A medical degree takes about 4 years, followed by 5 years of internship, residency, fellowship, and sometimes even more specialization. A PhD seems to take around 5 years in the USA. A combined MD/PhD program takes 7 years to get the MD/PhD and then the extra 5 years to train. So 12 years total before I would start actually working on my own. I will graduate with a BA when I am 22 and take a year off to be 23 years old. I will then be 35 before I even start my life, or will my life have already started?

I have talked to many MD/PhD students and every one of them has said they do not regret it (I want to find one who does regret it so I can find out why). About the time commitment, they say that I need to remember you have a life during this program. It is not as if you are only in school. You have a job and you are making a living – so that is comforting.

There has to be something amazing about this degree otherwise no one would be doing it right? One of the major benefits of the NIH Medical Scientist Training Program is that you get everything paid for and actually get money to go to school. I would come out with my degrees debt free – that is truly amazing, considering how much it costs to go to medical school.

But money is not really the issue here – the underlying values are what I am questioning. What would I derive from a combined degree that I could not get from having and MD or a PhD?

Talking with numerous professionals on this, they each have their own opinion. You can do research and be an MD, but you cannot practice medicine and be a PhD. Are the MDs trained properly in research though? I talked with two specific medical researchers that really directed my choice and then I knew which one was right for me. I first spoke with Dr. Nick Vahanian of NewLink Genetics (I worked for their non-profit organization, the Iowa Cancer Research Foundation). I have the obvious worries of getting into an MD/PhD program because the best of the best apply to these things. At the Harvard/MIT MD/PhD program there are 500 applicants, then 70 get interviews and 10 get accepted. That is 2%, wow! Anyways, Dr. Vahanian works in biotechnology and he himself is an MD finishing up on his PhD (and MBA). He said that he wished he had just immediately gone for the combined degree because it allows him so much freedom. He can instantly cross boundaries when it comes to research. He can go into the clinic and work with patients, get samples and people to join clinical trials – all immediately related to his research. He can then go back to the research lab and do research that will apply to patients. The combined degree creates this interdisciplinary approach and connectedness that the individual degrees just do not have – for me at least. I can think of plenty amazing research MDs and amazing PhDs who do work directly applicable for medicine. But I need both degrees because they will help me be better at each one. They will both enhance my ability to do the other.

The other professional I met was Dr. David G Nathan, the ex-president of Dana-Farber at Harvard Medical School. I had told him the reasons mentioned above and we discussed some more things. However, the one thing that stands out in my mind is that he told me I would make a good MD/PhD. That was all I really needed to hear – he could tell that I was worried about doing the degree and he comforted me by telling me exactly what I needed to hear. I take comfort in hearing someone who has done so much good research related to medicine tell me something like that.

I still waiver occasionally when I think about the time commitment of the degree. I see amazing people who are early thirties doing cutting edge research and I want to be doing that, but you know what, I will still be able to do that type of research and cutting edge work, just not necessarily in my own lab right away. I have to give myself time and things will get to where they need to be.