Questions about MD/PHD and surgery

When obtaining an MD/ Ph.D. degree, do you still do the clinical rotations like you would if you were obtaining an MD degree?

On the USMLE website, it says “it is the final examination in the USMLE sequence leading to a license to practice medicine without supervision”. This is in relation to step 3. In most of the MD/ Ph.D. programs that I looked at, they only require that you take step 2 CS and step 2 CK. Does this mean that I wouldn’t be able to practice medicine without supervision?

Can you still go into a surgical residency with an MD/ Ph.D.? If so, what is the process?

  1. yes, during the medical school portion of a MD/PhD, you will do 2 years of clinical rotations just like every other med student

  2. no medical student (MD or or MD/PhD) takes Step 3 during medical school. You take Step 3 during your first year of residency

The process (in general)

Years 1-2 complete the didactic (classroom) portion of medical school, begin PhD coursework, Take Step 1
Years 3-5 (or more) complete PhD research, write & defend thesis
Years 6-7 do clinical rotations, take Step 2
Year 7 apply for residencies, interview, Match
Year 8 begin residency training, take Step 3

Your ability to match into a particular specialty depends on your Step scores, your letters of recommendation from your specialty preceptors, your clinical grades in your intended specialty, etc.

see: https://www.nrmp.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/NRMP-2018-Program-Director-Survey-for-WWW.pdf
General surgery is p. 149

MD/PhD students aren’t restricted in their choice of specialty.

What is your career goal? Do you want primarily to be a researcher or a surgeon?

If you want to be a practicing surgeon, there’s no particular advantage to being a MD/PhD. Being heavily involved in research is actually a big negative for surgery. Any time spent away from the surgical suite causes a deterioration/degradation of surgical skills.

ETA–

You may want to read this interview w/ a scientist-surgeon at Vanderbilt–https://medschool.vanderbilt.edu/mstp/newsletter/surgeon-scientist-conversation-alumni


According to your other posts you're a high school sophomore. You have a very, very, very long way to go before you're even close to applying to a MD or MD/PhD program.

Concentrate on doing well high school and getting into college first.

There are certainly no real restrictions and I know MD/PhDs in basically every surgical specialty but realistically speaking, being a physician scientist as a surgeon is incredibly difficult - way more difficult than the already difficult task of being a physician scientist. You can be a world renowned rheumatologist seeing patients a half day/week - physically examining/treating patients larger and larger volumes of patients doesn’t inherently make you a better rheumatologist. You can’t be an orthopedic surgeon if you were only in the OR a half day a week because surgeons need to be in the OR and operating at higher volumes in order to keep their skills up.