PhD help when matching to residency?

[surfingphd]

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I am finishing up my PhD in Bioengineering and will be applying to medical school soon. Will my PhD help me when I apply to competitive residency programs, such as plastic surgery?

Thank you.

 

[surfingphd]

I am finishing up my PhD in Bioengineering and will be applying to medical school soon. Will my PhD help me when I apply to competitive residency programs, such as plastic surgery or other surgical specialities?

Thank you.

 

[braluk]

It probably helps. The more competitive fields almost by its very nature require some sort of research and publication to those applying to it. Given the background of your PhD, and that you also stand out with another degree in addition to having an MD, it should help. However, thats totally dependent on what type of research you've also done and if it is relevant to the field in some peripheral way.

 

[soeagerun2or]

I am finishing up my PhD in Bioengineering and will be applying to medical school soon. Will my PhD help me when I apply to competitive residency programs, such as plastic surgery?

Thank you.

Yes a PhD is beneficial (if you publish). An online pseudonym like surfingphd likely is not.

 

[Flopotomist]

Hmm... how fast before the mods move this to the appropriate forum.

 

[Gut Shot]

Hmm... how fast before the mods move this to the appropriate forum.

You mean pre-allo?

 

[Pinkertinkle]

According to orthopedic residency directors who were polled, candidate being MD/PhD ranks quite lowly on the list of criteria.
http://www.ejbjs.org/cgi/content/full/84/11/2090/T01

 

[soeagerun2or]

According to orthopedic residency directors who were polled, candidate being MD/PhD ranks quite lowly on the list of criteria.
http://www.ejbjs.org/cgi/content/full/84/11/2090/T01

According to the NMRP and AAMC, having a PhD has an odds ratio of 2.88 for increasing likelihood for matching. Only having a Step I of > 201 has a higher O.R.

 

[joco7788]

I am finishing up my PhD in Bioengineering and will be applying to medical school soon. Will my PhD help me when I apply to competitive residency programs, such as plastic surgery?

Thank you.

Depends on the residency you are talking about. According to last years match only 3.5% of those US seniors who matched plastic surgery had a Ph.D. It was even lower for ortho. Rad onc on the other hand had 21% of US seniors who matched with a Ph.D.

Here is the link for the data

http://www.nrmp.org/data/chartingoutcomes2007.pdf

Hope this information helps.

 

[Gut Shot]

I think that this has been discussed before in pre-allo and non-trad both.

I was being facetious. There is a particular mod here who has, IMHO, an overly strong tendency to move threads to pre-allo.

 

[Winged Scapula]

Unlikely.

Its mostly helpful in more "sciencey" fields like Rad Onc (where it seems like all the residents are MD/PhDs), but if:

- you are applying to a research heavy field
- and can show that your background is applicable to that field,

then perhaps it *might* be of some benefit. But it general, advanced degrees are not particularly useful in getting into residency.

 

[QuantumMechanic]

I am finishing up my PhD in Bioengineering and will be applying to medical school soon. Will my PhD help me when I apply to competitive residency programs, such as plastic surgery?

Thank you.

yep but you'll never be able to get those wasted years back

 

[RxnMan]

You mean pre-allo?

Form the NRMP data, probably. It changes from field to field. Rad onc I remember had a high proportion of PhDs, so it may help more than average to have one if that's where your interests lie. Similarly, you don't need a PhD to match in IM, but if you're gunning for the top-top places, it is one of the things that can distinguish you. I'll tell you from my experience that PM&R and Ortho both would value your Bioengineering knowledge.

 

[Pinkertinkle]

According to the NMRP and AAMC, having a PhD has an odds ratio of 2.88 for increasing likelihood for matching. Only having a Step I of > 201 has a higher O.R.

Yet for matching into highly competitive specialties the AAMC report places having a Ph.D. fifth in predictive ability after number of contiguous ranks, step 1, step 2 and AOA membership.

 

[Winged Scapula]

I was being facetious. There is a particular mod here who has, IMHO, an overly strong tendency to move threads to pre-allo.

Doesn't need to be done (moved) because the OP has already started a thread there asking the same. I'll merge the two.

 

[pseudoknot]

Yet for matching into highly competitive specialties the AAMC report places having a Ph.D. fifth in predictive ability after number of contiguous ranks, step 1, step 2 and AOA membership.

I think that sentence in Charting Outcomes was poorly written and/or erroneous. They may have meant fifth overall for all specialties. If you look at the table, for highly competitive specialties only step I >201/235 have higher odds ratios.

 

[Joel Fleischman]

I would have to respectfully disagree with the honorable dr cox.
I think having a PhD is a big asset...
remember these match data have hidden factors, such as to where are you applying.

the PHD has definitely given me a leg up in research-y places, big university type places,
if you want to stay in academics, it will help.
This is even more true if your PHD applies to surgery in some way.

