Does an MD make sense?

Hi everyone- I’ve been trying to decide whether medical school is a good choice for me and I can’t seem to make up my mind.
I’m 24 and in the 2nd year of the political science program at Stanford. Most of my work here has been looking at HIV/AIDS, health and development and civil war violence. I like my work and I’m good at it, but there is something missing in all of it. It’s great to be a political scientist, but I am so far removed from the things that I study that I often feel like I’m not exactly sure that I am getting things right. From that point of view, contact with patients and a general knowledge of illness would be nice.
That’s not my only concern, though. I started studying health, not because I found it to be an interesting paradox, or a quirky topic that few people in political science do. I got interested in this because I genuinely care about these topics. I want to do something about them that is concrete. I want to be able to help individuals who are sick, who do suffer; I want to heal them. Policy and research are both important to this. My father, who is a physician, once said that politicians have cured more people than doctors ever have, and I think he’s right. Sewage systems, vaccination plans, mosquito nets and other public health interventions are implemented by doctors but only approved and made possibly by political circumstances and decisions. At the same time, though, I want to be someone who helps those individuals who benefit from these directly.
This summer, I was working in South Africa as a visiting researcher at a university there. One of the people I live with took me into the hospital one day for a few hours to show me what she does as a medical student. It was a revelation like no other. Helping do an exam on a baby to check to see if he had recovered from jaundice was a feeling that still sends shivers through me today. I got to hand the little fellow back to his mother, and the smile I got from her, though I did nothing at all to merit it, remains fixed in my mind.
I wouldn’t be able to start medical school for at least 3-4 years, when I was 27 or 28, and even then, I would be giving up job opportunites as a scholar and would face at least 6-8 more years of school and residency. The workload doesn’t bother me; graduate school already has me putting in 14 hour days routinely and learning more things than I ever thought possible. On a typical day, I move between teaching, reading economics, history, philosophy, anthropology and sociology, doing statistics and game theory, writing papers and attending seminars. I love it; this is the best challenge a thinking person could ever desire. I don’t know if medical school will be the same, but I do believe that if it can be learned, then I am as a good a person as any at doing so.
Anyway, whatever experiences and advice you could share would be appreciated as I try to think this out. If I do go to med school, I’ll be the only MD/PhD in poli sci, I’ve ever heard of, which may be a dubious or valorous honor depending on how you look at it…
Thanks all!

Hi there,
As a Ph.D in Biochemistry/Molecular Biology who attended medical school, I promise you that nothing in graduate school can prepare you for the volume of information that you will need to assimulate quickly. That being said, medical school is a means to an end. After you graduate from medical school, you are prepared for residency and little else. You will quickly learn that what you DO NOT know about patient care is much greater than what you DO know. Still, I enjoyed my medical school experience and all of the new things that I was exposed to. Taking care of patients is a blast and something that I totally enjoy.
Your patients put their health and their trust in your hands on a daily basis. There is little money and long hours but small victories at every corner. From the mom in the Surgical Intensive care that is cradling her stillborn son to the 101-year-old ex-physician with inspissated food in her esophagus because of a huge esophageal tumor, your day can run the gambit.
Your father is correct in that you can do things on a grand scale as a politician but there is nothing in politics that even compared to the thoracotomy that I performed from skin to skin a couple of weeks ago. I spent four years as a press secretary and environmental writer for a govenor of Virginia. His daughter, who worked in my office and I are both physicians today because we felt that our best work was to be done at the bedside and not in a political office. Everyone is different and everyone can make a difference with a bit of caring for your fellow humans.
An MD for me always made sense and my father, my uncle, my aunts and my cousins (ten physicians in my family) all knew that before I did. I have the best job in the world and I am surprised everyday.
Natalie

Quote:

I wouldn’t be able to start medical school for at least 3-4 years, when I was 27 or 28, and even then, I would be giving up job opportunites as a scholar and would face at least 6-8 more years of school and residency.


The least of your fears should be your age. Many of us, myself included, are significantly older than you are still starting on this long path to becoming a doctor
Quote:

If I do go to med school, I’ll be the only MD/PhD in poli sci, I’ve ever heard of, which may be a dubious or valorous honor depending on how you look at it…



There are many areas where the social sciences and medicine overlap and are represented in academia (a few samples below)
http://www.cpe.uchicago.edu/subgrants/MD_PhD_Brochure_2004.pdf
http://chssp.columbia.edu/Staff.asp
Quote:

Helping do an exam on a baby to check to see if he had recovered from jaundice was a feeling that still sends shivers through me today. I got to hand the little fellow back to his mother, and the smile I got from her, though I did nothing at all to merit it, remains fixed in my mind.



I think that carrying the training and insight of treating patients directly can be a great impact as you try to develop and get enacted through the political process some program for health care. You would know first hand the impact that others setting policy would not.
As Dr. Natalie Belle described, it is a very long road to travel to get there and medical training does have overwhelming focus on preparing you for treating individual patients and not developing policy for populations. Exploring your options as well; exploring what you really want to do; and exploring what you are ready to go through to get there is what you need to do now.

Thank you both for your replies. They have helped me to clear up some of my thinking on this topic.
Both my parents are physicians, though they come at it from very different perspectives. While both do research, my mom is more of the academic type and does research on health economics and decision making that I find incredibly interesting (for example, looking at how people rate different procedures over time). My father is more clinical and has always stressed the importance of physician and patient relations. They’ve both discussed this with me and have been very supportive, emphasizing that they think this is something I would excel at and also appreciate.
I am very much appreciate the link to Chicago’s program and will investigate that further.
This site has been marvelous! I remember that when I applied for graduate school some of the forums that I saw focused more on telling people that they had no chance at this or that program. It is very refreshing to see one that works to empower those who make this hard choice, helping them grasp their dreams. The enthusiam shown here, compared with the sulleness and arrogance among some pre-meds in my undergrad, is not only encouraging but makes me question whether letting in younger individuals is the best choice for medical schools. Plato argued that it is only after 40 that individuals could truly become philosophers. Maybe the same could be said for physicians…

Quote:

Plato argued that it is only after 40 that individuals could truly become philosophers. Maybe the same could be said for physicians…


Now that is a great point that I might steal…er…use for an interview or application. My knowledge of Plato is limited. Could you cite where that particular point comes from. Or maybe I should ask my step-son who got a classics degree from University of Chicago.
BTW, those links were found in about 5 seconds with google. I am sure that you could easy find many programs where you could combine political science and medicine.
good luck and keep on the forums.

The idea is from the Republic. It’s a nifty point of view, I think.

Quote:

Plato argued that it is only after 40 that individuals could truly become philosophers.


Hence, the parrothead…
(A pirate looks at 40…)

Reading Plato’s Republic is what inspired me to go to college (today I am a 33 year old freshman). It’s positively the most inspiring thing I’ve ever read.

Excellent personal statement!
Oh, that was “just” your introduction? Ah, I see… sounds like you’ve got a good perspective about this whole thing Welcome to OPM.

Personally after reading this guys background and interests in public policy, I think he should try to get a MPH (masters in public health) at Johns Hopkins. That would be the best way have an effect on public policy. But how does one go from a Ph.D to an MPH? Its just a thought. Maybe MD/MPH program.


Attached files