Why MD/PhD?

[vanbeld]

I recently graduated with my BS in biotechnology, and had planned on pursuing MD/PhD. I recently started questioning if the research I'm interested in requires a MD/PhD. I have a passion for gene therapy, and I'd like to participate in the development of the technique (Vectors, insertion sites, etc), as well as the execution of it (clinical trials). I want to participate in research involving gene therapy before I apply for a MD/PhD program, so I began looking at the NIH's postbac program. By far, the PI's doing research in gene therapy have either a MD -or- a PhD, not both, and no, the MDs aren't always the ones doing the clinical research or vice versa. So with this discovery, I started questioning why I might need a MD/PhD to participate in clinical trials, as well as investigations. Is it a unique situation where the PhD who happens to be the PI of clinical research has MD-collaborators at the NIH that allow them to lead the research?

I thought my answer the the "Why MD/PhD" question would simply be that I'm interested in participating in both the investigation and the clinical trials, but it seems that people do that without the dual degree. Any insight?

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[stannislaus]

*bump*
going into my final year of undergrad and have similar questions too.

i think i've seen plenty of clinical trials (if not most clinical trials) run by investigators who have only a PhD, or only an MD. So I have a hunch that clinical trials alone is not the adequate answer to "why MD/PhD".
my thinking has been that the benefits of having both an MD/PhD would be able to conduct your research in a way that's well-informed by the needs and limitations of clinical practice. Will your research be relevant and applicable to medicine as a practice? But this is a wishy washy over-generalized answer to your question that I've gained from some rather vague discussions with the MD/PhD's in my lab (who themselves aren't quite sure why they're pursuing both degrees to be honest!).

I'd love to hear from others.

 

[OCDOCDOCD]

My reason for wanting to do an MD/PhD is that the disease I want to research is extremely understudied (I believe there are three groups in the entire world that research what I want to, and 2 of those are in non-english speaking countries). As a result, it would really help if I had clinical exposure to it since there's virtually nothing in the literature to go off of. With that and my other side-interests I'd also like to be able to see a project through from basic science to clinical, which will be easier with an MD/PhD (no need to hand off the clinical portion to an MD).

Honestly I could get away with just a PhD or just an MD for this. The thing that made me finally decide on the MD/PhD track instead of the PhD or MD track was that I saw how bad the funding and job scarcity issues are in academia right now, and figure that having an MD to fall back on in the event my research plans dry up would be very, very nice. When you put that together with the above then the extra time spent in school and training and the gruelling workload become acceptable.

As for why I don't just go for the MD only, while being a physician would be very nice and rewarding, I've learned by this point that I need to be doing research or else I get frustrated thinking up research ideas I'll never be able to look into. Granted you can do research with an MD, but if you want to do a career made up mostly of research with clinical on the side that's a massive pay cut, and the costs of an MD program just don't make that feasible, at least not until you're well into your career as a physician.

 

[vitalamine]

Granted you can do research with an MD, but if you want to do a career made up mostly of research with clinical on the side that's a massive pay cut, and the costs of an MD program just don't make that feasible, at least not until you're well into your career as a physician.

Another option you might consider is getting your MD, then work as a hospitalist for a year to pay your debt and be free to do what you want. That could position you to start work in the rare disease you are interested at an earlier age. You would have great flexibility and if you still want to get in depth research training at that point there is nothing to stop you.

 

[nysw]

This made me think about something:

Why is the most common route MD/PhD --> Residency and not MD --> Residency --> PhD?

Post-residency you would definitely have solidified any interests/sorted out any doubts.

Assuming you actually want to use both degrees, pursuing a PhD after residency would at the very least, make it very difficult to continue clinical duties, and quite possibly take you away from clinic for an ungodly amount of years because your PI thinks your PhD stuff is more important. It's common because it's much easier to do MD/PhD -> residency.

There are also PSTPs (physician scientist training programs) that some people elect to pursue during residency.

 

[Ombret]

PhD post-residency is like trousers on a cow. Looks funny and not necessary. The standard model for developing bench research skills after residency is to do a postdoc (often this is rolled into a fellowship).