatives practice. Mine are in academia, so the dual degree is valued perhaps more highly than it would be private practitioners.

 

[Bluntman]

Mom was a Jr. High/Middle School teacher. Dad hasn't been a part of my life.

No real pressure in my family for me to do one thing or another. All I ever hear from my extended family is "do what makes you happy". I do see the reasoning though that if I was in a family with people who had only one of the degrees (either MD or PhD), that there could possibly be negative pressure on me to not pursue an MD/PhD. I'm curious...has anyone experienced this?

If anything my mom plays around and tries to entice me with the great hours/pension/benefits of being a teacher. She'd love it if I ended up teaching at a university.

 

[Aptamer]

My father is an aircraft mechanic, and my mother is a seamstress. First in the family to get a high school/college degree and obviously the first to pursue a doctorate (or two, for that matter).

This is one of the most worthwhile threads I have seen on SDN in some time. Wonderful stories from all!

 

[gutonc]

Dad: Former auto mechanic, now manages an auto parts store.
Mom: Used to sell children's shoes (for like 20 years), worked her way up to be some sort of managerial desk jockey at Nordstrom doing something I can't hope to understand.

I too am the first person in my family to make it past 1 year of college. And you have to go pretty far away on the old pedigree to even find cousins who went to college.

I think my family thinks I'm nuts for doing what I'm doing (just matched, finishing up my 9-yr MD/PhD, heading to OHSU to do the IM Research Pathway), but at the same time I don't think it surprises any of them and they're extraordinarily supportive.

BE

 

[huknows00]

Wow, everyone's stories are really amazing... I can't help but be very impressed by how people have found the determination to pursue what they love instead of money, even coming from humble backgrounds. I feel like MSTPers on average are a more grounded and thoughtful bunch, as demostrated by the stark contrast b/t this forum and the pre-allo forum.

I must say that I'm really honored to be in the company of such mature and intelligent individuals.

 

[dl2dp2]

actually i think it makes sense to have more diversity in MDPhD than regular MD pool. first off, the financial issue is often big, and if both of your parents are doctors you really don't have to worry about money, now or ever. secondly there's less pressure to conform if your parents aren't all highfalutin pressure cookers.

lots of mdphds i know are minority students, 1st gen immigrants, 1st gen college grads who just can't afford regular MD tuition, or don't feel safe incurring such a large chunk of debt.

 

[CaipirinhaQuinho]

i also think that the way this thread has turned out, those who actually are from a better pedigree are not posting. just a thought

 

[Mr. Tee]

i also think that the way this thread has turned out, those who actually are from a better pedigree are not posting. just a thought

ok I'll bite...both of my parents got master's degrees in Asia, but my father got a PhD here in the USA. Both are typical research scientists. I would be the first out of my entire extended family to go to medical school, though.

Sound cliche?

 

[Vader]

i also think that the way this thread has turned out, those who actually are from a better pedigree are not posting. just a thought

"Better pedigree"?? Ouch...

 

[Hurricane]

i also think that the way this thread has turned out, those who actually are from a better pedigree are not posting. just a thought

Yeah, I second the on the "better pedigree" comment. Not the best choice of words...

But pedigrees aside, when I think of the other students in my class, and the year above and below me, only one of them had a parent who was a physician. I can't remember all of their parents' occupations, but these are the pairings I recall:
aircraft engine engineer + rehab nurse
golf pro + something nonmedical that I can't remember
HR exec + homemaker
2 university professors (neither in the sciences)
orthopod + assoc dean of the med school/former speech pathologist

I guess that makes me the one with the worst pedigree

 

[Shatterstar17]

My mom's a drug and alcohol counselor for adolescent girls and my father sold cars. I do have a cousin-once-removed who's an orthopaedic surgeon, but this has been kind of a surprise for everyone in my family, though they always supported me in all of my academic pursuits. I think they're better than most families I hear about in really wanting me to pursue my passions, though I think my grandparents wish I would someday make more $$ out of it.

 

[CaipirinhaQuinho]

"Better pedigree"?? Ouch...

oh stop with the bs. you all got the point.

 

[neoserenity333]

oh stop with the bs. you all got the point.

it's funny cause my pre-med advisor actually asked me if any of my parents were doctors because of the "pedigree" issue (she used that exact word too). my dad is in academic medicine, so she put that in my cover letter, for better or for worse

 

[mercaptovizadeh]

Dad's a physicist turned financial analyst turned computer science professor.

