MD/PHD Path
Adjusting to the Seasons on the Road of Becoming a Physician-Scientist
As the crisp autumn breeze effortlessly moves through the canopies, plucking the colorful foliage off one by one, I stop all movement in an effort to soak in the evanescent picturesque scenery. Soon, the trees will be bare, and the once luscious fields teeming with life will be barren, replaced by layers of lifeless, frigid snow. Just like the four seasons, the life and training of a physician-scientist is full of change. Learning to adjust and adapt to each “season” is essential for long-term success as a physician-scientist. For this blog post we will have an 8th year MD/PhD student walk us through his journey through physician scientist training. As someone who has officially gone through all these early stages, Alex, will provide us with a/n knowledgeable/experienced perspective. So, lets pass the blog mic to Alex with some minimal Marisol interjections!
I am in my fourth year of medical school applying for Physician Scientist Training Program (PSTP) Internal Medicine residencies with the eventual goal of a gastroenterology and hepatology fellowships. I am amidst a season of drastic change as I prepare to make the jump from medical school student to intern. As I look back on my eight years as a MD/PhD student though, I am constantly reminded of the adaptations I made to adjust to my new roles. Here, I share my advice to not only prepare for but to flourish as you make your steps towards becoming a physician-scientist.
Premed College to Medical School Transition
In college, the premed courses are meant to give you a taste of what medical school will be like. Once in medical school, the gloves are off and the content will be force fed to you at an unbelievable rate. In college, the maximum amount of credit hours you will take in one semester will probably be around 18-20 hours. In medical school, you will have to sift through at a minimum 30 hours of lectures a week on top of any required clinical training sessions. Thus, there’s a huge learning curve to adapt and re-learning how to learn.
Unlike college where a professor will guide you to resources that they will be using in class, in medical school the resources are largely up to you to decide which ones to use. In addition, to PowerPoint slides provided by professors, many students find other resources. The most popular for first years include Anki, an online flashcard deck for those that learn best with repetition, Sketchy micro/pharm- animated scenes for each topic for those that learn visually, Osmosis for those that learn best through videos, and uWorld/Amboss question banks for those that learn best through questions. Although it’s impossible to use all the resources, optimizing those resources that work best for you will help you learn all the material thoroughly and efficiently.
Although the amount of information in medical school is more than college, there are some perks that make med school, easier to manage. For one, at many schools the curriculum is organized in a way that you are only tackling a few or even one topic at a time. This makes it much easier to organize your studying, especially when you never have multiple exams at the same time. Another bonus of medical school is that you’re finally learning things you are interested it. You are no longer taking “prerequisites” that you are forced to take to get into medical school. You are finally learning about the human body, which I think made it a very special study experience. Lastly, many medical schools are now pass/fail. So, goodbye to the stress of having to get A’s on everything. The mentality now shifts to collaboration, learning not memorizing and applying concepts to human patients. (Marisol)
Medical School to Graduate School Transition
My MD/PhD program was the traditional two years of medical school followed by graduate school (and concluding with the last two years of medical school). There are programs that transition to graduate school after just one year of medical school. Regardless of the program structure, transitioning into graduate school from medical school will be the next step in your journey in becoming a physician-scientist.
Your once structured schedule sharply demarcated by studying and exams will be replaced by designing, optimizing, and carrying out experiments, interpreting data, writing grants, giving presentations, and most importantly of all… failure. Up to this point in your life you probably failed very little if at all. In all your previous years of education, failure was not an option and would result in remediation or outright dismissal. However, in graduate school, failure becomes almost routine and is necessary before success. Whether it’s optimizing the right conditions for an experiment, re-writing a paper or grant that was rejected upon first submission, or re-analyzing previous data, to be successful in graduate school, you must embrace that you will fail. But do not worry, you will learn so much, be exposed to all the facets of science, and make discoveries that are worth all the late nights and failed experiments.
This is quite an adjustment and will require a support system that starts at the top with your principal investigator. Perhaps the most important decision you will make in graduate school is choosing your principal investigator. Even if you think you have your principal investigator picked out before graduate school, I recommend rotating through at least two other labs to not only experience different styles of mentorship but also build relationships for future collaborations as well. As a graduate student, you will apply for your own grants, and having a principal investigator that’s well-funded is a must for you to also be competitive. Looking up your potential principal investigators on grants.nih.gov to see how much funding they have for each project before committing to their lab will help you avoid labs that are underfunded.
Graduate School back to Medical School Transition
So, you’ve finished graduate school, have your PhD, and all of sudden instead of looking for post-doctoral jobs, you’re thrust into being a third-year medical school student. You go from being well-respected expert in your field to complete newbie in the hospital overnight. Even if you’re coming off of second year medical school fresh, third year medical school is intimidating as this is the first time you’re working full time in the hospital as a medical student, putting your accumulated knowledge into practice.
The only problem is the knowledge that you once accumulated is now been collecting dust in your brain for 3-5 years. To help ease the transition, I recommend scheduling your defense to give you at least one month before your first rotation. This will give you some time to prepare. During this time, I would recommend reading through either Step Up to Medicine or Master the Boards to give you a solid clinical foundation for your upcoming year. If you’re feeling ambitious you can purchase the AMBOSS question bank to hone your rusty test-taking skills.
When you do begin third year again, this my sound obvious but try to make new friends with your new class! Friends make rotations bearable and together you can commiserate through the lows and the highs. Each season of becoming a physician-scientist has made me a more resilient and better person overall. As I look back, I’m proud of the person I’ve become today and look forward to my next season- residency. I hope these tips have helped you on your journey, wherever you are. Feel free to reach out for questions or feedback!
