<p>I'm most likely hoping to get an MD degree. I was thinking though, in the age of such competition like this, as we see on this forum with all the posters with crazy stats, I need some kind of hook, maybe a hook with multiple hooks like the big fishers use.</p>
<p>Anyway, how much does it improve one's chances at medical school, or any sort of graduate school like law or business, to have an advanced degree in a different major?</p>
<p>Hell friggin O.</p>
<p>Plenty of people do a postbac or an MS (public health quite often) while prepping for med school. A year or two extra in the long run isn't much. But if your heart isn't into a career in research, I doubt you would be able to handle 5-7+ years in a bio PhD program or 4-6+ in most other science programs if all you want to do is improve your hook. </p>
<p>PS College Confidential posters aren't a good representative set of professional school applicants.</p>
<p>There are a lot of med schools. Do well on the MCAT, and you'll get into one of them. Grad school is far tougher to get into. (My husband's about to graduate from med school at UChicago.)</p>
<p>My mother knows the parents of a guy who got his doctorate at Oxford and then got his MD at Harvard. Pretty impressive dude.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.usuhs.mil/neu/tsao.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.usuhs.mil/neu/tsao.html</a></p>
<p>But I agree that you shouldn't get yourself a doctorate just to develop a hook for med-school.</p>
<p>it would be SUCH a waste of your time and money. there are med schools for everyone, you dont have to look at only the top ones. if you have good grades and good scores, you will be fine.</p>
<p>I think everyone is misunderstanding me. I wasn't saying simply for the sake of getting into medical school more easily I should get a PhD. That's a side effect of getting a PhD in something else. It's just that I know I want to go into medicine, but I also have other interests I would like to pursue.</p>
<p>I'm trying to figure out if getting a doctorate in my original college major choice is going to mean I lack focus in getting into medical school, or if it's seen as a good thing.</p>
<p>I don't really like the idea of just being a premed major, but without doing that I can't start learning as much about medicine as I'd like to. So it's going to feel like I'm spending four years doing something I'll just drop at the time to go to medical school. I like to finish what I start, learn as much as possible about a subject.</p>
<p>do an MD/{hD program</p>
<p>You can absolutely do whatever undergrad major you want and still prepare for med school. Med school has a pretty short list of prerequisites, and at least half my husband's med school class at Chicago had undergrad majors in the humanities, communications, social sciences - everything you can think of. Remember that your first two years of med school are going to be classes about medicine and science - you don't need to learn it all as an undergrad (in fact, I wouldn't take more than the prerequisites, because you'll be bored silly in lecture your first two years if you do).</p>
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So it's going to feel like I'm spending four years doing something I'll just drop at the time to go to medical school. I like to finish what I start, learn as much as possible about a subject.
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<p>When would you feel like you had "finished" the study though? If you enjoy the subject, then continue to study it on your own. Grad school isn't about learning facts, it's about learning tools of research and inquiry. If you enjoy the research end of medicine, then consider doing an MD/PhD program like tomslawsky suggested.</p>
<p>Don't do it for the sake of "finishing what you've started."</p>
<p>What's involved in an MD/PhD program? Does it shorten up the length of time this is all going to take?</p>
<p>I know I want to get an MD and a PhD in something else, so I'm asking how I can best go about this. Please limit the preaching. I'im asking how to do it, not why I should be doing it, not if I should be doing this.</p>
<p>I'm considering this as an option, and I want to know the way it will work. Thank you all for your advice on whether or not to do it, but I think so far I want to.</p>
<p>Godfather,</p>
<p>This isn't me "preaching" (well, maybe a little.) This is me trying to get you to look at this in a more focused lens. PhDs are not for those just trying to gain knowledge. They're for researchers. Though some will go on to fields that are not necessarily research based, that is not the purpose of the MD/PhD programs. Let me be blunt:</p>
<p>THE WHY IS VERY VERY IMPORTANT TO PHD ADMISSIONS. If you just say, "I want to be competitive for an MD," you will be rejected in a heartbeat. If you show genuine interest in research in both fields though, you become an interesting candidate.</p>
