Working with underserved populations + being a "physician-scientist"

[risexPanda]

For example, UMichigan's secondary, I choose wanting to follow a career path in which I would help the underserved. But I also want to discuss my extensive research experience as a "physician-scientist" for their optional essay.

I was wondering, aren't these two fields sort of contradictory?

Like how would I be able to conduct research and work with underserved populations at the same time?

For example, is an option working at an academic medical center (ie. CHLA) in a dense area such as Los Angeles with a large minority population?

I would like to open up my own practice in the future, but research (ie. public health research) on the side at a university or something is not possible with this option I am assuming?

Thanks in advance.

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[Med Ed]

For example, UMichigan's secondary, I choose wanting to follow a career path in which I would help the underserved. But I also want to discuss my extensive research experience as a "physician-scientist" for their optional essay.

I was wondering, aren't these two fields sort of contradictory?

Like how would I be able to conduct research and work with underserved populations at the same time?

For example, is an option working at an academic medical center (ie. CHLA) in a dense area such as Los Angeles with a large minority population?

I would like to open up my own practice in the future, but research (ie. public health research) on the side at a university or something is not possible with this option I am assuming?

Thanks in advance.

The term "physician scientist" typically denotes basic or translational science researchers. It is certainly possible to perform basic or translational science as it applies to underserved populations (diabetes comes to mind), but you do stand the risk of sounding naive, or trying to tell the school what you think it wants to hear.

 

[freedoctor17]

hmmm I was doing something similar but now I'm wondering if I just shouldn't fill out the optional research essay. I took it to mean "how does your current research motivate you wanting to do future research" and completely missed the fact they mention "physician scientist." I spoke about working with udnerserved in my first one and I'm definitely more interested in working as a clinician with people than working in a lab setting in the future. So are clinical researchers who focus on working with patients not considered physician scientists? I was hoping to draw a connection from my lab research to wanting to take part in bringing new methods like this into practice by running trials and stuff like that. I do have significant volunteering with underserved as well as in a research lab (although many more hours in lab due to it being a full time job over Summers) so didn't think it would be too weird to make a connection.

 

[getdown]

A better question would be if you would be able to set up enough time to be adequate at both. Being a physician scientist means dedicating time in a research lab, performing experiments for translational science. As you're aware, this takes time and some experiments require exact timing (incubations, cell plating, etc). Someone can correct me on this but doing public health research doesn't usually fall in that category. Especially if you're planning on being in a major academic institution you're expected to produce results, write and get grants in order to justify your position in the department. All of this is time consuming. A lot of academic departments require a certain amount of clinical activity as well. The hospital needs to generate revenue, they're not here to let you do whatever you want in life.

The other part is the same. In order to be a good physician you have to dedicate your time to it. As much as some people believe that "just studying/reading" will be adequate knowledge base, a lot of the practice of medicine is "an art". You see enough and your gut tells you something even if the signs are ambiguous. No amount of reading can supplement actual experience. Just the couple of weeks ago I saw a patient in the Anesthesia preop clinic who mentioned some chest pain in passing, delving further he didn't have the typical signs and was a pretty active man. All in all it would be considered a soft call but my gut just told me to send him to cardiology and hold the surgery. Sure enough he had major blockage and needed interventions. I tell you this story not to illustrate how great I am but to show you that third sense you develop after seeing enough patients. In your case splitting time doing multiple things is possible. You can still be a good clinician but you won't be as good as your colleagues who do it every day. Furthermore, you want to start your own practice which means overhead. How are you going to generate enough revenue to cover your staff's pay etc if you don't see enough patients?

You have a lot of lofty goals but from where I'm standing it just comes off a little naive. I'm not saying it's impossible but definitely not gonna be easy.

 

[freedoctor17]

A better question would be if you would be able to set up enough time to be adequate at both. Being a physician scientist means dedicating time in a research lab, performing experiments for translational science. As you're aware, this takes time and some experiments require exact timing (incubations, cell plating, etc). Someone can correct me on this but doing public health research doesn't usually fall in that category. Especially if you're planning on being in a major academic institution you're expected to produce results, write and get grants in order to justify your position in the department. All of this is time consuming. A lot of academic departments require a certain amount of clinical activity as well. The hospital needs to generate revenue, they're not here to let you do whatever you want in life.

The other part is the same. In order to be a good physician you have to dedicate your time to it. As much as some people believe that "just studying/reading" will be adequate knowledge base, a lot of the practice of medicine is "an art". You see enough and your gut tells you something even if the signs are ambiguous. No amount of reading can supplement actual experience. Just the couple of weeks ago I saw a patient in the Anesthesia preop clinic who mentioned some chest pain in passing, delving further he didn't have the typical signs and was a pretty active man. All in all it would be considered a soft call but my gut just told me to send him to cardiology and hold the surgery. Sure enough he had major blockage and needed interventions. I tell you this story not to illustrate how great I am but to show you that third sense you develop after seeing enough patients. In your case splitting time doing multiple things is possible. You can still be a good clinician but you won't be as good as your colleagues who do it every day. Furthermore, you want to start your own practice which means overhead. How are you going to generate enough revenue to cover your staff's pay etc if you don't see enough patients?

You have a lot of lofty goals but from where I'm standing it just comes off a little naive. I'm not saying it's impossible but definitely not gonna be easy.

Thanks for the perspective. I think I've just confused physician scientist with any research in general. Gonna just not fill out that essay since I don't really see myself pursuing a career dedicated to mainly research in a lab setting.

 

[buckoh24]

I did the underserved prompt and also did the research essay despite me only having experience in clinical research. I think you can reasonably talk about both if you tie them together. I talked about the underserved LGBT+ communities and wanting to serve them along with the HIV community. In my research prompt, I talked about seeing the work we do in clinical medicine being able to affect patient health outcomes and the translational effect my portion (imaging) has in other fields. And then went on to talk about wanting to study HIV and how it has translational effects in oncology, public health, etc. I dont see the 2 as mutually exclusive if your research focus also helps with your advocacy and community outreach because you can sue your knowledge of the research to help direct your efforts in the community. Maybe I missed the mark on this secondary but thats kinda how I approached it. You can still be a physician-scientist and be an advocate for the underserved communities which was my mindset when filling out this secondary.

 

[freedoctor17]

I did the underserved prompt and also did the research essay despite me only having experience in clinical research. I think you can reasonably talk about both if you tie them together. I talked about the underserved LGBT+ communities and wanting to serve them along with the HIV community. In my research prompt, I talked about seeing the work we do in clinical medicine being able to affect patient health outcomes and the translational effect my portion (imaging) has in other fields. And then went on to talk about wanting to study HIV and how it has translational effects in oncology, public health, etc. I dont see the 2 as mutually exclusive if your research focus also helps with your advocacy and community outreach because you can sue your knowledge of the research to help direct your efforts in the community. Maybe I missed the mark on this secondary but thats kinda how I approached it. You can still be a physician-scientist and be an advocate for the underserved communities which was my mindset when filling out this secondary.

Yours sounds like it ties in well together. I just totally missed the mark on mine though because as I mentioned earlier I missed the fact they were looking for lab based research. I have that type of research experience but that's not the type I wanna do in the future so I don't know if there's any point talking about it since they mention to explain how it'll motivate you to pursue similar research experiences in the future as a physician scientist