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Date:         Sat, 9 Jan 1993 21:21:55 -0600
From:         "Joel I. Shenker" <jshenker@S.PSYCH.UIUC.EDU>
Subject:      RE: Residenties and Credentials

As long as the issue of perceived prestige of one's training and
experience has been raised, let me throw in the following.  If you think
that having both the MD and the PhD are going to lay a blanket of
prestige over your CV, helping you in anything that you want to pursue,
you had better read on.

One of the things that has begun to troubl me is the extent to which
stereotyping goes on about a person with the letters MDPHD after their
name.  As this mail-serve evidences, there is no one single way to
become an MD/PhD nor is there one single way to use such training.  Yet,
fellow students, teachers, residency directors, physicians, and others
continue to think about anyone with the MD/PhD as being, basically, one
type of person.  It is rather dangerous, I think, to lump all 3000 or so
current MD/PhD students together as all being the same in important
ways.  Similarly, it seems inappropriate to lump all MD/PhD graduates
together in such a fashion.  The fact that one pursues an MD/PhD probably
means somehthing, but I am not quite sure WHAT it means, nor even if it must
necessarily be good/bad in a given situation.  The INDIVIDUALS who obtain
MD/PhDs are just that--INDIVIDUALS.  The best way to understand such
people and tap their abilities and potential is to treat such people, as
with all others, as individuals.  It is not clear to me, for example,
that if I were running an academic residency I would necessarily want a
crew of only MD/PhD residents.  Don't get me wrong--I think the MD/PhD
is a good idea and I'm reasonably glad I'm pursuing it.  But is it
necessary?  Is there no other way to pursue the things I want to do?
Are all people with an MD/PhD different for all purposes than those with
"only" one degree (or none)?  I would want to read the applications of
several people, talk to them, review the things they actually have done
(whether or not such experiences led to a degree is not always as important
as what the experiences were themselves), and then make some decisions.
To me, if I were considering a candidate for an academically oriented
residency, I would consider an MD/PhD a plus.  But I would not consider
it necessary. And I would strongly consider an MD graduate with a strong
research background of some kind.

This is not a trivial matter.  There are many ways in which the
stereotyping of MD/PhDs is hurting MD/PhDs.  For example, one friend of
mine has found that some of the residencies he has been visiting regard
his dual-degree as a NEGATIVE, for which he and his record must somehow
compensate in order for his candidacy to become more competitive with MD
graduates.  The explanation for this particular point of view is that a
dual-degree person is likely to be TOO interested in research to
sufficiently devote themselves to their clinical training. Undersand,
these are things being said even from academically oriented residencies.
It bothers me to think that important things about me will be ASSUMED,
whther they be good or bad, without bothering to look at ME and see if
such assumtions are warranted.

The basic point, I guess, is this.  I do not want to be given rewards
for things I have not done, nor do I want to be given punishments for
things I have not done.  I am ME, and things that I have done are
unique to me and me alone.  Some of what I am and what I have done is
good, and some is not.  If I am to be judged, then consider ME, not
others who you guess might be like me. (And how, by the way, can you KNOW
if others are like me if you don't first know me?).  Consider what *I*
have done.  Then tell me that I am qualified or not qualified for your
residency or job or grant or whatever.
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU