<p>Hey guys, I am highly interested in science, specifically, biology, physics, chemistry, and neuroscience. Is it wrong to go to med school if one is more curious and interested in the science, rather than actual patient care? I’m not trying to come off as a House wannabe, but I sincerely love science, and don’t truly care much for people themselves; this is not to say that I cannot remain objective when caring for a patient, or be empathetic, which I certainly can. Some of my character traits are: introverted, dedicated, ambitious, bull-like persistence when it comes to puzzles or problems in general, very logical & analytical, pensive, friendly( although not one for small chat), enjoy structure, generally pretty lazy about uninteresting things, and that’s about all I could think of off the top of my head. </p>
<p>Medicine is all about patient care & management. If you’re truly not interested in working with with patients, you’ll be much happier career-wise if you look at science or engineering careers–particularly research-oriented ones requiring advanced degrees.</p>
<p>Medicine doesn’t require just empathy, but compassion as well. You will be assisting people on the the very best days of their lives and the very worst days of their lives. (Plus a whole lot of dysfunction in between.)</p>
<p>If you haven’t done any clinical volunteering, I strongly suggest you volunteer at a local nursing home, rehab hospital, free public clinic or group home for the disabled. And if the idea of working with this kind of population doesn’t appeal to you, then medicine as a profession is probably not the right path for you.</p>
<p>So just to clarify, you do believe that going into medicine, more so because of scientific curiosity is wrong? Have you known any doctors to be like this? If so, what was their attitude toward medicine, and life in general?</p>
<p>An MD trains you to perform patient care (i.e. diagnosis and management). If you don’t want to do patient care, then an MD is not the appropriate degree. You sound much more interested in a PhD (a degree that teaches you to perform research) in biology focusing on one of the biomedical sciences (e.g. cell biology, neuroscience, micro/immuno)</p>
<p>I’ve just always been fascinated by the brain, so I’ve been thinking about med school and neurology. Honestly, a major factor for me being deterred from a Ph.D, is the constant bitching from current grad students, and for good reason it would appear; grad school advisers seem to be mostly dicks, graduation is fairly uncertain, job prospects aren’t great, years of monotonous and low paying post docs, over-qualified stigma, and most of the time people don’t even gain employment in their desired field.</p>
<p>So as much as I love science,the notion of bending over backward for it doesn’t seem to appealing. I realize that one must work, sacrifice, and dedicate themselves for and to medicine just as much as a Ph.D, if not more, but at least one can be confident about reaping the fruits of their labor after having completed med school.</p>
<p>There are still specialties of medicine where you don’t see patients: Pathology, Radiology, Molecular Physiology, and the surgical specialties involve less patient visits than the medical specialties, like orthopedic surgery, neurosurgery, General surgery etc. But in general if you absolutely detest patients, the MD route won’t make you the happiest, because there will be times you MUST see the patient and you don’t have any choice in the matter.</p>
<p>However, a lot of what you mentioned about a PHD program, also happens in med school. low pay in post docs= low pay in residency. grad school adviser snooty= med school adviser snooty. There are others here that have more to offer about that. </p>
<p>However, some medical schools offer PHD programs that are tailored to research directly in medical science, like in molecular medicine, molecular genetics, etc.</p>
<p>I do not know specific requirements of medical research. But Med. School is primarily for future docs who will take care of patients. If you are not interested in this aspect, I do not see why you would go thru some of this training that sometime is torturous (say the least), but future MDs are fine with it, since they know that they are learning…how to take care of the patients and in some circumstances it is going way over normal human ability (in every aspect of it, intellectual, emotional, physical, social,…)</p>
<p>If you want to go into research, go into research. I know a couple of researchers who got MDs in addition to (or instead of) PhDs, and most if not all of them have said that in retrospect, the MD was a waste of their time. For what they wanted to do - research - there’s no reason to get an MD. (This is also specifically in neuroscience, which you said interests you).</p>
<p>Have you spent any time in an academic research lab? From my experience, grad student and post-docs like to complain on occasion (as med school students do, as well), but they enjoy what they do. I’m completely biased, since I’m applying to neuroscience PhD programs and plan to go into research, but I think it is worth it.</p>
<p>What you want is an MD/PHD program - ie., medical research. 
Now, you need to find colleges that emphasize undergraduate research (you didn’t give your stats exactly, but Wooster is one, Lawrence is another…)</p>
<p>^UG research is available anywhere (within the attending UG, very hard to get outside of it). But if one wants Research, why to plan for the very very long program that is extremely hard to get into. </p>
<p>@MYOS1634 </p>
<p>I just thought to mention that you do not need an MD and a PHD to do medical research. Every single one of the nobel laureates for the Physiology and Medicine prize had either a PHD or an MD, not one was MD/PHD. It’s simply a program that allows you to treat patients and do research, prepares you for both careers. </p>
<p>@Jweinst1 , one of the three winners of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2013 was Dr. Thomas C. Südhof MD/PhD. I’m sure there are others. </p>
<p>@plumazul</p>
<p>Your right, he is an MD/PHD, but he never completed a residency, and went off to complete a post-doc right after finishing medical school and his doctoral thesis, and stayed in research up until the present. He is really a scientist for the vast majority of his career, and what Im saying is that, given from what my uncle told me while he was still alive (MD/PHD OBGYN) and others, its really hard to devote equal time to both seeing patients and research, along with making significant contributions in them both.</p>