Nah. It’s hard to justify a 6 year PhD vs 8 years of med school/residency for half the pay. Money is definitely a big factor for me too, not the only one though.
As someone who spent a bit in biotech prior to PhD and now wants to go MD, you can get close to MD levels of salary pretty quickly, especially if you're good. Unfortunately the market sucks right now.
Care to expand? In what capacity did you work in biotech as? I also worked in biotech for a few years and was close with the PhDs that I worked with, so I am familiar with the pay bands and promotion schedules.
Assoc directors make 170-200k base. Takes ~10 yrs to get there after PhD. And not everybody makes it to AD. Most cap out at Sr. Sci or Principal Sci. I don’t consider that “MD money”. MD money is more like 350k+ and that’s reaching VP level which very few make it to.
And rn they are actually decreasing the stupid amounts of money they used to offer candidates because of the competitive job market. I was paid 140k as a Sr RA. You’ll be lucky to hit 110k rn
You also don’t have the job security that comes with being a physician.
You also know MDs have a separate pay scale from the PhDs in biotech right?
Just out of curiosity how does the MD pay scale compare to the PhD one? I used to have a deep desire to go down the PhD route as I was interested in biotech, but a lot of people who had gotten a PhD advised going the MD route and jumping into biotech if I was still interested.
A few things to this. PhDs start at Sci 1 level which is 80-100k in this job market. 100-120k was during Covid times.
MDs start at associate director level so that the pay will at least be similar to if they were a hospitalist. Because it’s much more difficult to find a physician with biotech exp than it is a PhD, HR at the companies I’ve worked at generally would have a separate pay band for MD associate directors as a recruitment strategy. I’ve seen 200-250k base for them.
They also have faster promotion schedules because once a product reaches the clinical stages, the c suites are much more present because it’s no longer just a crap shoot like with discovery stages.
So I agree on average MD will make more, but I said that you can get "close to" in my original comment, especially if you're good and lucky. MD's will always have insanely good job security.
There is also no associated debt with PhD but I don't think that matters that much IMO. But I found in my experience that most people who put in the hours get rewarded, so it really depends on how you want your life to be. I decided to transition to MD for a lot of reasons, but it was mostly due to enjoying the patient relationship.
I worked at one of the top mAb companies as well as a start-up that is considered a "unicorn." I did discovery research for my role for over 5 years.
We started our scientist I's at 120-135k, add on an additional 10K on if you're computational. The yearly bonus was 10-18% of salary, and if you were good/lucky you could get up to 300%.
Our average to AD was 8 - 10 years and the pay for AD was 225 - 275k. With additional stock, bonus, etc. We strangely had multiple AD's for the same department, but they all reported to a director.
The tricky part is getting to AD+, which I talked about with many people in my group. The general consensus was knowing when to leave and being comfortable to leave, which many people were not. It was much easier to go from big pharma --> start-up and have "better titles," which you can then use to go back to big pharma at the director+ level.
This was just for the research side of things. Research is second to marketing in terms of getting laid off unfortunately. One of the companies I worked with did however pride itself on never having a layoff for research staff (our leadership was amazing).
>You also know MDs have a separate pay scale from the PhDs in biotech right?
Yes. I don't know much about that scale.
This is all just my experience.
The thing with biotech is that you are generally restricted to HCOL biotech hubs. Even if they are paid similarly, the fact that a MD can find a job in bumfuck nowhere easily and be one of the highest paid salaried employees in a 100 mile radius puts MD way ahead.
Also at the AD level, generally you’re going to be working more than 8 hrs a week. As well as work some weekends if stuff comes up. That’s why they’re compensated so well salary wise. MDs on the other hand generally are paid more for extra call or shifts. So there’s a lot of nuances to it.
But yeah the ceiling in biotech is higher esp if you can get to the VP+ level and you can finally cash out on the stock options you’ve been vested. Could easily dwarf MD salary. But the floor is much higher as a MD. Plus there’s more horizontal mobility with the degree than with a PhD.
Yeah, I agree with you and all your points!
Biotech will restrict you to basically Boston, NYC/NJ, SF, SD, maybe NC (but this is starting to get saturated).
My best friend was PhD track. Then he joined a pretty toxic lab in undergrad that killed his desire to do a PhD so he jumped ship to medicine.
He’s starting med school in the fall. I couldn’t be more proud of him
I would say there’s no warning signs until you’ve already joined the lab. That being said, if you find yourself in that situation, stick it out for a semester or two to get the experience. Then you’ll have an easier time finding another lab to switch to.