Mom's a homemaker (philosophy, art history, psych majors) turned teacher turned homemaker.

Sister's a lawyer.

 

[tr]

I guess I fall in the 'science brat' category. Father is a basic scientist (PhD), mother has been through several incarnations as an academic and corporate librarian and self-employed consultant (Master's). I have a grandfather who is a family doc and a sister in med school.

 

[Vader]

oh stop with the bs. you all got the point.

Well, there wasn't a vomiting emoticon available...

 

[cadilakgrl]

Well, there wasn't a vomiting emoticon available...

check out the smilies under more...

 

[Whoa It's Peter]

My dad is an MD/PHD and my mom is an MD. Both received their degrees from China. Even though they pushed for a career in medicine ever since I was a child, I can honestly say that my choice was entirely my own. I'm proud that they've been relatively hands-off with regard to which track (MD or MD/PHD) and program I choose.

 

[the_one_smiley]

My mom is a high school ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) teacher and my dad is a mechanical engineer.

 

[soccerteez]

Thought I'd chime in on the academia side... My nuclear family (mother, father, brother) all have PhDs in math. After working in industry as a computer scientist, my mother now teaches comp sci at a university as a professor. My father is programmer, and my brother just got a math post doc with the hope of becoming a university professor. I like to consider myself the black sheep, although in this forum I seem more like a gray sheep

 

[WhiteRussian]

My father dropped out of college to start a seafood business diving for sea urchins. Him and my mom now own and manage a wholesale seafood company. They were both bio majors, but there isn't anyone in my family that i know of that has a MD or a PhD.

 

[Doctor&Geek]

Dad = nuclear engineer
Mom = piano teacher

 

[Vader]

check out the smilies under more...

I stand corrected!

 

[Fay]

dad: sell and repair motocycles and scooters before retirement
mom: accounting-related job before marriage
They have high school equivalents, but refuse to tell me where they went to school.

 

[Caristra]

Mom = doting grandmother (thank my sisters for that)
dad = something with stocks that I never quite understood.

Both dropped out of college. My mother was very firm about my graduating college but I think she would actually have preferred if I did something more "normal" aka, something she's heard of before. My siblings are accountants and elementary school teachers. I'll be the first MD and PHD in the family.

 

[hateroftheyear]

There is a long history of MD in my family, but no PhD. No professors, no scientists. Except one uncle who got his doctorate in entomology.

 

[amester07]

Paternal grandparents middle-school teachers.
Maternal grandparents elementary school teachers.

My dad used to do a mix of teaching & research; now does full-time research.
My mom used to teach English to medical students* (in East Asia); now teaches foreign students.

*I don't think that's what got me interested in medicine, although I always liked testing my own courage by walking through the eerily dark level of the college building where the smelly cadavers were kept.

So it was thought natural for me to pursue an academic route of some sort, coming from a family of teachers -- none of them have beyond a master's degree though, and they all seemed pretty open-minded when I explored other fields in college such as engineering and business.

No MD's in my extended family.

 

[GoinBack2Cali?]

Dad is a mechanic and Mom is a pre-school teacher.

 

[gbwillner]

Dad= Pope
Mom= Queen of England

 

[marctam86]

Dad = art dealer
Mom = dental hygenist.

pretty random

 

[QofQuimica]

My dad is an old-time family practitioner from the time when family practice really meant that you saw the whole family. He was the first person in his family to go to college, and I don't know how he wound up going to med school (he's a DO). When he started out, he had a rural practice where he made housecalls, patients paid him with eggs and vegetables, he delivered babies, and he performed surgery in his office. He never had to take the MCAT or do a residency; after his internship, he just opened his own office and started seeing patients. Sounds nice, doesn't it???

My mom didn't go to college because her dad discouraged her from doing it. (My grandfather just wanted her to get married.) She's a very talented artist, though nowadays she helps do administrative work in my dad's office.

I am the first female college graduate on both sides of my family. My younger sister also went to college and finished her MS, but my two female cousins have rather colorful jobs; one is a professional stripper. (Seriously.) The sad thing is, she's probably earning way more than I will for at least the next decade.