PhD needed to teach medicine?

[lisa13579]

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I would like to put on a secondary that I may be interested in teaching medicine some day, but don't want to look stupid since I'm not applying for MD/PhD? Is a PhD always needed to teach medicine?

 

[AJM]

No.

In fact, most academic physicians are straight MDs, probably because there are so many more MDs than MD/PhDs.

 

[southerndoc]

If you want to be an academic physician, then by all means a PhD is not necessary. Most academic physicians do not have PhD's.

However, most basic science professors during the first 2 years of medical school are PhD's. So if you plan on teaching immunology, biochemistry, or the like, then a MD/PhD is in order. (I wish all professors in the first two years were MD/PhD's instead of PhD's. The regular PhD's tend to focus too much on their research.)

 

[lisa13579]

I just want to make sure I understand this. If most basic science professors have PhD's, then does "academic medicine" refer to teaching the clinical rotations of the 3rd and 4th year, since you said that most academic physicians don't have PhD's.

Thanks.

 

[AJM]

Academic medicine refers to physicians who work at academic medical centers who teach and/or do research. They can either do this in addition to clinical practice or in place of clinical medicine. Their research and teaching can be centered around clinical medicine (ie 3rd and 4th years/clinical research), or around basic science (ie 1st and 2nd years/basic research).

There are straight MDs who do any or all of the above. You do not need to have a PhD to do basic research or teach basic science classes, but it helps greatly. Actually, the majority of the preclinical instructors at my school were MDs, not MD/PhDs or PhDs. The only classes we had that were taught by PhDs were the 'real' basic science classes -- histology, biochem, developmental biology, and genetics. All of my other preclinical classes were taught by MDs -- even immunology.

 

[lisa13579]

Thank you!

 

[southerndoc]

Originally posted by AJM
Actually, the majority of the preclinical instructors at my school were MDs, not MD/PhDs or PhDs.

Man I envy you! You must have received a clinical slant on all the basic science stuff.

I wish all the PhD's the first 2 years also had MD's. That would've been awesome.

 

[spumoni620]

thanks for posting this thread. i had the exact same question....

in general, does anyone know how competitive is it to get a teaching position as an MD? (basic science or otherwise)?

 

[AJM]

Originally posted by Geek Medic
Man I envy you! You must have received a clinical slant on all the basic science stuff.

I wish all the PhD's the first 2 years also had MD's. That would've been awesome.

Yeah, I guess it was okay, but I rarely went to class, so I don't think I noticed any difference. But I think we probably had about the same number of classes taught by PhDs as you did, since after what I named above, I can't really think of any other basic science classes. Unless you had PhDs also teaching your more clinically-oriented preclinical classes?

The only other preclinical classes I can think of are anatomy, neurobiology, physiology, pathology, embryology, med micro, and pharmacology. These were taught by MDs at my school. I can't see how a non-MD could teach these classes to med students (well, maybe neuro and pharm). Did you have PhDs teaching all these subjects as well?

 

[agent]

Originally posted by Geek Medic
Man I envy you! You must have received a clinical slant on all the basic science stuff.

I wish all the PhD's the first 2 years also had MD's. That would've been awesome.

I would generally agree with that.