Chemical Engineer to MSTP or Ph.D?

[hydroplain]

I am currently a pre-med chemical engineering undergraduate, and I am not sure whether or not to pursue a combined MD/Ph.D degree, or if I should go straight into a Ph.D program in pharmacology.


A little bit about myself: I am currently 25, and I have been an undergraduate for a long time. When I left high school, I faced severe medical problems which made having a normal college experience impossible (although I still attempted to take courses). Because of this, my GPA is not that of a typical pre-med student. I currently possess a 3.1 GPA with over 120+ credits which makes boosting my GPA a bit difficult. I recently got accepted to be in a McNair program which gave me a full tuition waiver, research experience, and a promise to pursue a Ph.D degree (my initial goal after my B.S). I was placed into a pharmacology research project (a project I will have 2-3 years of experience in prior to graduation) which I am in love with. Being the sick child that I was, I learned a LOT about pharmaceuticals and patient care from a patient’s perspective, and I have concluded that I would like to devote the rest of my life to advancing medical research. The pharmaceuticals that are currently on the market are amazing, but there still needs to be more research to reduce the negative impact that they are having on patient’s health. More specifically, drugs used for mental disorders and pain carry a high risk for addiction and abuse which patients are not fully aware of prior to taking the drug.


This is where my dilemma comes in. I have taken pre-med electives as a safety net for if I was to decide to apply to medical school, but if I want to finish off all my pre-med requirements and gain clinical hours, then I would need to take an extra year and postpone my engineering graduation. I am not sure whether or not I should finish off my engineering degree first, apply to a Ph.D program, and then come back to medical school? Or if I should take the extra year now while I have a full tuition waiver and finish off the pre-med requirements and then apply to medical school/graduate school and see what happends?


Although I am in love with the current research that I am working on now, I know for a fact that I will not feel satisfied unless I can apply my knowledge in research directly to patient care.

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[shadow522]

clarifying point: when you say you won't be happy unless you can apply your knowledge to patient care, do you feel like you also "require" patient interaction? or can the application be through development of medications/technologies that patients ultimately receive? (e.g., successfully pushing a drug through clinical trials and gaining fulfillment through that process?)

if you are essentially set on treating patients clinically, then you need an MD or other clinical professional degree. in this case, i would suggest taking the extra year while you have a full tuition waiver. by the time you finish all those premed requirements, you will be 26 (or depending on your birthdate, 27 yrs old at most). if you do not currently have your own family, applying to an MD/PhD program next year and being 27 ish yrs old when you start the program would not be late. I have heard that the average age of MS1's is like 26 yrs old. I am not sure if the average age for MD/PhD candidates in MS1 is the same, but in any case, you won't be super late to the game from what I can tell.

From your third paragraph, I am not completely clear on whether or not you have finished all of your premed reqs? if you have not, you would need to wait a year before applying to any MD or MD/PhD program. even if you decide to pursue PhD only, it seems like you might benefit from the additional year of experience and courses that would boost your GPA at least a little. highly competitive PhD programs at top tier schools will also be looking at your metrics, so having a slightly improved GPA would be useful for those applications too. it seems like you might be a more competitive applicant overall if you take the mcnair opportunity for this next academic year.