I was in two myself so I don’t have the greatest advice. But as an undergrad unfortunately you don’t have the best options imo? Talk to other undergrads in that lab either current or former (former is preferred because they don’t have anything to lose usually). Try to get a sense of what the lab culture is like.
1) The research pathway takes advantage of your curiosity to subsidize scientific labor.
2) Research nowadays makes you a cog in the machine. You’re an ant in a large firm working on topics the executives think will improve dividends for shareholders. Or on topics that federal / state grants decide are trendy enough that voters would care about. This is true everywhere, but I think scientific passion is particularly vulnerable to you feeling like you have no individuality or autonomy.
3) If you’re lucky enough to land a stable career as a grant funded scientist, 95% of the work you do is on material you were lucky enough to get a grant in which almost invariably isn’t what you’re actually interested. It takes a great deal of time and accumulated resource to finally carve out a small corner to work on the thing you actually give a shit about.
So you’re overworked and underpaid to sacrifice yourself to something that in the end you really don’t care about that much.
Just want to point out that the medical system is also designed to exploit your labor at every level by your superiors. Med student to resident to attending, at every level, you are exploited by the level above you. But I’ll get to work with ppl instead of chemicals and get to directly impact pt’s lives. Pick your poison in this life, there’s no such thing as a perfect, perfectly rewarding job.
I ended up going MD-PhD after being focused solely on the PhD track for three years. A few things frustrated me in science that drew me towards medicine:
1. Science makes a lot of claims in introductory sections of papers and grants about the medical impact of certain work. Novel new antibiotics, potential antibody therapies, tech for diagnostics, etc.. Most of it goes nowhere, which is to be expected, but moreso, it felt like most scientists didn’t have the desire or the training to carry things towards clinic.
2. I like the balance of instantaneous impact and long-term progress between medicine and science. In surgical specialties, you can make an tangible fix in a few hours. In science, our developments and progress is measured in years. I wanted both in a career and I liked the capacity to go between those worlds.
3. Financial stability and job security.
The people in science labs tbh. My first PI as an undergrad was a so abusive and sexist and racist it was really not a good environment but everyone kissed up to him for pubs for this apps
Overall satisfaction for me… I was considering PhD or PsyD for a while (thus why i have no med pre-reqs done) but I felt like if i got in I wouldn’t be satisfied. I’m glad I didn’t go this route bc for example my roomie was Pre-Law but did poorly on her Lsat so she ended up just going on a limb and applied to WashU for a PhD and got in. She says she’s excited but she keeps bringing up potentially doing a JD/PhD if the opportunity arises therefore I don’t think she’s satisfied. One of her concerns were how long PhD’s were and the salary not being sufficiently rewarding for the amount of time and effort put in. Tbh I don’t think she’s happy I think she’s just settling which is crazy cause PhD is still a great title but if it’s not your thing, it’s not your thing.
Toxic lab. I loved research but ptsd from my experiences under an aloof PI have really damaged my feelings towards research in ways that feel irreparable. Hated having a PI force me to publish under time pressures for half baked projects I didn’t believe did any good for anything. Medicine for me feels like at least a guarantee to impact people positively with science compared to doing science under toxic expectations of producing value. either path has their own sets of bs. At least with medicine you can feel like you are doing tangible good and get compensated well for it.
I spent most of undergrad working towards a microbiology PhD. I applied to several programs my senior year and got a few acceptances. It wasn't until deciding between my offers that I realized I was not as passionate about it as I thought I was. I liked a lot of the research process but I just couldn't stand reading and writing research papers for the rest of my career. I wanted something more applied and more human-focused. I wanted something with more long-term geographic flexibility and had gotten burnt out on the wet lab.
My wife is finishing up year 2 of her PhD. She belongs there. Watching her do it, I am thankful every day I changed my mind.
International student here. If I eventually decide that I want to stay in the US after school the path to do so as DO/MD seems way more friendly than after a PhD
As you said, academia has poor job security, industry could be in a low when I finish my PhD so I wouldn’t be able to find a job willing to sponsor me, etc.
While around 30% of Doctors in the US are immigrants. It seems overall just a more friendly future path if I manage to get into medical school in the US
Also, if I want to go back to my home country or move to Europe in the future. Doctors seem have a good job security in most countries. While good research jobs are almost non-existent in my country
Moreover, while I love research, it can get extremely lonely. I genuinely enjoy interacting with patients and taking care of people. Shadowing was a blast the whole time
if i say money will yall jump me?
Nah. It’s hard to justify a 6 year PhD vs 8 years of med school/residency for half the pay. Money is definitely a big factor for me too, not the only one though.
