In the past few weeks I have encountered some common misconceptions about the dual life of a clinician-scientist in early training, mostly among my very well-intentioned medical classmates. These include the following:
1. You get to travel to exotic places, which must be the major highlight of this type of training...where are you going next? Actually, while several international meetings have been incredibly worthwhile experiences in my training thus far, it wasn't the exotic nature of the location that determined (1) my participation or (2) what I took away from them. Many of these experiences have involved going to conference sessions during the day and watching medicine lectures or writing DPAS papers at night, or flying home early to supervise students, keep up with experiment end-points, run a research forum, or write final exams. That said, I feel very lucky to have had the opportunity to learn from some of the world's top experts in my area of interest, and indeed to have spent at least enough time in cities to which I otherwise would not have traveled to know that I would like to go back (in a non-academic capacity)!
2. You have lots of free time to party with other beer-drinking grad students. This is true only when I am a full-time graduate student, which is not often - and even then, we have the equivalent of three years for the PhD component (out of the seven year program), so for me this means that it's usually necessary to take advantage of any full work days I can get (ie. days without medical or graduate classes). UBC has an integrated program format during which the second year of medicine is spread over three years. Consequently, for the first four years of the dual degree, most of us are always doing some medicine and some research, to varying extents. I miss the grad student beer sessions because I'm in clinical skills classes, and I miss the med student wine sessions because I'm in the lab (and I'd like to clear up another apparent misconception - most graduate students I know in the sciences work days that are just as long and focused - sometimes heavier on the focus!). That said, I think it is an incredible privilege to spend time with 3-4 different years of medical students and to develop lasting friendships with fellow graduate students and lab colleagues.
3. You aren't in "Doctor, Patient, and Society" so you must be skipping class just like everyone else. I often start my work day at the lab on Mondays and Wednesdays once morning lectures are finished. Every MD/PhD student has arranged his or her curriculum in different ways, but many of us (especially during the core second year medicine blocks) are also trying to maintain some sort of semblance of productivity at the lab bench. We either took the classes already or will do so in the future...and I guarantee you, if you tease me about skipping a class I'm not enrolled in after I've been up all night trying to get our Live Cell microscope to focus properly, my response might be less gracious than you would expect!
My point? I think this dual training program - and in particular the integrated format - is incredibly rewarding. It's not merely an excuse to travel, take a break, or get out of clinical training. None of these would provide nearly sufficient motivation.
1. You get to travel to exotic places, which must be the major highlight of this type of training...where are you going next? Actually, while several international meetings have been incredibly worthwhile experiences in my training thus far, it wasn't the exotic nature of the location that determined (1) my participation or (2) what I took away from them. Many of these experiences have involved going to conference sessions during the day and watching medicine lectures or writing DPAS papers at night, or flying home early to supervise students, keep up with experiment end-points, run a research forum, or write final exams. That said, I feel very lucky to have had the opportunity to learn from some of the world's top experts in my area of interest, and indeed to have spent at least enough time in cities to which I otherwise would not have traveled to know that I would like to go back (in a non-academic capacity)!
2. You have lots of free time to party with other beer-drinking grad students. This is true only when I am a full-time graduate student, which is not often - and even then, we have the equivalent of three years for the PhD component (out of the seven year program), so for me this means that it's usually necessary to take advantage of any full work days I can get (ie. days without medical or graduate classes). UBC has an integrated program format during which the second year of medicine is spread over three years. Consequently, for the first four years of the dual degree, most of us are always doing some medicine and some research, to varying extents. I miss the grad student beer sessions because I'm in clinical skills classes, and I miss the med student wine sessions because I'm in the lab (and I'd like to clear up another apparent misconception - most graduate students I know in the sciences work days that are just as long and focused - sometimes heavier on the focus!). That said, I think it is an incredible privilege to spend time with 3-4 different years of medical students and to develop lasting friendships with fellow graduate students and lab colleagues.
3. You aren't in "Doctor, Patient, and Society" so you must be skipping class just like everyone else. I often start my work day at the lab on Mondays and Wednesdays once morning lectures are finished. Every MD/PhD student has arranged his or her curriculum in different ways, but many of us (especially during the core second year medicine blocks) are also trying to maintain some sort of semblance of productivity at the lab bench. We either took the classes already or will do so in the future...and I guarantee you, if you tease me about skipping a class I'm not enrolled in after I've been up all night trying to get our Live Cell microscope to focus properly, my response might be less gracious than you would expect!
My point? I think this dual training program - and in particular the integrated format - is incredibly rewarding. It's not merely an excuse to travel, take a break, or get out of clinical training. None of these would provide nearly sufficient motivation.