<p>Recently, I received a letter from my family and it says: CONGRATS on your acceptances! PhD is Great! Research is Fun! But You Should Go for an MD-PhD program...</p>
<p>I really don't feel like justifying my choice to them, but I want to know what you guys think about PhD vs. MD/PhD.</p>
<p>My field of interest is in the comp bio/systems bio/biomedical engr fields.</p>
<p>This is what I come up from a quick research (directed more toward my field):</p>
<p>MD/PhD (dual program)</p>
<p>PRO:
1. Clinical Surgery on HUMAN
2. Easier to get research grants/funding in the future
3. Stipend (unlike MD alone)
4. May Practice if residency is completed</p>
<p>CON:
1. Higher admission's requirement / standard
2. 7-8 yrs
3. A waste of time if research in the future does not require human surgery + if I never actually practiced as a doctor</p>
<h2>4. Difficult to add in engineering/computational courses to the already compacted schedule</h2>
<p>PhD</p>
<p>PRO:
1. Focus on computational and experimental work
2. In the biomedical field: very generous stipend
3. Opportunity to interact with human patients as long as it is not a surgery
4. Can collaborate with MD in the future
5. 5 yrs</p>
<p>CON:
1. Cannot perform surgery on human (not that I want to)
2. Not a dual degree</p>
<p>It’s very simple: if you don’t want to do any sort of clinical work, don’t get a MD/PhD. There’s no guarantee you’ll get into a surgical speciality and you even said that you don’t want to do surgery. What’s the debate here? I’m sure your parents, like many parents, would love to brag that their son’s a doctor. Sorry, but that’s not a good enough excuse for YOU to put yourself through 8 years of post-graduate schooling.</p>
<p>Its not that simple. I am an MD PhD and do no clinical work. However, my medical training has hugely informed my science. It has also enhanced my career success as an academic physician. It did cost several additional years, which, at the time was moderate torture. In retrospect, I am very glad I did it. So how to decide? The question is how interested you are in fundamental questions of human biology and disease. Medical training is extraordinarily helpful for understanding the big picture.</p>
<p>BTW of the MD PhDs I know (and I know alot) probably half do no clinical work. The other half, by and large, do no research. Eventually, most MD PhDs have to do what they have tried very hard to avoid - choose.</p>
<p>The one where you and I were discussing the relative merit of communication skills and being an “interesting” person vs. strict academic potential. MD/PhD admissions actually a lot more straightforward than normal MD admissions with less emphasis on subjective factors (high stats + excellent research + a dab of everything else will usually get you into a MSTP program).</p>
<p>In Pharma R&D, I see more MD/PhDs in Clinical Research than just in Research.</p>
<p>I would say in each Therapeutic area, there are ~3-4 MD/PhDs supporting entire clinical programs + 2-3 providing Imaging support. Only 1 MD/PhD resides in Translational team with providing support in biomarkers (although he has a team of PhDs working with him.</p>
<p>ALL MD/PhDs work in International Project Teams and support various projects in different capacity. Each International project (Product) consists of 40-50 international team members.
Therefore,please don’t get any ideas that MD/PhD work is a solitary pursuit. They work in teams as well.</p>