This may be of interest, it compares MD w/ PhD w/ MD/PhD in a practical sense related to your career goals. This is someone else's opinion, I don't know enough to form one of my own.
"
After reading the 7 responses on this thread, I thought I should add my
perspective as a PhD with 2 months left on the MD. I've done alot of
retrospective soul-searching and thinking about a similar question
since deciding on a research career. You have three options:
1) Get an MD and a PhD.
Pros: * PhD will get you out of last elective year of med school.
* You get med student "real-world" experience with PhD scientist
training. This is a great background particularly if your
research is more applied than truly basic.
* You can possibly get fully-funded MD training so you won't
have the $80,000+ loan debts fellow med students will incur.
Cons: * It will cost you 2-5 more years than straight PhD or MD.
* You will be torn between choosing additional clinical
training (i.e. residency to get board certification) or
going straight into reseach. Remember that an MD without
residency doesn't allow patient care. You need to
pass part III boards (which requires 1 year internship)
to even moonlight in an ER, and you need full residency
to practice medicine.
--> Two articles might be useful here.
[1] "Educators Say MD-PhD Degree Programs Make Sense,
But Prove It" JAMA, Oct 17, 1990, pg 1919.
[2] "Doctor-Doctor: Growing Demand for MD-PhDs"
Science, Sept 24, 1993.
2) Get an MD
Pros: * You'll be exposed to areas in which medicine really needs
new methods. Scientist training without real-world
experience can lead to techniques in search of
applications instead of the other way around. It can
be argued that the best work is done by scientists who
see a problem and then find techniques to solve it.
This can be contrasted to the scientist who has a
technique (perhaps from a PhD dissertation) and
focuses on its extensions.
--> Side note: Read "A Ph.D. is Not Enough" by
Peter J Feibelman, Addison-Wesley 1993.
* You will have a medical career as a safety cushion if
research money can't be obtained OR you can pursue
reseach part-time in which case you will make more
money than straight research.
* There are a number of programs so you can pursue research
while in medical school (e.g. NIH cloister), but
this training is usually *in addition to* typical med
school training.
* IF you do the additional training to become licensed,
you will be able to head patient studies and couple
the research more closely to treatment.
Cons: * You will have to do additional training to become licensed
to practice medicine (see Cons in #1). And once you
become licensed, your clinical obligations might detract
from your time to do research.
* You might become disgruntled with the excessive amount of
memorization required versus real scientific training.
Medical school does NOT teach students how to become
scientists. It's tough enough trying to teach students
all the basic sciences and clinical survival, so the
time demands often lead to mindless memorization rather
than "Why?" questions.
* If you pursue research in areas other than the "basic
sciences," the MD is no substitute for the PhD. For
example, you typically will not be able to obtain
an asst prof position in Comp Sci or Engineering depts.
3) Get a PhD.
Pros: * It's the most direct training method to becoming a
scientist.
* It's cheaper than the MD since most PhD programs will
provide full funding in the form of fellowships or
assistantships.
* You will have more time to pursue in-depth research
as a PhD student than you will as a med student.
Cons: * You might get little "real-world" experience (see
first pro in #2 above).
* You will typically make less than a MD who performs
part-time clinical work. Caveat: an MD who only
performs research probably has no significant
salary advantage over a PhD since he/she is NOT
pulling in money for the dept through clinical care.
In summary, while the MD adds alot to your background, there is
a price. To actually practice medicine requires a substantial
time commitment (beyond med school) that could be used for post-doc
and/or directed reading/experience in a particular facet of medicine.
In the case of genetics, the MD/PhD approach could be very
successful. As your tastes move from the basic sciences, though,
it becomes very difficult to marry the clinical side with the
science side. My focus has been on computer technology; therefore,
there is virtually no overlap (in training time) between my chosen
area and any medical residency. On the other hand, the basic MD
training has already proven useful for my research/perspective in a
number of ways.
-Bill
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