<p>So I want to fight cancer as a Clinician and as a Researcher. Do any of you guys think that Medicine would be the most ideal career for my aspirations? Thanks a lot.</p>
<p>It would be great, but not necessary. Back when I was an aspiring neuroscientist, I thought if I got an MD it would give me better access to human subjects and thus more clinically efficacious results... but I realized this wasn't necessarily true, that a plain Biology background was fine. Not that you shouldn't get an MD if you can, but you don't have to let go of your dreams if you oversleep on the morning of the last MCAT, or some such. :)</p>
<p>There are a lot of different ways to "fight cancer," because that's ambiguous.</p>
<p>Medicine is the most obvious career for fighting cancer. You can earn your MD and do a residency in oncology, and serve as a clinician working directly with cancer patients, and combine research with clinical work.</p>
<p>But there are less obvious routes:</p>
<p>-You could earn a doctoral degree in epidemiology and concentrate on cancer epidemiology. This is a very popular area of epidemiology and it is teeming with money for research. You will not be able to be a clinician in the sense that you could treat patients with cancer, but you could run clinical trials for cancer treatments and drugs. Epidemiology can be a very lucrative career, especially if you are employed at a government agency like the CDC or the NIH.</p>
<p>-Go into genetics research. Many geneticists are doing research on genes that lead to cancer, and you could discover ways to prevent cancer. Again, you won't be directly serving patients with cancer, but you can work with them in terms of research.</p>
<p>-Become a research nurse. There is a severe shortage of nurses, especially research nurses. You can earn your master's in nursing science (MSN) with a specialization in oncology research, and you can serve in hospital wards working with cancer patients while contributing to research. You will also get to do both research and clinical work, but the road to licensure and actually earning money won't be quite as long as getting an MD, and the jobs are plentiful. However, you will make less money than a doctor.</p>
<p>-You could become a clinical psychologist. Clinical psychologists do research and they work with patients, and one could take 'fighting cancer' to mean the emotional and psychological fight, too. You could specialize in counseling cancer patients and their families, and work in a hospital as the resident clinical psychologists to help in crises.</p>
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So I want to fight cancer as a Clinician and as a Researcher. Do any of you guys think that Medicine would be the most ideal career for my aspirations? Thanks a lot.
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<p>Well, ask yourself the following questions. Are you disciplined and smart? Are you entering medicine for the right reasons?</p>
<p>What are the right reasons? CAN ONLY HELP PEOPLE (SELFLESSNESS), can't see myself doing ANYTHING ELSE, combine my love for the humanities and application of the sciences into 1 field, further develop my patient/person contact and exposure, I love studying about the human body both at the macro/microscopic level.</p>
<p>If you've said yes to the discipline/smart and have said agreed with the reasons and feel those reasons are the driving force in your motivation to help people with cancer then read on.</p>
<p>First, if you want to be a clinician and/or researcher, the usual route is entering hematology/oncology. This is a branch of medicine that specializes in blood cells/cancer cells. This is the usual route to fighting cancer via research. Pharmacologists are another specialization that helps research ways to prevent cancer via pharmaceutical/medical sciences. Radiologists also research new ways to implement the idea of radiology in eliminating cancer without harming the human body completely. As mentioned earlier, genetics and nursing are another route. But, biochemistry is there as well. If you didn't know, loads of biochemists work at hospitals in analyzing samples sent by doctors for their patients. They also do heavy amounts of research. Epidemiologists as mentioned above is another possibility. </p>
<p>Again, pure medicine is vast. It isn't as simplified in terms of different fields as surgical medicine. Generally speaking, most people decide to do internal medicine as their specialty and then carry on from there. With internal medicine, you have the huge general and few detailed backgrounds that will help you. From there, you can double specialize in any branch that comes off of internal medicine- hematology/oncology, etc.</p>