what happens after

[huknows00]

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I've had the wonderful opportunity of following a team of doctors on morning rounds, and the senior doctor is a md/phd so I had a little talk to him about my ambitions. To my surprised, he gave a sarcastic smiled and started going on a tantrum about how it's not worth it and how unfufilling it is. About how it's like pursuing two separate career paths where you go into one only to return to the other one being a complete newcomer again and having to compete with others who can put all their effort into one thing. His attitude about the program really concerned me. So here are my questions:

1. After you do your MD/Phd. and residency, do you still have to do a post-doc in order to get a research position (assistant professorship). What about a fellowship?

2. Does your having two degrees actually help either career in anyway?

3. I am an engineer and plan to do BE for my Ph.D, is there any compatibility in terms of research between BE and medicine? I ask this because most of the people on this forum talk about molecular biology research which has a more direct implication on diseases and such.

4. For clinical exposure, is attending daily rounds enough or do I actually have to volunteer. I am getting great perspective on patient care but it is only through watching. I also do volunteering at another place, but that is not clinical, is clinical volunteering essential?

Thank you for answering my questions!

 

[SaltySqueegee]

Hmmm...

Some advice:

1) Take everyone's advice with a Salt-lined margarita, including my advice.

2) The MD/PhD person that you shadowed and talked to, might not have done the MD/PhD degrees for the right reason, and thus might possibly be jaded about the outcome.

3) When going into a dual degree program, you should have a small amount of foresight in that you are doing it because it interests you, and not because you think it will necessarily help your career.

4) My understanding is that you can pick 'research-oriented' residencies, and 'research-oriented' post-residency fellowships. A few examples are radiation oncology, medical toxicology, cardiology, endocrinology, etc. These paths will allow for a certain degree of clinical research combined with actual medical practice. Also, if you want to do 'Academic' medicine, a dual degree is extremely helpful.

[/opinion ON]
My thoughts are that a Molecular Biology PhD would allow a physician to work more on the clinical aspects of research, while the BE (Biomed Engin.???) would lead the MD/PhD person into more of the lab work side of the Dual degree. I have a friend going into Biomed engineering, and his particular focus is more on Bench research than the clinical side (i.e. he will be using the MD side of his dual degree to direct his focus in his biomedical engineering research). Just a few thoughts. On a tangential note, I hope to use my Molec Biol PhD to understand and give the proper feed back of my clinical observations to the bench research side of my work.
[/opinion OFF]

Also, I've known quite a few doctors with their PhD background in Molec Biol, to work in conjunction with other PhD peers' labs in developing various types of therapeutics. i.e. they were represented the clinical side of the research that was going on at their institution.

Hope that helps,
-Salty 👍

 

[huknows00]

thank you very much! your reply was very helpful. Anyone else's opinion would also great appreciated...

 

[b&ierstiefel]

I've talked to several MD/PhD attendings from various fields. Some of them loved it and thought that they would do it again as a career choice (if born again ... of course). They recount on how having both degrees make life easier in terms of pursuing the career you want. They gave me high-fives for going this path and told me that when I successfully complete the program, my two degrees will open many more doors than if I were to have done the MD or PhD alone.

Then I've talked to 2 or 3 MD/PhD attendings who thought that it was a waste of time. these people happened to be folks who were doing absolutely no research and undertaking purely clinical work.

I actually take both groups of people's advice with grains of salt. Why? Because different people do the MD/PhD for different reasons. People also grow and change during their long MD/PhD training. I know I did. Personally, as I reflect on the last 6-7 years during my last months of med school, I thought doing the MD/PhD was a great idea and I would totally do it again if I went back in time. MD/PhD training is quite unique since one can appreciate basic research and experimentation to clinically relevant problems. It allows one to think more of the "bigger picture" while they devise grant proposals and research projects.

I find it ironic sometimes when I go to PhD seminars and the speakers talk about a certain disease during the introduction part of their talk before launching into the description of data. I bet some of them have no idea when they say terms like, "Leber's congenital amarosis", "Diamond-Blackfan anemia", "congenital dyserythropoietic anemia", "Crohn's Disease", etc. However, us MD/PhD folk are privileged to see patients inflicted by these diseases so that we can go beyond saying that certain genes/proteins are responsible for more than simply eye disease, GI disease, and blood disorders. We are also privileged to appreciate how basic science can be utilized to further our understanding of these diseases and then go even further to connect the clinical and basic science aspects in a meaningful and elegant way.