Academic Medicine

[fotografía]

So I'm interested in pursuing a career in academic medicine (MD), that is, one where my work will achieve some sort of balance between research, patient care, and perhaps teaching. I believe that means I would be a hospital physician, with clinical and lab duties. What kind of specialties are conducive to this career? Pathology is obvious, but I really would prefer my clinical duties to involve patients, not their samples. Oncology? Neurology? Cardiology?

Thanks!

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[Scottish Chap]

So I'm interested in pursuing a career in academic medicine (MD), that is, one where my work will achieve some sort of balance between research, patient care, and perhaps teaching. I believe that means I would be a hospital physician, with clinical and lab duties. What kind of specialties are conducive to this career? Pathology is obvious, but I really would prefer my clinical duties to involve patients, not their samples. Oncology? Neurology? Cardiology?

Thanks!

I've worked with a lot of MD/PhDs who do basic research and a few that do clinical research. The best specialty I could find was clinical pathology (note: not anatomic pathology which can get busy). I worked in clinical pathology for two years. The clin path residency in only three years long and the core labs basically run themselves, giving you a lot of time for research when you’re finished with your training. Anesthesiology is a close second because, most often, it's very procedure-oriented and when you're off, you're off. I did my graduate worked under an anesthesiologist and he only worked in the OR one day per week.

Other than those two, you really need to be thinking about becoming a specialist if you want to do basic research. I personally cannot imagine being a generalist like an internist or a surgeon while trying to run a basic research lab. There are some that do it but I submit to you that they are exceptions because it really is going against the grain and it's hard to do quality research that way.

Clinical research is a totally different story. I did this for three years and it is folds easier to combine with a second career than basic science. Most of the difficulty is up-front in the study design and in logistics of collecting samples etc. After that, it's pretty much all automated analyzers that do the work and you function as a statistician when you're writing it up.

Overall, like anything in life, it’s tough to do two jobs well but if you're the type of person that wants it all, you'll make sacrifices to do it.

 

[Adcadet]

Every specialty needs academicians. And while it's the subspecialties that typically get heavy into research (for a number of reasons) there's nothing wrong with a general surgery/family medicine/general internal medicine/general pediatrics doc who does research.

 

[MasonPrehealth]

It also depends what you define as "research". Most of the disciplines of medicine need some basic research of some sort, but many patient studies are also the foundation of good medical research too.

 

[PHD_2007]

I am also interested in academic medicine. My dissertation focuses on heart development specifically coronary vessel morphogenesis. I have met a number of cardiologists who are basic science researchers and have clinical as well as teaching duties. I have asked a number of them how they are able to multitask.... and the answers varied. Personally, I think its just up to the individual.... with that being said I decided to do research, volunteer at a medical clinic, and teach at a local college concurrently. After my experience "multitasking" I'm certain that it can be done.