My PHD may have been a detriment with the community places...
if you decide to go to a community program you'll have to do some good explaining on your p.s.. Mine flat out said I want to be a surgeon-scientist - which I think got my application put in the round file at some of these places.

that said, do well in your clerkships, fortunately, I don't know if it will make up for an "F" in a surgery rotation.

 

[Pinkertinkle]

I think that sentence in Charting Outcomes was poorly written and/or erroneous. They may have meant fifth overall for all specialties. If you look at the table, for highly competitive specialties only step I >201/235 have higher odds ratios.

I'm no fan of statistics and odds ratios scare me. The publication says specifically it is 5th most important so I'm going to go with that rather than try to figure out the OR, etc...

 

[Leforte]

According to orthopedic residency directors who were polled, candidate being MD/PhD ranks quite lowly on the list of criteria.

Maybe that's because an orthopod can't spell PhD?

 

[Winged Scapula]

I would have to respectfully disagree with the honorable dr cox.
I think having a PhD is a big asset...
remember these match data have hidden factors, such as to where are you applying.

the PHD has definitely given me a leg up in research-y places, big university type places,
if you want to stay in academics, it will help.
This is even more true if your PHD applies to surgery in some way.

My PHD may have been a detriment with the community places...
if you decide to go to a community program you'll have to do some good explaining on your p.s.. Mine flat out said I want to be a surgeon-scientist - which I think got my application put in the round file at some of these places.

that said, do well in your clerkships, fortunately, I don't know if it will make up for an "F" in a surgery rotation.

I don't think we actually disagree...maybe to the extent which a PhD might help. I think its of most use in academic fields, at academic programs. As you note, at community programs, it may actually be a detriment.

But I still think, all in all, at most places, in most specialties, and for most candidates, the degree adds little to the overall picture...its not as important as Step 1 scores, for example.

 

[Blade28]

According to the NMRP and AAMC, having a PhD has an odds ratio of 2.88 for increasing likelihood for matching.

On average, across all fields, maybe. I doubt a Ph.D. will help much for Plastics, though (unless you did groundbreaking work in wound healing with some big-name PI, and even then, maybe not so much).

 

[soeagerun2or]

I'm no fan of statistics and odds ratios scare me. The publication says specifically it is 5th most important so I'm going to go with that rather than try to figure out the OR, etc...

I agree that it is ranked 5th in predictive value. However, for non "Highly Competitive Specialties" it is not ranked suggesting it is MORE important for competitive specialties.

The OR indicates that "all other things being equal," having a PhD increases your odds by nearly a factor of three. Merely looking at the percentage of PhDs who match and did not match does not say anything except that for a PhD the other factors played a major role in that decision. E.g. for your previous example, Orthopaedics, 3.5% of matched and 3.9% of unmatched had a PhD. I'll argue this difference is negligable. However the Step I of matched was 246 and unmatched was 211; which is likely a significant difference since the 25th percentile of matched is higher than the 75th percentile of unmatched. While both are >201 (which increases O.R. for matching) those who matched are >235 (which further increases the O.R. for matching). So for PhDs, their odds are equal, but say one PhD has a 211 and another a 236, the 236 has a higher O.R.

The statistics are there so you don't have to make assumptions and imply things.

 

[Pinkertinkle]

I agree that it is ranked 5th in predictive value. However, for non "Highly Competitive Specialties" it is not ranked suggesting it is MORE important for competitive specialties.

The OR indicates that "all other things being equal," having a PhD increases your odds by nearly a factor of three. Merely looking at the percentage of PhDs who match and did not match does not say anything except that for a PhD the other factors played a major role in that decision. E.g. for your previous example, Orthopaedics, 3.5% of matched and 3.9% of unmatched had a PhD. I'll argue this difference is negligable. However the Step I of matched was 246 and unmatched was 211; which is likely a significant difference since the 25th percentile of matched is higher than the 75th percentile of unmatched. While both are >201 (which increases O.R. for matching) those who matched are >235 (which further increases the O.R. for matching). So for PhDs, their odds are equal, but say one PhD has a 211 and another a 236, the 236 has a higher O.R.

The statistics are there so you don't have to make assumptions and imply things.

Isn't it ranked fifth for highly competitive specialties? Isn't that what the parenthesis (5) next to on the chart is? So the AAMC says its 5th in predictive value, that's what I'm going with.

 

[pseudoknot]

Isn't it ranked fifth for highly competitive specialties? Isn't that what the parenthesis (5) next to on the chart is? So the AAMC says its 5th in predictive value, that's what I'm going with.

I think this is right, on closer reading. It's confusing because they didn't report the R^2 for each attribute, but I'm guessing that even though the OR for PhD was high, the R^2 was relatively low.

If you look at the resident biographies for internal medicine at Brigham & Women's, nearly all are either AOA or MD/PhD, but few are both. But the non-AOA dual degree folks probably still did pretty well in school.