What is more work? A regular MD or the complete path to a PhD?

Just correcting myself. I said (years x hours per week) which so nonsense. Read that as (years x hours per year) or (weeks x hours per week).


Can't we compare apples with bananas? Bananas are sweeter and apples are easier to carry. In my opinion, bananas are good with milk, but apples make a better juice with water. And on and on....

 

I certainly don't mean to imply that academic life is stress free or devoid of competition. I really wouldn't know, in the first place, and in the second place, I have made it MY practice to be a public sector lawyer, thus accepting small pay but shorter hours than my (much) wealthier private practice bretheran. I have therefore avoided the ulcers AND the yacht.

But I do think that any student who cannot finally rise up and publically challenge his law professor, as I finally did, as many finally do, as happens at last in Paper Chase, probably should seek another line of work. Law is confrontational. It is not generally co operative. And, as Rumpole says, courage is the first requirement in an advocate.

 

Rats. I still can't spell. Sorry.

 

Law

Horace Rumpole of the Old Bailey - my favorite barrister. "She who must be obeyed" aka Mrs. Rumpole. John Mortimer is a great writer. Alas Leo McKern has passed into the Big Chambers in the sky.

 

What a good analogy Jack!

 

I am unable to compare, but I have an interesting info on that case.

If you live in Germany and are the holder of a foreign doctoral degree (USA for example) you need the authorisation to put the "Dr." in front of your name.

But only PhD holders are allowed to do that, professional degrees are explict excluded from this procedure. If you want to say it short: "No dissertation, no Dr."

All social prestige is linked to the "Dr.", so it is an indirect statement on

...without a Dr. in front of your name, you are not the real Doctor.

 

Both have Dr. in front of their name, so which is "real"???

 

Actually, a "doctor" was a straining device on Mississippi steamboats that removed leaves, wood chips, and other floating debris from river water to make it more or less fit to use as boiler feed.

Mark Twain tells us that it could get plugged if the watch fell asleep. The boiler would then run dry and explode, killing lots of people and burning the boat to its waterline.

Obviously, no other use of the term is legitimate.

 

...in the US. That was not what I'm talking about.

Technically you are awarded with a PhD or an MD.

Therefore you are only allowed to use Name, Ph.D. or Name, M.D.

If you want to use it like Dr. Name, you need an authorisation, if you have a professional doctorate degree, you won't get one, you need a PhD.

And even if you have one, if your university is not on the Carnegie-list, they check your degree, if it is bogus or not.

 

What country?

 

What I said, Germany.

 

Re: No contest... MD by far

"Elitist academics"? My how easily we jump to conclusions.

This one is impossible to answer. There are many MD's who could not have finished a PhD, and certainly many PhD's who would have imploded in MD or JD school.

I think it's fair to say that each requires a different skill set (and certainly there are many in both camps who have both skill sets). Med school, for example, requires an enormous amount of work under stressful conditions; however, there is not really a premium on original thought. Memorization and being able to think on your feet are important.

PhD research, of course, requires original contributions. That's what it's all about. Lest anyone think that doctoral work is stress free compared to professional school, I recommend Nassar's book, A Beautiful Mind. She captures quite well the kind of intellectual stresss present in a top math graduate department. (this was not touched on at all in the movie)

 

I almost hate to bring this up, but an MD is not actually a graduate degree. It is considered an undergraduate degree in most English-speaking countries. In Canada, to enter medical school, one requires to complete 2 years of undergradaute study and not necessarily a full bachelor's degree.

Since an MD can be earned in three years of medical school, one can become academically qualified to be a physician and surgeon in 5 years (i.e. 2+3). A typical engineer requires 4 or 5 years of engineering school (depending on the country) plus about 4-5 years of professional practice and some exams. So, I would say being an engineer and physician are comparable.

An engineer with a PhD requires significantly more school than a physician. BEng + MEng + PhD = 10 years of school.

 

Not in my United States, I have never heard this, maybe some do think this, but I have never hearad of it.

 

Han, technically-speaking, any degree that does not require an undergraduate degree for entrance is considered an undergraduate degree.

For example, in Canada, to gain entrance into an MD, LLB or OD (Doctor of Optometry) one requires 2 years of undergraduate work. Even if one holds a full undergraduate degree, since the requirement for entry into these programs is not an undergraduate degree, they are not considered graduate degrees. I know it sounds odd, but you will find this in the English-speaking world.

Again, technically speaking, an MSc is considered a "higher" degree than an MD or JD. People who hold MD's or JD's are not considered trained at the graduate level regardless of their "doctor" title.

 

It depends on the school. In Quebec, you are only required to have a CEGEP diploma but the fact is that getting into Med school without a bachelor's is almost next to impossible. The Medical profession is very lucrative in Canada and you have people with PhDs applying to Med schools. I know of many PhDs in medical science that can hardly survive with salaries of 40K a year while Medical doctors are in the 100K+ range. My sister is getting her doctorate in experimental medicine and she had tried few times to get into medical school without success. In terms of time, one can finish a PhD in Medicine in 8 years (Bachelors + PhD) while the MD also require at least 8 years (Bachelors + 4 years MD), but the MD folks get to work under very stress environments while PhDs work during regular hours without the risk of getting sued by a patient. MDs are more flexible, an MD can teach at the university level like the PhD but the PhD cannot work as an MD. At McGill University, One can earn a MD and a PhD at the same time with only one or two years of more effort.

 

Again, it depends on the School. In many universities you can do a PhD without getting a master's first. The other issue is that according to Professional Association of Engineers of Ontario, a PhD does not really add too much to an engineer's salary. The stats show than an Engineer with an MBA makes more (In average) than an engineer with a PhD. Engineers with master's make about the same than the ones with PhDs. PhD students normally go for this level of education because they love research rather than looking for better salaries. An MD on the other hand, can at least double ones salary, so the payoff is a lot more than a PhD

 

It seems that now a bachelor's is mandatory

http://www.med.mcgill.ca/admissions/mdcm.htm
http://www.library.utoronto.ca/medicine/educational_programs/admissinfo.html

 

Of course, in the U.S., the MD, DDS, PharmD, JD, etc. are considered first professional degrees, not research doctorates (although those who hold this degree, with the exception of the JD are usually referred to as "doctor").

The U.S. Department of Education website (referenced below)includes the following about the MD, JD, DVM, PharmD, DDS, MDiv, OD, DPM & DO: "It is also important to recognize that first-professional degrees in these fields are first degrees, not graduate research degrees. Several of the degree titles in this group of subjects...incorporate the term "Doctor," but they are not research doctorates and not equivalent to the Ph.D. Master's degrees and research doctorates in these fields of study are awarded, but they have different names and students enroll in those programs after having earned a first-professional degree."

http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ous/international/usnei/us/edlite-professional-studies.html

I would have used different wording, as I do not believe that the first professional doctorates are "lower" than the research doctorates--only different.

The link reference above contains information on the first professional doctorates, while the one below includes useful information on research doctorates, including a list of the degrees considered equivalent to a Ph.D.

http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ous/international/usnei/us/edlite-research-doctorate.html

Tony Pina
Faculty, Cal State U. San Bernardino