Clinician Investigator

[anesthete]

Hi everybody,

Just curious to know what everybody's thoughts are about Clinician-Investigator training programs during residencies.

 

I have been looking at taking a leave of absence in my MD program after my second year to complete an MPH or MSc in epidemiology, but I have been encouraged to wait and do this during a Clinician Investigator year, or a similar leave of absence during Year 3 or 4 of a residency.

 

Does anybody have any perspectives on the value of a CI designation? I know its a Royal College designation, but is it any more helpful or useful than simply taking a year off during residency and doing a masters NOT under the auspices of a CI program?

 

I am not a bench scientist, and wondering if CI programs are generally intended for 'hard' scientists in training (i.e. biochemistry, medical physics etc). Would epidemiology or an MPH 'count' for CI programs?

 

Thanks!!

 

[ralk]

One of the advantages of doing graduate work during residency, whether part of a CI program or not, is that it often comes with funding or other supports not necessarily available halfway through your MD. Exactly what "counts" is program-dependent, but most programs I've looked at are focused on clinical sciences, not bench-top work (that tends to be more the focus of MD-PhDs, though that's a bit of a broad generalization).

 

The other advantage of waiting to residency is that your clinical interests will be much more defined at that stage. That means your graduate work can be better tailored to your eventual practice. Granted, epidemiology has fairly broad applicability, but even within epidemiology there's plenty of room to focus on one area or another. It's tough to determine what focus would be best when your specialty isn't even decided yet and you're close to a decade away from independent practice.

 

Whether a CI program has specific advantages over just doing a Master's outside a CI program I can't really comment on, but there are plenty of clinician-researchers who don't go the CI route, so I'd say you're safe either way.

[lost__in__space]

Why not talk to your CIP program director? They are there to answer this exact question as they've heard it a million times. There's advantages/disadvantages to the MD/PhD (although I see you want an MSc, I'm sure certain programs might be flexible on this) vs clinician scientist route. Also if you happen to be at UofT, there are quite a few of us in the MD/PhD program who are NOT doing bench work / basic science. We have students in engineering, clin epi, business, philosophy and physics now.