Strongly considering dropping MSTP as an M1, but I’m scared I’m behind

[Latteandaprayer]

I know it’s silly that I went through all the hoops of getting into a program only to decide that it’s not what I want. I’m only an M1, but I’ve been reflecting and I’m realizing I don’t want the PhD. I think I’d be perfectly happy as a clinician who has a research project here and there. I haven’t told the program yet, and I won’t until after this summer when we do mini-lab rotations (I don’t want to come to any conclusions before tasting research again).

My program has one year of didactic learning and 3 years of clinicals. This means I don’t have much time left to get involved in anything really, because M2s tend to disappear lol—they become a lot less involved, and even M3s are distant. M4s become more involved, but they’re applying for residency so their windows are closed. Because I was an MSTP, I figured I’d have 8 years to build a residency application. And at least one productive research experience to add.

Right now I’m literally doing nothing but school. My school is fully P/F this year so I won’t have grades to differentiate me. Step 1 is P/F so I won’t have that to differentiate me.

How do I go from here? How do I ensure I have a strong application for whatever I want to do? I’m not looking at rad, derm, or ortho. Im not even sure how to find research opportunities at this point. Im feeling distressed and trapped in a spiral.

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[Rogue42]

You might want to be careful with this as some school's have a whole different admissions process for accepted applicants of different programs. As in they might have 100 MD spots and 10 MD/PhD spots. Just make sure telling them does not put you out a school year for a different class!

Second, you are not behind. My school does not even allow us to join a club or start research until January of our first year; moreover, it is still COVID times, so finding true volunteering is difficult to say the least.

Take a deep breath! Everything is going to be okay!

Ensuring you have a strong application will take research, volunteering, clubs, pre-clinical grades, Passing step one, killing step 2, great rotation grades and comments, and good letters of recommendation. Most of what makes a great application (passing boards, good recs, good clinical grades and comments) does not even start till third year.

It is a marathon, not a sprint, and you cannot lose in the first 50 yards!

 

[gyngyn]

MD/PhD students do this all the time. Do what's right for you.

 

[Latteandaprayer]

You might want to be careful with this as some school's have a whole different admissions process for accepted applicants of different programs. As in they might have 100 MD spots and 10 MD/PhD spots. Just make sure telling them does not put you out a school year for a different class!

Second, you are not behind. My school does not even allow us to join a club or start research until January of our first year; moreover, it is still COVID times, so finding true volunteering is difficult to say the least.

Take a deep breath! Everything is going to be okay!

Ensuring you have a strong application will take research, volunteering, clubs, pre-clinical grades, Passing step one, killing step 2, great rotation grades and comments, and good letters of recommendation. Most of what makes a great application (passing boards, good recs, good clinical grades and comments) does not even start till third year.

It is a marathon, not a sprint, and you cannot lose in the first 50 yards!

No pre-clinical grades.

How do I find research opportunities? After this year (over the summer), MSTPs do 4 1-week long lab rotations for 4 weeks out of the 6 weeks we get for summer break. Then we start clinicals for M2-M4.

Volunteering as what? I used to volunteer at a soup kitchen before the pandemic, but the policies changed and now it’s really hard to get a spot there

 

[Latteandaprayer]

You might want to be careful with this as some school's have a whole different admissions process for accepted applicants of different programs. As in they might have 100 MD spots and 10 MD/PhD spots. Just make sure telling them does not put you out a school year for a different class!

Second, you are not behind. My school does not even allow us to join a club or start research until January of our first year; moreover, it is still COVID times, so finding true volunteering is difficult to say the least.

Take a deep breath! Everything is going to be okay!

Ensuring you have a strong application will take research, volunteering, clubs, pre-clinical grades, Passing step one, killing step 2, great rotation grades and comments, and good letters of recommendation. Most of what makes a great application (passing boards, good recs, good clinical grades and comments) does not even start till third year.

It is a marathon, not a sprint, and you cannot lose in the first 50 yards!

It’s not letting me edit, but I wanted to add that I have two pubs from before med school (in basic science), will those not count for much?

 

[qwerty89]

If you are getting free tuition for being MSTP it may be wise to wait to tell them.