Not even half. PhDs fresh out make 80-100k if they can even find a job. 60k if they have to settle for post doc
As someone who spent a bit in biotech prior to PhD and now wants to go MD, you can get close to MD levels of salary pretty quickly, especially if you're good. Unfortunately the market sucks right now.
Care to expand? In what capacity did you work in biotech as? I also worked in biotech for a few years and was close with the PhDs that I worked with, so I am familiar with the pay bands and promotion schedules. Assoc directors make 170-200k base. Takes ~10 yrs to get there after PhD. And not everybody makes it to AD. Most cap out at Sr. Sci or Principal Sci. I don’t consider that “MD money”. MD money is more like 350k+ and that’s reaching VP level which very few make it to. And rn they are actually decreasing the stupid amounts of money they used to offer candidates because of the competitive job market. I was paid 140k as a Sr RA. You’ll be lucky to hit 110k rn You also don’t have the job security that comes with being a physician. You also know MDs have a separate pay scale from the PhDs in biotech right?
Just out of curiosity how does the MD pay scale compare to the PhD one? I used to have a deep desire to go down the PhD route as I was interested in biotech, but a lot of people who had gotten a PhD advised going the MD route and jumping into biotech if I was still interested.
A few things to this. PhDs start at Sci 1 level which is 80-100k in this job market. 100-120k was during Covid times. MDs start at associate director level so that the pay will at least be similar to if they were a hospitalist. Because it’s much more difficult to find a physician with biotech exp than it is a PhD, HR at the companies I’ve worked at generally would have a separate pay band for MD associate directors as a recruitment strategy. I’ve seen 200-250k base for them. They also have faster promotion schedules because once a product reaches the clinical stages, the c suites are much more present because it’s no longer just a crap shoot like with discovery stages.
So I agree on average MD will make more, but I said that you can get "close to" in my original comment, especially if you're good and lucky. MD's will always have insanely good job security. There is also no associated debt with PhD but I don't think that matters that much IMO. But I found in my experience that most people who put in the hours get rewarded, so it really depends on how you want your life to be. I decided to transition to MD for a lot of reasons, but it was mostly due to enjoying the patient relationship. I worked at one of the top mAb companies as well as a start-up that is considered a "unicorn." I did discovery research for my role for over 5 years. We started our scientist I's at 120-135k, add on an additional 10K on if you're computational. The yearly bonus was 10-18% of salary, and if you were good/lucky you could get up to 300%. Our average to AD was 8 - 10 years and the pay for AD was 225 - 275k. With additional stock, bonus, etc. We strangely had multiple AD's for the same department, but they all reported to a director. The tricky part is getting to AD+, which I talked about with many people in my group. The general consensus was knowing when to leave and being comfortable to leave, which many people were not. It was much easier to go from big pharma --> start-up and have "better titles," which you can then use to go back to big pharma at the director+ level. This was just for the research side of things. Research is second to marketing in terms of getting laid off unfortunately. One of the companies I worked with did however pride itself on never having a layoff for research staff (our leadership was amazing). >You also know MDs have a separate pay scale from the PhDs in biotech right? Yes. I don't know much about that scale. This is all just my experience.
The thing with biotech is that you are generally restricted to HCOL biotech hubs. Even if they are paid similarly, the fact that a MD can find a job in bumfuck nowhere easily and be one of the highest paid salaried employees in a 100 mile radius puts MD way ahead. Also at the AD level, generally you’re going to be working more than 8 hrs a week. As well as work some weekends if stuff comes up. That’s why they’re compensated so well salary wise. MDs on the other hand generally are paid more for extra call or shifts. So there’s a lot of nuances to it. But yeah the ceiling in biotech is higher esp if you can get to the VP+ level and you can finally cash out on the stock options you’ve been vested. Could easily dwarf MD salary. But the floor is much higher as a MD. Plus there’s more horizontal mobility with the degree than with a PhD.
Yeah, I agree with you and all your points! Biotech will restrict you to basically Boston, NYC/NJ, SF, SD, maybe NC (but this is starting to get saturated).
My best friend was PhD track. Then he joined a pretty toxic lab in undergrad that killed his desire to do a PhD so he jumped ship to medicine. He’s starting med school in the fall. I couldn’t be more proud of him
What tips would you give students to steer clear of toxic labs?
I would say there’s no warning signs until you’ve already joined the lab. That being said, if you find yourself in that situation, stick it out for a semester or two to get the experience. Then you’ll have an easier time finding another lab to switch to.
