Something I've been curious about- Do physician-scientists really have less time to research than their phd-only faculty counterparts?

[moralis]

Considering that-
- a physician-scientist probably does some combination of clinical work and research (seemingly having lower teaching amount?)
- a phd-only faculty probably does some combination of teaching and research

In terms of total % of time devoted to research, would a teaching phd-only faculty actually have more time than a physician-scientist? (however I understand that clinical work is more stressful than teaching so there is probably an additional mental burden on the physician-scientist at all times)

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[wandering star]

There's a wide range of gigs out there. Some physician scientists work 80% on research and 20% on clinical duties (1 day a week, just to keep their head in the game). Some physician scientists take on instructor-type positions where they are supposed to have a 50/50 split (and less income because they have 50% clinic productivity), and depending on how efficient they are at clinic and research, this may eventually become 33/66 working evenings + weekends on research or 66/33 where their research time is sucked up by clinic duties.

On the PhD side, there are jobs at state schools where you teach several classes per semester, to jobs at R1 universities where you teach one class per semester, to soft money jobs at medical schools where teaching is basically optional, or you might co-teach one class every other year just to say that you do some teaching on the side.

From the medical schools I've been at I would say the "average" physician-scientist has less research time than the average PhD faculty member, simply because there are few people to teach at med schools. If you compare physician-scientists to faculty at R1 universities it might be pretty even.

 

[OddNath]

I mean you basically have to hustle for grant money to “buy” yourself out of clinical responsibilities, unless you’re at an institution with a generous start up package with protected research time for new MD/PhD faculty (maybe more likely in the Midwest or other places trying hard to recruit).

So like I only got a small grant that paid less than 10% of my yearly salary, so I scraped another 10% of salary support from another department that wanted my research expertise, to give me 20% research time. The problem was that this other department wanted me to do research that I found to be pointless or worse.

I have since quit academics, I lasted 18 months as an attending haha