Research as MD

[DrBodacious]

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Anyone knowledgable please answer these Qs, I'm fairly naive about doctor's research but I think it's something I'd want to do (surgery is my goal). Any other info, good web sites to check out??

How does research typically play into a surgeon's career? Are there a lot of hoops to jump through to develop research projects? Is it easier to get approval for a project if you have a MD/PHD? Do most surgeons get involved in research? What sort of research projects are you/surgeons you know involved in?

 

[Fritz]

I heard that you need an MD/PhD for residency in surgery at some places.

 

[DrBodacious]

Originally posted by Fritz
I heard that you need an MD/PhD for residency in surgery at some places.

har har but seriously I want to go into research as a MD, I've done undergrad research but I don't really know what MD's do for research. I guess I could go read a ton of articles to find out... 🙁

 

[Gleevec]

MDs nowadays do a lot of work on clinical trials, and on the bedside of the translational process (in groups with MD/PhDs and PhDs). So lots of clinical, direct-application oriented research.

 

[xanthines]

I'm a lab tech in a basic science research lab (molecular bio, biochem, cell bio type stuff) and I had a surgeon come through here as a post-doc.

So I guess a surgeon can pretty muc do any research he/she wants if time allows it, which is of course, the major issue for any physician.

-Xh

 

[Hermeone]

I thought one has to beocme a physician before one becomes a surgeon?

 

[DrBodacious]

Thanks guys. My only first hand knowledge of a surgeon doing research was an MD/PHD ENT surgeon who was giving me cancer tissue samples to work w and study for expression of a certain protein. He was pretty interested in what I was doing and knew alot about oncology as well as surgery. Is this sort of thing rare?

Also, by doing a quick search I found a paper by a sugeon (Annals of Surgery 2003; 238(1):1-5) (www.annalsofsurgery.com) who was making standardized incisions in lung tissue, using smokers and non-smokers as variables (the "smoker" group was required to smoke 20 cigs a day), and following up on the incidence of complications caused by the incision. I wouldn't volunteer for that study, LOL. Is that sort of clinical research more typical for a surgeon?

I see what Retro was saying about surgeons not being trained experts on molecular lev biology. So an MD/PHD then surgery training might be a better way to go if I'm truly interested in molecular biology based research? MD/PHD programs are so hard to get into, and I've already applied to all MD because of that.

So Fritz could have been serious about needing a MD/PHD for some residency programs, or was that sarcasm?

I'm going to look up more articles when I get time but if any one has any more imput please post.

 

[idq1i]

There are many MDs doing clinical and academic research. Check out Weill/CUMC pulmonary/cc division webpage (my pre-medschool employer) for examples of research projects.

 

[tonem]

There are surgeons and other non-MD/PhD physicians doing "bench" work. As far as not having time for research in residency, many academic surgery programs REQUIRE 1-3 years of research during their training. There is one program in the midwest (I think it's somewhere in Ohio) that offers the opportunity to get a PhD during residency. Finally, in the academic world (after residency) your time is generally split between clinical (seeing patients/doing surgery) and academic activities (research/teaching) so you don't have to twice as much work if you're interested in research. How much time (50/50 vs. 20/80 etc...) depends on how valuable your research is to the institution (in terms of money brought in by grants or prestige etc...).

 

[xanthines]

This has been discussed repeatedly in the MD/PhD forum, but it is very possible (and at some schools common!) for MS1's to switch into the MD/PhD program. At that point, you've already proven you can hack the MD part (assuming you do well, of course).

-X

Originally posted by DrBodacious
I see what Retro was saying about surgeons not being trained experts on molecular lev biology. So an MD/PHD then surgery training might be a better way to go if I'm truly interested in molecular biology based research? MD/PHD programs are so hard to get into, and I've already applied to all MD because of that.
.

 

[DrBodacious]

Originally posted by tonem
There are surgeons and other non-MD/PhD physicians doing "bench" work. As far as not having time for research in residency, many academic surgery programs REQUIRE 1-3 years of research during their training. There is one program in the midwest (I think it's somewhere in Ohio) that offers the opportunity to get a PhD during residency. Finally, in the academic world (after residency) your time is generally split between clinical (seeing patients/doing surgery) and academic activities (research/teaching) so you don't have to twice as much work if you're interested in research. How much time (50/50 vs. 20/80 etc...) depends on how valuable your research is to the institution (in terms of money brought in by grants or prestige etc...).

OK, so from this I get the picture that you would in fact have ample long term exposure to molecular/cellular bio to facilitate research.

Most of the schools I'm applying to expressly say they encourage and make it feasible to do research, either summer or part-time. So that's a start. My guess is that it is the same story for residency, easier to do research in some programs as opposed to others.

hey xanthines -- you know if Penn, NW, UofC, Pitt, Drexel, Temple, Loyola, PSU, Jeff were among the schools that it was common to switch to MD/PHD?

 

[TTSD]

Surgeons do plenty of research, actually it's surgeons who can make some very profound impacts on medicine since they can go in there and remove and rewire things around..

At any rate, as people above have said all it requires is time. It really just depends on how much you love what you do and how much time you're willing to put into it as opposed to everything else. Some doctors will research on the side, some will hire out a large staff of undergrads, some will give up medicine completely, some give up their lives for a while except maybe a quick date and screw once in a while..

There are many ways. And yes, it would be rare for a doctor to play with the molecular basis of things, molecular research can take YEARS of intense work that may prove to be ultimately fruitless.

If you love research, then as already suggested above, try MD/PhD. They'll pay for your medical tuition.. only it'll take 7-8 years to graduate as opposed to 4. Or become an academic physician and stay attached to a university and play kidnap students to become monkeyboys and do your grunt work for you.