<p>The most relevant reference for you may be this one. </p>
<p>The Job Outlook for Physician-Scientists
By Karyn Hede December 05, 2008</p>
<p>“Voglmaier’s M.D.-Ph.D. colleagues chose other career paths despite the fact that prospects in academic research are excellent for the approximately 500 M.D.-PhD. graduates who emerge each year from an arduous 9- to 10-year training period and decide to stay in academia. In stark contrast to many areas of academic science, researchers with clinical degrees have good jobs waiting for them at the end of their long roads, say administrators at the nation’s academic medical programs.”</p>
<p>“All told, there seems to be a surplus of training slots for physician-scientists and plenty of job openings for clinicians who want to do research. That means excellent career prospects in academic medicine.”</p>
<p>And remember that MD/postdoc is also qualifies you to be a physician scientist. You don’t even have to get into an MD/PhD program from the start. If you get into medical school, you can easily transfer into their MD/PhD program after your second year.</p>
<p>I am not trying to be a jerk. I just wish someone was more honest with me when I was in college. Also most undergraduates (myself included at the time) are naive and think “Its really hard, but I love research and I will work hard and everything will work out” This is not true.</p>
<p>Also, yes the unemployment rate for PhD holders is low. This does not tell you how many of them are driving buses or waiting tables.
Additionally, I am talking about life science PhDs, the situation in other fields (i.e. applied statistics, engineering) can be very different.</p>
<p>[Don’t</a> Become a Scientist!](<a href=“http://wuphys.wustl.edu/~katz/scientist.html]Don’t”>http://wuphys.wustl.edu/~katz/scientist.html)</p>