The financial impact of MD-PhD training compared with MD training for academic physicians.
Publication/Presentation Date
12-20-2024
Abstract
To reduce debt burden and encourage the pursuit of research-focused careers, most MD-PhD programs provide medical school tuition remission and an annual stipend. However, prolonged training compared with MD physicians postpones the time until MD-PhD physicians earn a full salary. We compared lifetime earning potential for MD-PhD physicians in academia with their MD colleagues in the same clinical specialty. We examined the relationship between earning potential based on specialty and the likelihood that MD-PhD physicians reported being engaged predominantly in research. Lifetime earning potential was estimated using 2020-2021 debt and compensation data for 77,701 academic physicians across 47 specialties. Self-reported research effort for 3,025 MD-PhD program alumni in academia was taken from the National MD-PhD Program Outcomes Study. We found that (a) MD-PhD physicians had a lower lifetime earning potential than MD physicians in the same specialty; (b) there was an inverse relationship between earning potential and research effort in different specialties, with MD-PhD physicians in high-earning specialties tending to spend less time on research; and (c) despite this, MD-PhD physicians in academia were more likely to choose clinical fields that allow more time for research.
Volume
9
Issue
24
ISSN
2379-3708
Published In/Presented At
Catenaccio, E., Rochlin, J., Akabas, M. H., Brass, L. F., & Simon, H. K. (2024). The financial impact of MD-PhD training compared with MD training for academic physicians. JCI insight, 9(24), e183476. https://doi.org/10.1172/jci.insight.183476
Disciplines
Medicine and Health Sciences | Pediatrics
PubMedID
39704177
Department(s)
Department of Pediatrics
Document Type
Article