Unsure if MD/PhD makes the most sense for my career goals

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SpanishMusical

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Hello all,

I've recently been doing some work at my lab and gotten very interested in precision medicine (especially psychiatry) and combining computing and clinical data to make more informed decisions about psychiatry that go beyond DSM-5 diagnoses (like in this paper: Identification of Distinct Psychosis Biotypes Using Brain-Based Biomarkers. - PubMed - NCBI). I've always been pretty interested in research, but working on this seems to mesh really well with the computer skills and interests I've developed over the years.

As far as a career goes, I would love to be able to contribute to these efforts throughout my professional life: tracking patient outcomes and biomarkers (among other measurements), analyzing if/how these markers correspond to treatment response, maybe coming up with hypotheses as to why any results are that way, and also teaching med students. Furthermore, I'm also pretty passionate about working with Spanish-speaking patients, so ideally I'd like to run projects that work to increase the participation of this group that is very often almost ignored in research studies. My question is: would an MD with a strong research focus or a full-on MD/PhD work better for these interests? I don't think I'm particularly interested in grant writing and running a lab, but instead the data collection and analysis, which is why I'm unsure if the MD/PhD would be right for me. Ideally, I'd like to have practice in such a way that my practice informs my research, and my research informs my practice. Does anyone have any advice as to the best way to move forward with this?

Thanks for all your help.

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Talk to an actual MD/PhD and ask their advice as well. I think you're more suited for an MD/MPH or something similar instead of the whole shebang. You seem to want to practice most of the time and wouldn't be happy with the 80:20 research:clinical split most people are looking for.
 
Yeah, if you don't want to write grants or running a team, there's no point in doing a PhD. It's unclear if there is any utility in doing a PhD even if you DO want to write grants and run a team. If you do decide to do a PhD make sure you do one in one of the more marketable areas (comp sci, econ, informatics, etc) and not in basic biological sciences.
 
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Ok, thanks for everyone's responses. In that case, how would an MD go about getting a job in academic/research medicine? Are there any medical schools that are particularly research-focused? (I know Stanford has some really cool programs, but I also know it's insanely competitive.)
 
I'm going to disagree with the above posts. The MD/PhD degree provides basic training in medicine and advanced training in research. That's it. You can do whatever want with those skills.

There is pressure by more senior peers to go the PI route because you will be in academia for at least 7-10 years, and the people who stay in academia are generally the people who focus on the PI route.

You don't need to write grants or manage teams after the MD/PhD. The traditional 80:20 route is actually more like 10:90 in the sense that you do 10% actual research and 90% other stuff: e.g., 20% admin, 30% grants, 20% teaching, 20% clinical. You can become a research scientist in industry, start your own business, do research on your own, or whatever makes you happy. These options are especially true for those in the computational sciences who only need a computer and data.
 
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