<p>If you are interested in being a practicing clinician, just go straight for the MD. Consider</a> doing a post-bac pre-med program if you feel that you need to boost your stats for med school. </p>
<p>MD/PhD programs are incredibly difficult to get into (some, like the Cal Tech/UCLA program only accept two people a year) and have research in mind. If, however, you want to research, then they're fantastic programs. </p>
<p>Here's an example: <a href="http://biology.caltech.edu/graduate_program/MDPHD.html%5B/url%5D">http://biology.caltech.edu/graduate_program/MDPHD.html</a></p>
<p>MD/PhD programs are for people interested in getting a PhD related to the science of medicine. If that isn't what you're looking for, an MD/PhD program isn't for you.</p>
<p>Take it as preaching or not, but you need to think long and hard before you decide to do both an MD and an unrelated PhD, if that's what you're thinking. An MD plus residency is going to take you 7-9 years. A PhD is going to take you another 6-7 years. Each are preparation for a particular job. There's no reason to do both.</p>
<p>If you really want to do both an MD and in depth study of an non-medicine area, don't do a PhD, do an MA. It's only two years and you can get everything out of it that you would get out of a PhD, minus the dissertation. And as the dissertation is just basically independent research and writing, you can do that in your free time if you really want to.</p>
<p>As far as an MD/PhD shortening the "length of time," I guess that depends on what you think a reasonable length of time is. Again, no PhD program will take you for the sake of delving into a subject - you have to have a concrete idea of how that PhD will fit into your future plans as a physician.</p>
<p>BTW, U of Illinois has a MD/PhD program too. They're ALL extremely competitive, as there are few spots, as UCLAri said.</p>
<p>Oh, and I forgot - if your undergrad is in business, there are actually a several med school people who take a year of during med school to get an MBA or a MPH. We have a friend that did this, and there are a couple others in the med school that have, too. It's typically done between 2nd and 3rd year of med school, if you choose to do so.</p>
<p>On edit: I saw your other posts - you want to do engineering, correct? I have to be honest - there is almost no point in getting a PhD in engineering with an MD, unless (and I'm stretching here, so maybe others will have a better idea) you wanted to research medical engineering applications or something. But you haven't even started your undergrad yet, right? Seriously - this is way too early to think about all of this.</p>
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If you really want to do both an MD and in depth study of an non-medicine area, don't do a PhD, do an MA. It's only two years and you can get everything out of it that you would get out of a PhD, minus the dissertation. And as the dissertation is just basically independent research and writing, you can do that in your free time if you really want to.
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<p>Some post-bac pre-med programs actually offer MAs.</p>
<p>Anyway, I'm with DespSeekPhD on this. It's really too early to know. I thought I knew what I wanted at 18...oh boy, was I wrong.</p>
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MD/PhD programs are incredibly difficult to get into
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<p>Well, I think this actually depends on which MD/PhD program you're talking about. The fact is, most of these programs are no-name programs. </p>
<p>Here is the list of all of the recognized MD/PHD programs in the US. Notice how the majority of them are at unprominent schools.</p>
<p>Furthermore, I would also point out that MD/PhD admissions are often handled differently from MD admissions, and in some cases may actually be EASIER To get into than the regular MD programs. This is because MD/PhD programs stress research work, whereas MD programs look more at high grades and clinical medical experience. </p>
<p>For example, another participant at CC, molliebatmit, has admitted herself that she probably couldn't get into any of the top med-schools, mostly because she got a 3.4/4 GPA at MIT, and this is not a very competitive GPA for med-school purposes. However, she did get into most of the top Bio PhD programs, including Harvard, where she will be going. That's because her research experience at MIT was extremely strong. I strongly suspect that she could have probably gotten into many of the MD/PhD programs as well (but she never applied). </p>
<p>The point is, MD/PhD admissions are different and in certain aspects actually orthogonal to the regular MD process. Some people who can get into an MD/PhD program cannot get into the regular MD program. </p>
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there is almost no point in getting a PhD in engineering with an MD, unless (and I'm stretching here, so maybe others will have a better idea) you wanted to research medical engineering applications or something.