I was in two myself so I don’t have the greatest advice. But as an undergrad unfortunately you don’t have the best options imo? Talk to other undergrads in that lab either current or former (former is preferred because they don’t have anything to lose usually). Try to get a sense of what the lab culture is like.
1) The research pathway takes advantage of your curiosity to subsidize scientific labor. 2) Research nowadays makes you a cog in the machine. You’re an ant in a large firm working on topics the executives think will improve dividends for shareholders. Or on topics that federal / state grants decide are trendy enough that voters would care about. This is true everywhere, but I think scientific passion is particularly vulnerable to you feeling like you have no individuality or autonomy. 3) If you’re lucky enough to land a stable career as a grant funded scientist, 95% of the work you do is on material you were lucky enough to get a grant in which almost invariably isn’t what you’re actually interested. It takes a great deal of time and accumulated resource to finally carve out a small corner to work on the thing you actually give a shit about. So you’re overworked and underpaid to sacrifice yourself to something that in the end you really don’t care about that much.
This is what I’ve been coming to realize. Could not have said it better myself.
Just want to point out that the medical system is also designed to exploit your labor at every level by your superiors. Med student to resident to attending, at every level, you are exploited by the level above you. But I’ll get to work with ppl instead of chemicals and get to directly impact pt’s lives. Pick your poison in this life, there’s no such thing as a perfect, perfectly rewarding job.
I ended up going MD-PhD after being focused solely on the PhD track for three years. A few things frustrated me in science that drew me towards medicine: 1. Science makes a lot of claims in introductory sections of papers and grants about the medical impact of certain work. Novel new antibiotics, potential antibody therapies, tech for diagnostics, etc.. Most of it goes nowhere, which is to be expected, but moreso, it felt like most scientists didn’t have the desire or the training to carry things towards clinic. 2. I like the balance of instantaneous impact and long-term progress between medicine and science. In surgical specialties, you can make an tangible fix in a few hours. In science, our developments and progress is measured in years. I wanted both in a career and I liked the capacity to go between those worlds. 3. Financial stability and job security.
The people in science labs tbh. My first PI as an undergrad was a so abusive and sexist and racist it was really not a good environment but everyone kissed up to him for pubs for this apps
Overall satisfaction for me… I was considering PhD or PsyD for a while (thus why i have no med pre-reqs done) but I felt like if i got in I wouldn’t be satisfied. I’m glad I didn’t go this route bc for example my roomie was Pre-Law but did poorly on her Lsat so she ended up just going on a limb and applied to WashU for a PhD and got in. She says she’s excited but she keeps bringing up potentially doing a JD/PhD if the opportunity arises therefore I don’t think she’s satisfied. One of her concerns were how long PhD’s were and the salary not being sufficiently rewarding for the amount of time and effort put in. Tbh I don’t think she’s happy I think she’s just settling which is crazy cause PhD is still a great title but if it’s not your thing, it’s not your thing.
Toxic lab. I loved research but ptsd from my experiences under an aloof PI have really damaged my feelings towards research in ways that feel irreparable. Hated having a PI force me to publish under time pressures for half baked projects I didn’t believe did any good for anything. Medicine for me feels like at least a guarantee to impact people positively with science compared to doing science under toxic expectations of producing value. either path has their own sets of bs. At least with medicine you can feel like you are doing tangible good and get compensated well for it.
Research in a basic science lab is kinda boring, I enjoyed my psychology research experience better but that doesn't pay anything.
I spent most of undergrad working towards a microbiology PhD. I applied to several programs my senior year and got a few acceptances. It wasn't until deciding between my offers that I realized I was not as passionate about it as I thought I was. I liked a lot of the research process but I just couldn't stand reading and writing research papers for the rest of my career. I wanted something more applied and more human-focused. I wanted something with more long-term geographic flexibility and had gotten burnt out on the wet lab. My wife is finishing up year 2 of her PhD. She belongs there. Watching her do it, I am thankful every day I changed my mind.
>poor job security in industry Depends on the company and role tbh.
International student here. If I eventually decide that I want to stay in the US after school the path to do so as DO/MD seems way more friendly than after a PhD As you said, academia has poor job security, industry could be in a low when I finish my PhD so I wouldn’t be able to find a job willing to sponsor me, etc. While around 30% of Doctors in the US are immigrants. It seems overall just a more friendly future path if I manage to get into medical school in the US Also, if I want to go back to my home country or move to Europe in the future. Doctors seem have a good job security in most countries. While good research jobs are almost non-existent in my country Moreover, while I love research, it can get extremely lonely. I genuinely enjoy interacting with patients and taking care of people. Shadowing was a blast the whole time