<p>So I've been planning on going into biological research for some time, but lately I've been think about switching to pre-med. Any thoughts on the pros and cons of each?</p>
<p>It completely depends on your interests. We'd have to know alot more about you to even begin to comment on the pros and cons for you. The decision is completely subjective.</p>
<p>what's the difference? pre-med is not a major. research is not a major.</p>
<p>Or are you talking about a career?</p>
<p>You can do both. Time management is key though.</p>
<p>^^^^^^
lol no you can't, unless you want to be a doctor that does only research and does not see patients at all. Good luck being a doctor going through a residency, and also having the time for a hobby or research.</p>
<p>And as the first guy said, its your choice, not ours</p>
<p>actually there are tons of physicians who do research and also see patients - it's incredibly common in academia. Clinical research is also another area worth looking into.</p>
<p>If you want to do basic research as well as apply that to a clinical/patient setting, you can do an MSTP or other MD/PhD program. Also, what phillySASer said.</p>
<p>HT: Anybody who has an appointment in a medical school (i.e. is a professor) sees patients and has a significant research role. It's very, very common.</p>
<p>Many residencies have mandated research time.</p>
<p>So a physician, lets say internal medicine cardiology, can do bench research, correct, if he manages his time well? Isn't the rule for an MD/PhD 70% research and 30% patients? Just wondering because I am curious about this.</p>
<p>Any physician who is on the faculty of a medical school will be expected to do research of some kind, regardless of whether he has a PhD. Many have basic labs.</p>
<p>bluedevilmike,</p>
<p>What you say is not at all true. Many of course do have active research programs, but some are on the faculty because they are excellent clinicians and good teachers. This is true even at top research medical schools. And this is especially true in departments that are big money makers like surgery and cardiology. After all, someone needs to train the residents, see the patients and keep things running at the affiliated teaching hospital.</p>
<p>Maybe part of our differing view stems from the fact that some med schools own their teaching hospitals and some don't. U. Chicago, for example, owns its hospital and therefore must keep it staffed and running. So some med school faculty are primarily if not exclusively clinicians.</p>
<p>I will backtrack slightly, but not completely.</p>
<p>I will say that I am only familiar in great depth with a handful of medical schools. While I'd be surprised, it is possible that the schools I'm familiar with are not representative. One of them has its own hospital system (like Chicago as described above); the others do not.</p>
<p>I think you and I may be running into difficulties regarding some of my language choices:</p>
<p>1.) Faculty status. I know many physicians who see patients in medical schools who do not conduct any research, but many of them are not actually "faculty" at their respective schools.
2.) "Expected." I have known some professors who did not do any research, but their department heads were generally displeased with them for this status.
3.) "Reseach." I'm sorry if I implied that all faculty had basic labs. Research, in the sense I meant it, simply means making and publishing new discoveries. Even most residents are expected to put together case reports and submit them to journals, conferences, etc. Many physicians do, however, opt for basic labs.</p>
<hr>
<p>For the time being, I stand **tentatively **by my statement that anybody with a faculty appointment at a medical school is going to be expected to do research, in some form or another.</p>
<hr>
<p>In any case, HT's rather rude post #5 in response to BY's absolutely correct post #4 remains not just impolite but incorrect. This is the important point to convey in response to the OP's inquiry.</p>
<p>Most medical schools have two tracks: a research track and a clinician-teacher track. An M.D. on the research track has some clinical responsibilities but utlimately will obtain grant support for a significant portion of his/her salary. Physicians on this track are generally promoted faster if they are successful and also comprise most of the senior faculty in their departments-associate professors, professors, and chairmen. The research can be basic, clinical, or a combination (translational). Most of the purely clinical faculty are on the clinican/teacher track. They teach fellows, residents, and medical students as well as perform a large amount of clinical work. The coin of the realm in academia is grants and publications so it is harder for these faculty to move up and they generally stay at the instructor and assistant professor levels. They have a valuable role to the department by providing clinical service (hence generating income for the department) and also for training physicians. Either pathway can be very satisfying and rewarding; however, in general, it is only those physicians that bring new knowledge into their field and publish who will gain national recognition among their peers,and thereby be promoted to the senior positions.</p>
<p>I appreciate all of the info from you guys, but this thread ended up a little differently than I expected! Basically, how might my life be different by choosing a career in medicine or basic research? I mean, I certainly have a basic idea, but just wondering if anyone else had some insight/opinions.</p>
<p>
[quote]
they generally stay at the instructor and assistant professor levels
[/quote]
It only now occurs to me that I was mistaken about not including assistant professors as "faculty." This is my error in terminology.</p>
<p>Apologies to NMD and thanks to PMY for clarifying.</p>
<hr>
<p>Discussion of the OP's actual question, however, remains as it always has. BY's post #4 is correct.</p>
<p>Ph.D. and M.D. are both good pathways for a biomedical career if that interests you. However, if you want to see patients or be involved in patient care, even indirectly, say as a pathologist, then I would suggest getting a M.D. M.D.s generally do more disease-focused research which can still be basic and involve laboratory work. However, they also can do clinical research that involves patients directly. Both M.D.s and Ph.D.s can do translational research which involves basic research applied to the diagnosis, cause, and treatment of human diseases. Ph.Ds generally have a more rigorous scientific and research preparation in graduate school, and since they do not do a residency, they typically are 5+ years ahead of their M.D. colleagues early on in the academic careers than their M.D. counterparts.</p>
<p>M.D.s have the option of leaving research and seeing patients exclusively. It may provide more job security during ebbs in the funding cycles. On the other hand, some talented physician-scientists opt out too early in their research career and never discover their true potential. </p>
<p>In general, M.D. researchers have to be good at multi-tasking and delegation with their dual responsiblities. They have to work hard. I spend 70% of my time doing research but I have to compete with Ph.Ds who do it exclusively. Ph.Ds will have more time to focus on their research, and usually have less distractions, so it can be argued they have more opportunity and time to make significant inroads in their research. On a day to day basis, working in a lab gives a lot of flexibility c/w clinical care. That can be a plus, too.</p>
<p>There are advantages/disadvantages to both career tracks. The key question is whether you want to be involved in patient care or not. If you want to do research exclusively, even in areas that involve human disease or patients (via collaboration in the latter), pursuing a Ph.D. is certainly a good pathway.</p>