Ph.D vs. PharmD vs. MPH vs. ???

[midwestern_blot]

While gearing up to apply to biomedical graduate programs, I realized I had never considered pharmacy school (PharmD) or an MPH when deciding on a possible career. And now, after doing some more research, I'm seriously questioning myself with regard to my career plans.

 

I've done a lot of shadowing and volunteer work - both before and after I decided to NOT go to medical school - and realized that I really enjoy working in a clinical, patient-focused setting. My advisors kind of lured me into thinking that I could get involved in hospital work with a PhD in a biomedical field, but I'm learning now that that doesn't really happen. I'm worried that tracking myself into the grad school --> post-doc --> hope to get an industry/faculty job isn't really for me, nor are any of the "translational research" programs I've found so far which aren't quite clinical.

 

From what I've read and who I've asked so far, it seems that my career interests could align with PharmD and/or an MPH. I also have the GPA, research experience, clinical experience, and extracurriculars to be competitive for all three degree programs, so the options are there.

 

Can anyone offer pros and cons of the different degrees, career prospects, flexibility, etc.? The more information I have, the better.

[ballwera]

Not sure if you are into molecular biology / genetics but I'd look into this... You work in a purely clinical lab, and do translational research. http://www.abmgg.org/pages/training_options.shtml

[biochemgirl67]

To be honest, most clinical work is done by MDs.  Or MD-PhDs.  You can't work with human samples without that MD and the closest you could get is translational work which generally is testing therapies in mouse models or the like.  I'm not saying a PhD will limit you, and I'm sure somebody on here will jump to tell me that you can get involved in clinical research as a PhD student.  However, I am saying that I'm at a medical center-based graduate school and nearly all the labs focus on the biomedical.  And even here, you have to apply to the program in Molecular Medicine Certificate to get any involvement with patients.  And even so, most clinical work after grad school (you know that job you'll get after?) is done by doctors.  I would seriously consider changing your career path if you want to work in a clinical, patient-focused setting because grad school is not about that.  Maybe do a PharmD because they have extra training you can do to work in hospital settings creating treatment plans for patients with things like cancer, autoimmune disorders, etc.

[ballwera]

1 hour ago, biochemgirl67 said:

To be honest, most clinical work is done by MDs.  Or MD-PhDs.  You can't work with human samples without that MD and the closest you could get is translational work which generally is testing therapies in mouse models or the like.  I'm not saying a PhD will limit you, and I'm sure somebody on here will jump to tell me that you can get involved in clinical research as a PhD student.  However, I am saying that I'm at a medical center-based graduate school and nearly all the labs focus on the biomedical.  And even here, you have to apply to the program in Molecular Medicine Certificate to get any involvement with patients.  And even so, most clinical work after grad school (you know that job you'll get after?) is done by doctors.  I would seriously consider changing your career path if you want to work in a clinical, patient-focused setting because grad school is not about that.  Maybe do a PharmD because they have extra training you can do to work in hospital settings creating treatment plans for patients with things like cancer, autoimmune disorders, etc.

Definitely not true on the human sample front. I was doing human subject research as a tech.

[biochemgirl67]

1 hour ago, ballwera said:

Definitely not true on the human sample front. I was doing human subject research as a tech.

Human samples are completely different from clinical, patient-focused research.  For instance, today I talked to a lab that does do human sample research.  But although the grad student will work with human samples, not interact clinically with them (ie the patients).  Therefore the work is translational rather than clinical.  It really is an important difference.  Also, human samples are notoriously difficult to obtain in large enough quantities for experimental repetition unless you're at a big medical center.  And as a PhD student there is absolutely no guarantee you'll work with anybody with clinical or translational emphases.  The discipline patient interaction is common in is neuroscience, so if OP is interested in that, maybe they could find a happy medium.

 

Oh and BTW, in order to get access to human samples later on in your career, you HAVE to have either an MD or have an MD in your research group.  Otherwise you don't have access to the tissue banks.  This might be important to OP looking ahead about WHY they would want to get a PhD rather than something else.

[ballwera]

33 minutes ago, biochemgirl67 said:

Human samples are completely different from clinical, patient-focused research.  For instance, today I talked to a lab that does do human sample research.  But although the grad student will work with human samples, not interact clinically with them (ie the patients).  Therefore the work is translational rather than clinical.  It really is an important difference.  Also, human samples are notoriously difficult to obtain in large enough quantities for experimental repetition unless you're at a big medical center.  And as a PhD student there is absolutely no guarantee you'll work with anybody with clinical or translational emphases.  The discipline patient interaction is common in is neuroscience, so if OP is interested in that, maybe they could find a happy medium.

 

Could just be differences  in our  centers. I had multiple postdocs (PhDs) in my lab that recruited and took samples from patients. We also have clinical coordinators to do this for us as well. We actually had incidental findings in some of our research that had to be reported back to the patients. You do not need an MD in most cases just proper training. Also immunology is really good as well for getting human samples... you just need a blood draw after all. Also w/ the rise of biobanking human samples are getting easier and easier to obtain. 

 

34 minutes ago, biochemgirl67 said:

Oh and BTW, in order to get access to human samples later on in your career, you HAVE to have either an MD or have an MD in your research group.  Otherwise you don't have access to the tissue banks.  This might be important to OP looking ahead about WHY they would want to get a PhD rather than something else.

Again this is not true either. If you fill out appropriate paperwork you have access to biobanks as well as tissue banks ( we used to get blood filters from the blood bank on a regular basis).  We also work w/ MDs to obtain fresh samples (biopsies), and in most cases they aren't actually part of the research.

If this poster is wholly focused on interacting w/ patients then they need to consider a degree in the medical field (MD, Nursing, Genetic Counselor) though, because a research career will most likely not fill that need. 

[LoveMysterious]

On 8/18/2016 at 8:11 PM, midwestern_blot said:

While gearing up to apply to biomedical graduate programs, I realized I had never considered pharmacy school (PharmD) or an MPH when deciding on a possible career. And now, after doing some more research, I'm seriously questioning myself with regard to my career plans.

 

I've done a lot of shadowing and volunteer work - both before and after I decided to NOT go to medical school - and realized that I really enjoy working in a clinical, patient-focused setting. My advisors kind of lured me into thinking that I could get involved in hospital work with a PhD in a biomedical field, but I'm learning now that that doesn't really happen. I'm worried that tracking myself into the grad school --> post-doc --> hope to get an industry/faculty job isn't really for me, nor are any of the "translational research" programs I've found so far which aren't quite clinical.

 

From what I've read and who I've asked so far, it seems that my career interests could align with PharmD and/or an MPH. I also have the GPA, research experience, clinical experience, and extracurriculars to be competitive for all three degree programs, so the options are there.

 

Can anyone offer pros and cons of the different degrees, career prospects, flexibility, etc.? The more information I have, the better.

Have you looked into genetic counseling programs?