im doing bs in microbiology... wanting to purse something with immno,viro and etc.... what to go to pharm but looking at MD infectious disease specialist i dk what to do or what to look at.... pay is one thing... but im satisfied... HELP... explain what is probability oh pharm and immno/viro going hand to hand vs. infectious disease MD...
OVERALL benefit and ...
THE PATHWAY TOWARDS INFECTIOUS DISEASE?
Okay, let's all breathe
Maybe the mod for this thread was sleeping or something. I'm sure it will get moved soon enough.
OP, it depends on what, specifically you want to do. Like you, I have a thing for creepy crawlies, and I got a graduate degree in virology thinking that I wanted to do basic research. But doing that, I realized that I wasn't happy spending all of my time in a lab and I wanted to learn about pathogens
in the context of human disease. Someone recommended getting a PhD, and that may be an option -- it depends on whether you are interested in clinical practice or research. An MD/PhD may be the way to go if you have the grades. If you decide to become an ID doc (which is my current plan, although who knows what will happen once I actually do rotations?), you will need to first do a residency in internal medicine. I believe you can do IM-Peds if you wish, but most people do IM. Then you apply for Infectious Disease fellowships. Most of these fellowships have both clinical and research components, and last 2-3 years. You can focus on specific areas that may interest you, like tropical medicine, HIV/AIDS, transplantation ID, etc.
I have no idea how pharm might enable you to pursue your interest in ID. Not saying it can't be done, I'm just saying that I personally don't know. I'm sure SDN has a pre-pharm forum, maybe try posting there.
I'm not sure what you mean by "overall benefit" -- are you referring to pay/lifestyle? Honestly, the pay is not why people go into ID. No doctor starves these days, but since ID is a relatively procedure-light specialty, you don't have many things to bill for. I
think the average salary for an ID doc is about $180,000/yr, although this will vary depending on location. The hours are not too bad. I shadowed an ID specialist who worked in a hospital, and he mostly worked weekdays. Some weekend,night call, but not a lot. I didn't get the impression that it's a specialty where you actually
get called just because you're
on call, but other people on SDN may have a better perspective. ID specialists have a reputation as being incredible diagnosticians because they need to have a strong grasp of all physiological systems, and the ones I've met seem to be incredibly happy with what they do -- can't imagine doing anything else.
I got the impression from your OP that you are on the young side and still have some time to figure out what you want to do, so I would ask questions and do some shadowing. Talk to a pharmacist. Shadow an ID specialist -- this is probably the best thing you could do. If you do decide you want to go to medical school, figure out what sort of balance between research/clinical practice you want, and apply MD or MD/PhD accordingly. Do well on your boards, because while IM residency is not terribly competitive, post-residency fellowships are, especially if you want to go to a very good one. I think UCSF is generally considered to be the best ID fellowship, followed by BWH/MGH -- this seemed to be the consensus on the ID threads on SDN (which you should check out, by the way) Understand that you are embarking on a very long road, so make sure you know what you want.
