rmorelan Posted May 26, 2009 Report Share Posted May 26, 2009 Hey everyone, been thinking about going the phd/MD route and I was wondering if any people who had done/doing that wouldn't mind sharing their thoughts on it. How did you find doing both? thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anonymouse Posted May 27, 2009 Report Share Posted May 27, 2009 do you mean MD/PhD concurrently or PhD -> MD? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rmorelan Posted May 27, 2009 Author Report Share Posted May 27, 2009 do you mean MD/PhD concurrently or PhD -> MD? The concurrent stream - a bunch of schools seem to have one, and two of the ones that accepted me do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NLengr Posted May 27, 2009 Report Share Posted May 27, 2009 I haven't done it but I can share some advice from an MD and a PhD I know (Mind you neither is a MD/PhD). The MD said it is hard enough to learn how to be an MD during your time in medical school, let alone if you throw some PhD work on top of it. The PhD said that it's hard to get enough time and mental energy to give your PhD the effort that it deserves given the fact that you're so busy with MD learning. Worth thinking about. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jochi1543 Posted May 27, 2009 Report Share Posted May 27, 2009 I haven't done it but I can share some advice from an MD and a PhD I know (Mind you neither is a MD/PhD). The MD said it is hard enough to learn how to be an MD during your time in medical school, let alone if you throw some PhD work on top of it. The PhD said that it's hard to get enough time and mental energy to give your PhD the effort that it deserves given the fact that you're so busy with MD learning. Worth thinking about. Well, they are split, it's not like you're gonna be working on your MD and PhD concurrently. I don't know how much this applies to the actual combined program. I bet it'd be tough to come back to clinicals after years away from med sciences, though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rmorelan Posted May 27, 2009 Author Report Share Posted May 27, 2009 Well, they are split, it's not like you're gonna be working on your MD and PhD concurrently. I don't know how much this applies to the actual combined program. I bet it'd be tough to come back to clinicals after years away from med sciences, though. Yeah alot seem to have preclerkship-two years of PHD work-clericship, or have the phD finished after clerkship. Seems a bit variable! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NewfieMike Posted May 27, 2009 Report Share Posted May 27, 2009 i've looked a lot into this. At some universities that offer the MD/PhD, the exact layout is totally dependent on the nature of your project. ex: say you do your PhD with behavioural animal research. You're going to need to do things on a fixed schedule, every day, or you're not going to get consistent results. This won't work if you're doing an MD concurrently, so you'd need to do the "sequential" approach, which is the same thing you mentioned rmorelan. on the other hand, say you do your PhD as a data miner in epidemiology. The data will always just be sitting on your computer, it doesn't need any time-specific work done (other than deadlines to get reports out ) so you can do it on your own time. They call this the "integrative" approach. Some schools put a lot of research elective time into their programs (such as U of C) so this might be an option. you'd obviously have to work harder than a typical med student, but hey! As a last note, although anecdotal, the majority of med students I talk to say you don't 'really' learn anything until clerkship anyways. So, if you did the sequential route, I don't think you'd be screwed when you got back on track with the MD. The first MD/PhD since the program started at MUN just graduated, and she did the sequential route (3 years of solid research in the middle of the MD). However she also got to do some clinical work while in her PhD to keep things fresh. PM me if you wanna chat more about this, or hit up flashchat. Jochi's probably fed up hearing about it from me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smurfette Posted June 14, 2009 Report Share Posted June 14, 2009 Disclaimer: I'm not in an MD/PhD program, but this is anecdotal info from friends who are. The MD/PhD route is there for people who want to be physicians, but are looking for a career in research. It's exact route varies depending on the school, but generally it involves 1-2 years of preclerkship med school, then 3-7 years for your PhD, then back to med school to finish off preclerkship/clerkship. Advantages: - you get 2 degrees - you have a good background in research - you have a PhD when you enter carms - a PhD is often required for major research career steps (eg. academic appointments) Disadvantages - it takes a pretty long time - it doesn't make any sense if you're not interested in pursuing research as a career Alternatives and their advantages/disadvantages 1. You can do one degree at a time. Generally, do the degree that you want to be the primary focus of your career first. 2. You can do a PhD during residency. (Look into clinician-scientist programs) - the advantage of this is that you can decide later if you're interested in doing a PhD, if you're not certain about the research route yet - you probably have a better idea of what your research you want to do after a few more years - if you want to do clinical research, this tends to be the better option. MD/PhD's usually, although not necessarily, tend to have a more basic science PhD component - you get paid at resident salary rates instead of grad student rates Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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