Moose,
If memory serves me correctly Big Al got is Big Nobel for his work on the
Photoelectric Effect.
Charlie MD but no PhD
PS Joel is correct regarding the Medical School MD/PhD programs. The people
in the program did their basic science work with the rest of us for the
first two years. They delayed their clinical years until they completed
their research then went back to conclude medical school. Quite a few gave
up, probably 50%. As for statistics, we all took a two month course in
statistics in the summer between 1st and 2nd years. It gave a good grounding
of the basics. My guess is that most researchers in a university setting
would make use of the services of a professional statistician.
On Mon, Jun 28, 2010 at 2:43 PM, Moose <olymoose@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On 6/28/2010 8:40 AM, John Hudson wrote:
> > I have a brother in law who read physics at Oxford, followed by a PhD in
> > nuclear physics and then graduated from London University in medicine.
> >
> > He once told me that there is no way on this earth could one do a
> worthwhile PhD concurrently with medicine .........I believe him.
> >
>
> This seems to me a bit disingenuous. There is essentially no overlap
> between nuclear physics and medicine, whereas there is a great deal of
> overlap between biology and medicine. I believe that is the reason the
> double degree programs exist, whilst there are none between other, far
> less related fields.
>
> > Isn't a PhD supposed to be a full time three or four year all-research
> based undertaking? Where would one fit in the rigors of a full time medical
> school education?
> >
>
> Now, time for the opposite side. I have a friend with a PhD in biology
> or maybe biochem who is a professional researcher. She says she and her
> like credentialed colleagues feel obligated to make fun of the limited
> research knowledge and skills of the combo degreed docs - even those who
> may competent researchers. A matter of professional pride, or some such.
>
> She would likely question this researcher's credentials from exactly the
> opposite direction, the shortage of practical research experience.
>
> Keeping in mind Chuck's links and latest post, who would you rather have
> researching the efficacy and safety of drugs you are going to take, an
> MD with great diagnostic skills and bedside manner, or perhaps a
> surgeon, neither with any training in statistics or epidemiology, or an
> expert in biological function, biochemistry, statistics and epidemiology?
>
> Drug research is a specialty field, the practice of which has not that
> much in common with the practice of medicine.
>
> > I suspect that there are a number of degree mills around.
> >
>
> Now that's just a cheap shot. I have no idea at all what this woman's
> credentials really are, much less her actual competence, but absent
> presentation of actual information about the source of her degrees, I
> don't think such a comment is either meaningful or proper.
>
> May I hear your credentials and some evidence for judging the degrees
> and competence of this person, other than the life experience expertise
> in cynicism to which you refer? Certainly, there are degree mills, but
> to imply that someone's degrees are from one without presenting evidence
> seems to me to smack of slander, even libel, as it was "published"
> publicly.
>
> Again, I know nothing about her, nor did I read the study. I simply
> distrust ad hominem attacks.
>
> Did you know, to use an extreme example, that most physicists were so
> outraged by certain aspects/implications of Einstein's Special Theory of
> Relativity that huge, vituperative fights broke out in the field,
> including personal attacks on Einstein (and each other) that ignored the
> theory itself?
>
> When I hear someone attacking the researcher, and not the research, I
> immediately wonder whether it's about their dislike of the results.
> Common enough among apparently real scientists who have an emotional
> and/or economic/career stake in the opposite view, and even more so
> among us simple folk. I have no idea whether that's why you went after
> her credentials, whether you may perhaps have a case of MD-idolatry, or
> some other reason.
>
> Ever wonder what happened to aether/ether, that invisible medium through
> which electromagnetic waves were thought to propagate? Ask the average,
> relatively well read non-physicist, and you will likely hear that it was
> disproved. Most contemporary physicists in the appropriate fields
> 'believe' it exists, because it makes their experimental and
> mathematical results work, but nobody uses that name or even discusses
> it in such a direct way, as an aftermath of the ugliness of the
> relativity wars. They are embarrassed by this incident and want to
> forget it.
>
> A part of the scandal is that Einstein didn't receive the Nobel Prize
> for his work on relativity, arguably one of the 2 or 3 greatest
> discoveries in the history of physics. He later got his Nobel for some
> lesser, more obscure work.
>
> Moose
> --
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