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<p>Well, I think a more general statement should be made in that people shouldn't be pursuing an MD/PhD unless they have a burning interest in research of some kind.</p>
<p>Here's a guy who managed to combine medical knowledge with EE knowledge (MD at Harvard, PhD in EE from MIT) to pursue his interest in neurology. Basically, neurology has a lot to do with electric signals being passed through the body, which is where his MIT EE doctorate comes in.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.stanford.edu/%7Esanger/%5B/url%5D">http://www.stanford.edu/~sanger/</a></p>
<p>Then there are certain unusual people who get a PhD in a social science. For example, Mark McClellan, former head of the FDA and now head of Medicare/Medicaid, did an MD/PhD, where his MD was done at Harvard, and his PhD in Economics at MIT. His specialty was the economics of public health.</p>
<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_McClellan%5B/url%5D">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_McClellan</a></p>
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Well, I think this actually depends on which MD/PhD program you're talking about. The fact is, most of these programs are no-name programs.</p>
<p>Here is the list of all of the recognized MD/PHD programs in the US. Notice how the majority of them are at unprominent schools.
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<p>I think you don't do the programs justice. The ratio of "name" schools to "no-name" programs in MD/PhD seems to about the same as straight MD or PhD. Just glancing at the list, I saw plenty of well-known programs (Cal Tech, GTown, Johns Hopkins, Stanford, Harvard, Michigan).</p>
<p>I mean, are the majority of medical schools "name" programs? </p>
<p>And, looking at most of the top programs, the average admitted GPAs were 3.7+, with science MCATs being in the 12+ range. That doesn't sound far off from regular MD admissions to me.</p>
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I think you don't do the programs justice. The ratio of "name" schools to "no-name" programs in MD/PhD seems to about the same as straight MD or PhD. Just glancing at the list, I saw plenty of well-known programs (Cal Tech, GTown, Johns Hopkins, Stanford, Harvard, Michigan).</p>
<p>I mean, are the majority of medical schools "name" programs?
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<p>But that's not the point. The point is that you can't make a blanket statement that all MD/PhD programs are 'incredibly difficult to get into'. They don't seem to be, at least, not in comparison to normal MD admissions. Some MD programs are easier to get into than others. Simliarly, some MD/PhD programs are easier to get into than others.</p>
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And, looking at most of the top programs, the average admitted GPAs were 3.7+, with science MCATs being in the 12+ range. That doesn't sound far off from regular MD admissions to me.
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<p>Again, not the point. Plenty of people with stellar grades and MCAT scores nonetheless don't get into any med-schools. The reasons usually have to do with an inability to present clinical medical experience, or personal skills in the interview, or whatever it is. </p>
<p>However, these sorts of things tend to matter less when it comes to MD/PhD admissions, as those admissions usually tend to emphasize research skills to a far greater degree.</p>
<p>The point is that some people will actually find it EASIER to get into an MD/PhD program than an MD program. In particular, a genius researcher who has relatively weak social skills will almost certainly find it easier to get into an MD/PhD program than into a MD program. I'm sure that in our lives we've all encountered geniuses who don't have strong social skills. You know the kind of person I'm talking about.</p>
<p>I know exactly what you're talking about. But, it seems to me that, just based on a cursory look at the FAQs of the MD/PhD programs, the average admitted applicant is AT LEAST as competitive as his MD only counterpart. </p>
<p>This includes the "no-names." Average MCATs and GPAs were pretty much the same or higher at all of the programs. The biggest difference was a much greater focus on research than clinical experience.</p>
<p>But let me clarify something: All MD programs are, for the most part, difficult to get into. I know plenty of people with fantastic stats who got turned down from every program they applied to (including no-names.) Similarly, the MD/PhD programs don't really seem to be, statistically at least, any easier to get into. I really don't (again, based on the stats and "what we look for pages" on a semi-random sample of programs) think that they're any easier to get into than MD programs. At the very least, they seem comparably difficult.</p>
<p>Sakky, you;re wrong about what they look at. You have to be accepted to BOTH PhD and MD areas based on their own separate criteria and an interview for each to get into those programs. My husband interviewed for a couple, and he had amazing everything, but he (at the time) couldn't articulate his research interests in relation to how he would use it in medicine, so he was accepted to the med school, but not the PhD. Another friend was accepted to the PhD, but not the med school at another institution.</p>
<p>And I already stated that there might be a way to combine engineering with an MD, but it would be a lot more limited. My point was that before applying to such a program, you really have to think about how you would combine the two, because they look for that in the application process. But the people you linked to are interesting examples.</p>