 

[Lawpy]

It’s not letting me edit, but I wanted to add that I have two pubs from before med school (in basic science), will those not count for much?

They will count for a lot

 

[GoSpursGo]

It’s not letting me edit, but I wanted to add that I have two pubs from before med school (in basic science), will those not count for much?

It certainly counts. That's more than almost anyone else will have coming out of MS1. If you later decide that you're interested in something uber-competitive like derm which highly values in-specialty pubs, they might lose a little value, but it's still going to be good.

First of all if you don't want a PhD then don't do MSTP. You need to really be committed to becoming a physician scientist to make the time commitment worth it. RE making a competitive residency app, really the most important things are going to be connections within the field and additional research. This is where your school's interest groups may be useful because if they're any good they should have some sort of mentorship program where you can get paired with a faculty member who can help you get plugged in with chances for research and exposure to the field. The other things that they do like volunteering are honestly more or less fluff and probably won't move the needle on your app, but if you enjoy volunteering you can do that too.

This is exactly where any med student who wasn't in an MSTP would be starting their second semester of MS1, so you are not behind by any means.

 

[ACSurgeon]

I thought MSTP students who drop the PhD component are asked to pay back the free tuition? Or maybe it’s just the tuition of the years moving forward?

Either way I’d look into this. And, if OP is certain they don’t want to do the PhD they should be upfront with their school and get out of it rather than try to get an extra year of free tuition. Not worth playing games.

If you are getting free tuition for being MSTP it may be wise to wait to tell them.

 

[GoSpursGo]

I thought MSTP students who drop the PhD component are asked to pay back the free tuition? Or maybe it’s just the tuition of the years moving forward?

Either way I’d look into this. And, if OP is certain they don’t want to do the PhD they should be upfront with their school and get out of it rather than try to get an extra year of free tuition. Not worth playing games.

That’s for non MSTP MD/phd programs.

 

[gyngyn]

That’s for non MSTP MD/phd programs.

Plenty of non-MSTP programs don't ask for a refund!

 

[Latteandaprayer]

I thought MSTP students who drop the PhD component are asked to pay back the free tuition? Or maybe it’s just the tuition of the years moving forward?

Either way I’d look into this. And, if OP is certain they don’t want to do the PhD they should be upfront with their school and get out of it rather than try to get an extra year of free tuition. Not worth playing games.

I don’t think they will but even if they did, they’re well within their right. I’m not looking to leach off them!

 

[ChordaEpiphany]

If you feel this way now, it will be amplified 1000x in year 3-4 of your PhD. Your classmates are off in residency. You are making $35K possibly living with roommates. You just did your 15th assay this week that didn't work, you're running out of time, your PI is no help, and YOU DIDN'T EVEN WANT THIS THAT BAD!

Get. Out.

Gaming the tuition thing will require a lot of finesse and will be school-specific. Some schools have you pay back the money, but I think they are non-MSTP. I do know one thing for sure, even if you you pay back everything, you'll do better financially not doing the PhD compared to doing it. So either way, the answer is don't do it. If you feel behind, take a research/development year. Those years will be more helpful post-clinicals anyway, because you can target it towards your specialty of interest, and you'll still wind up ahead financially. The MD/PhD is for people who want to run a lab more than they want to be a clinician. That's it. Those are the only people who should do it.

 

[FalconSlice]

That’s for non MSTP MD/phd programs.

This is program depended (not necessarily just MSTP vs. MD/PhD). Some MSTPs are structured differently via paying students. Another huge misconception is that MSTPs are fully NIH funded. Absolutely 0% of MSTPs are fully funded by NIH. They are only fractionally supported by an NIH T32 and the vast majority of the funding is made up by the school. (this point is unrelated to this thread but worth mentioning as so many people are either misinformed or not informed at all about this).

Anyway as for the quoted post. Some programs (regardless of MSTP or MD/PhD) may not ask for back-pay as it risks the image of being extortion-like (which it is not at all) or other image-conscious reason--however it is up to their discretion and the individual circumstance reached by the student and the program. However a non-trivial number of programs will have this back-pay paradigm enforced legally as may be stated in the contract you sign before you start at the program.