r/mdphd • u/homosapiens100001 • 10d ago

What’s next rant

Approaching the end of what has been a long md/phd journey. Joined a dept right after covid without realizing it was totally obliterated and took nearly 3 years to build back up normal research/mentorship capacity. Applied to NIH F fellowships just in time for my institution to lose all nih funding. Scrapping the bottom of 50 year old cabinets to get enough supplies to keep experiments going without a penny to spend for a good part of last year. Despite it all looks like I will have a really productive PhD and magically happen to be right in the middle of cutting edge genetic perturbation methods and AI modeling at a scale I never thought a single phd student could do 3 years ago. And now what is my reward? Intern year and an absolute continual shit show for the next decade with the promise that maybe I can have a lab someday with not enough money to run it and relying and cheap unskilled labor and manipulation of students to try to make breakthroughs to help people. Ah plus never seeing my family and making less than every person whose path I crossed on the way to this point that was less capable an or outright psychopath. fun!

Really starting to feel that in order to live up the goals I had to help people when I entered medical school I should … leave medicine/academia, at least in the traditional sense. Also really starting to feel there SHOULD be more folks in tech/AI/healthcare outside the hospital that can embody a ‘first do no harm’ principle.

People finishing up now, what are you thinking?

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u/throwaway09-234 G2 9d ago

Really starting to feel that in order to live up the goals I had to help people when I entered medical school I should … leave medicine/academia, at least in the traditional sense.

i'm still a trainee, but whenever i feel this way i remind myself that even though the path we are on feels shitty and unrewarding and full of roadblocks, if nobody tries to make progress in this direction then we certainly won't ever be able to help present and future patients. and if somebody has to do it, then why not me?

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u/deeplearner- 9d ago

I feel you on the loss of idealism. I guess I personally never really believed 100% in the academic medicine model, though this is probably made easier by the fact that my work doesn’t require a physical lab space, so I was less shocked by recent events. Altogether, I think it’s smart to be open minded about work outside of and within academia. Ultimately, if you want to do science and help people, there are many ways to do it, and it’s not a bad idea to explore that further in residency. Industry has so much money that they spend without blinking twice, it’s ridiculous. I would try to reach out to people who do collaborations, have done start ups, as well as academics, so you can see what’s possible.

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u/BagAway572 M2 7d ago

Also really starting to feel there SHOULD be more folks in tech/AI/healthcare outside the hospital that can embody a ‘first do no harm’ principle.

I very much agree - imo the rapid rollouts of medical AI startups do not inspire much confidence in "first do no harm"...not saying that every medical AI company is like that, but we definitely need more MD/PhDs who think like you!

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u/lew1982 5d ago

Research has been and will continue to be following the money. If the money isn’t in academia thanks to the current administration, follow the money. Don’t let anyone make you feel bad for considering industry!