Anyone In Med School, Please?

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
1

<p>I am really divided..graduated a little over a year ago from undergrad, indecisive as to what career I want to contemplate (b-school, law school, med school). I know for b-school or law school career prospects can be great, but for med-school, do you have the option of doing only research rather than the MD? For example, researching to find a cure for cancer, obviously this falls not under the MD but a specialization in what field?</p>

<p>Sorry for my unorthodox questions but I love medicine as a hobby and interest, whereas I do love business for social networking and growth, but medicine just has this amazing hinge on me. </p>

<p>Current med students, if you can illustrate any differences between the MD and research-based positions, their pedigrees and titles, and which would provide better job prospects/growth, I'd really appreciate it. Thank you in advance.</p>

2

<p>If you want to do research and not really see patients, you’d want to get a PhD (or an MD/PhD).</p>

3

<p>baller4lyfe,</p>

<p>What is your major, GPA, and MCAT? Have you taken all the pre-med courses? It would seem to me that you have many different interests. It would be best to match your strength and interest for your intended career. For example, if you are good at debate, you may want to look into law/business school. Medical school career will put you 7-10 years behind without too much time for your other interests. Perhaps a law or business degree specializing in medicine field would be a good combination.</p>

4

<p>Unlike law or business, medical school doesn’t give you many options when you’re done. Therefore, you should only go to medical school if you want to be a DOCTOR and do the things a doctor does. </p>

<p>If you don’t absolutely want to see patients, then go into a PhD program. Because even as an MD/PhD, your entire third year of med school will be patient care, most of your fourth year, and then you’ll have to do a residency, which even in fields like Pathology are aimed at the care of patients. </p>

<p>Further, even if you do want to see patients - to see the results of your research protocol - but you don’t want to do the things a physician does (diagnose, interview, examine, treat, counsel, educate, etc), then don’t go to medical school. There are a great many PhD’s who work as part of a clinical team, but don’t worry about the other details that go into patient care and get to focus on their interests, even though they do meet with patients.</p>

5

<p>Thanks for the responses thus far. I’m contemplating a career change as this economy is so horrendous, that getting a job as a poli sci major from undergrad when I graduated a year and a half ago, has become extremely taxing. I have been examining what other careers I can pursue in this economic time, and medicine has always been of interest to me. One thing is for certain, though, I almost in no way want to commit to doing a PhD. But an MD/PhD sounds a bit more interesting. I take it though that there’s virtually no way to do research in Medicine without getting the phd, so I have a dilemma. </p>

<p>Ace: My major was Poli Sci, I’d have to enroll in a post-bac program that universities offer. Roughly 2 years of pre-med work, then applying. </p>

<p>I still love law and business, but I have a huge inclination for medicine too; specializing in oncology is a huge interest to me. But I take it the MD is NOT going to get you in Investment Banks or Business Corporations if you hope it can make you multi-faceted, being that I am.</p>

6

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<p>That’s exactly the opposite of the truth. Many MDs do research without a PhD. MD-only research tends to be more translational or clinical instead of the basic science.</p>

7

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<p>Why ?</p>

8

<p>You are mistaken if you believe that jobs for law grads are “great.” Jobs may be plentiful if you graduate from the top xx % of a top tier law school (admissions for which you need top undergrad grades and high lsat). But, I would guess that the job prospects for a middlin’ grad of a middlin’ state law school is no different than for a Poli Sci major.</p>

9

<p>Shades, really? Do you have a website that describes this? Or med school websites that illustrate the research-only MD. This sounds pretty interesting, as I thought MD is only for practice.</p>

<p>bluedev, because it is a 6 year commitment, and insane amount of time. Not exactly my ball of wax. Are you committed to doing one? Plus it’s only if you want to teach, normally speaking, I think.</p>

<p>blue, I went to a nationally ranked university and cannot get a job with my poli sci degree. Although it was very great for the mind on the theoretical level, and a great pre-cursor to professional school, in the real world/job-market, people are always wanting a practical/technical skill (programming, engineering, etc.) Other than that, I’ve learned, social science majors don’t do anything for you job-wise, and I applied to the DA’s office as that is an excellent move for poli sci, but due to the economy and budget issues, they are only hiring a very select few. So that’s why social science degrees don’t do anything for you other than provide you for grad school.</p>

10

<p>Biosciences don’t always run you six years; my impression is that it’s usually ~5 or sometimes even 4. Plenty of PhD’s only do research and don’t do any teaching. It’s a much better route to a research career than an MD is. School is free and much more pleasant than medical school. One (or even two) extra years is WELL worth the tradeoff if you want to do research.</p>

11

<p>baller:</p>

<p>Yeah, I get that humanities degrees are not as readily marketable as quant degrees. But my point is that a JD is just another humanities degree. It too, is not all that marketable (unless you are top grad from a top school), particularly after you tack on $200k in debt and three years of your life. There are plenty of law school grads looking for work, any work.</p>

12

<p>I think you might have a few misconceptions.</p>

<p>First, an MD/PhD program isn’t an express route. The MD/PhD candidates take the first two years of medical school with the class they enter with. Sometimes straight PhD students are also enrolled in these basic science classes at the med school, too. </p>

<p>After finishing the basic sciences portion of the MD curriculum (and possibly knocking off a clinical clerkship over the summer), the MD/PhD student goes into the PhD program with the other PhD candidates. Then he/she spends several years working in a faculty mentor’s lab, taking classes, trying to get enough done for a dissertation to get the PhD.</p>

<p>THEN, he/she has to finish the required clinical clerkships to get the MD degree. My school had one year of required clerkships and one year of electives, so the MD/PhDs would get a year of elective credit for the PhD work but had to do the year of required clerkships to get the M.D.</p>

<p>Most, if not all, of the MD/PhDs would then do a residency in an area that related to the work that they’d been doing in their PhD program–for example, immunology or oncology. These are specialties of internal medicine, so they would do internal medicine first and then the sub-specialty fellowship. </p>

<p>Almost all of them wind up as faculty in a med school, combining research, teaching, and clinical work.</p>

<p>If you don’t want to take care of patients AT ALL, then med school really isn’t the way to go. It costs a MINT, seriously, so much more than grad school, unless you had a fully-funded MSTP MD/PhD slot (which are hard to get). If you went straight to grad school, your tuition would be less and you’d be more likely to have some sort of funded research fellowship or teaching assistantship or something to help pay your way.</p>

<p>If you wanted to go to four years of med school and not do a residency AT ALL, you could not get a medical license. There are non-clinical jobs out there for doctors (in government, pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies, and so forth), but very few of them would be interested in someone who had not done any post-graduate clinical training at all. So realistically, you need a minimum of an internship year and more likely several years of residency after med school. </p>

<p>So, yes, MDs can do research. You don’t need a PhD to do research. BUT, if you really only wanted to do research, and not have any patient contact or patient care involvement, med school isn’t really the most logical path there.</p>