How to Become a Medical Research Scientist as a Premed
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Introduction
There are many reasons you might want to pursue a medical degree, from helping underserved communities to making new discoveries. If you’re interested in research, medical school may be just the first stop in a lifelong commitment to learning and discovering new things. While there is currently a serious shortage of research MDs, the field remains highly competitive and demanding.
Yet, if you’re looking to make a difference in the global medical community, a career in medical research can be an excellent path. This is exemplified by the fact that more than 50% of the Nobel prizes in physiology and medicine have been awarded to physicians engaged in science. Research-bound doctors have their work cut out for them, but their dedication often results not only in better healthcare for millions, but also in professional prestige.
This guide covers everything you need to know about starting your professional career as a medical researcher. We’ll go over the main job titles available for medical research and the expected pay. Most importantly, we’ll discuss where and how to be hired in a role that puts you in the best position to research new and exciting medical advancements.
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Part 1: What do medical researchers do?
The role of a medical researcher is versatile. Medical researchers are employed in a wide variety of industries and often communicate with specialists in other fields, many of whom have little to no medical knowledge.
As a medical researcher, you may start your day with an 8am lecture, followed by a day of lab work. Or, you may be working on a report to present at a board meeting for your company. Or you might be working with a specific group of patients as you search for a new medical treatment that will help afflicted people. What your day-to-day looks like as a career medical researcher depends on what specific type of researcher you become.
The field is typically split between primary and secondary medical research. Primary medical research is largely what people imagine when they think of the field: clinical trials, epidemiological research, and basic lab experimentation. The AAMC recognizes two distinct career paths within the field of primary medical research: physician-scientist and biomedical scientist. These careers support a broad spectrum of roles, each with varying levels of research time allotted.
What is a physician-scientist?
The AAMC defines physician-scientists as physicians who “devote regular components of their professional effort seeking new knowledge about health, disease, or delivery of patient care through research.” Your exact schedule will look different depending on where you’re conducting your research, but most physician-scientists split their time between lab work, seeing patients, and educating others.
The growing demand for family practitioners, emergency surgeons, and specialty physicians made it necessary to distinguish between clinical doctors and research doctors.
As a physician-scientist, you’d likely spend the majority of your time on research. For instance, more than half of MD-PhD graduates (a common background among physician-scientists) spend over 50% of their time conducting research. Most physician-scientists are involved in clinical trials, epidemiology, and health services research. This is due to their convenient, long-term exposure to a regular patient clientele, be it students at a university, community members who are underprivileged, or a specific demographic such as children, people of color, or seniors.
Secondly, you’ll be expected to share your knowledge with others. Again, this largely depends on where you decide to work, but you will need to have strong communication and leadership skills as a physician-scientist. Most roles will have you filling your non-research time with teaching premeds, discussing illnesses and treatments in layman’s terms with patients, and writing reports for grant funding or to showcase new information. You’ll often be paired with less experienced team members who will look to you for guidance, or with MD peers whose specialty is different from your own, which presents its own set of challenges during months or years of research.
If the idea of balancing a variety of responsibilities and working towards solutions for specific patients is enticing, then you very well may want to pursue a career as a physician-scientist.
What is a biomedical scientist?
According to the AAMC, “Biomedical scientists bridge the gap between the basic sciences and medicine.” Biomedical scientists are asked to wear a lot of hats but, unlike physician-scientists, they don’t often have to manage multiple roles simultaneously. That said, biomedical scientists are expected to be strong leaders and essential team members just the same.
Research is by far the most important part of the job. Biomedical scientists are essentially running entire labs. In this role, you would be expected to maintain supplies and equipment, delegate sample analysis to other scientists on your team, test biological samples in a timely manner, accurately report and share findings, and everything else that comes with managing a medical research lab.
Ultimately, the main goal of biomedical scientists is to develop medical knowledge. It would be up to you to decide whether that means teaching prospective researchers new and improved techniques, developing new medical treatments, or designing innovative medical tech tools and functions. Regardless of how you choose to work, as a biomedical scientist you would work in one of three specific fields: infection sciences, blood sciences, or cellular sciences. These three subsets of biomedical research investigate most medical mysteries, from virology to reproduction.
Life as a biomedical scientist means working behind the scenes to accomplish some of our most important medical advancements. Biomedical scientists sit at the forefront of medicine, developing treatments that most people won’t hear about until it cures their illness or saves their life.
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Part 2: What types of medical research careers are available?
You may be wondering how nebulous your job search will be given the variance in opportunities. Fortunately, the broad range of opportunities simply means that you can often hyper-focus on what’s most important to you.
Despite being a competitive field, the Bureau of Labor Statistics paints a promising picture for prospective researchers. Medical science jobs offer a median pay of $95,310 as of 2021. Keep in mind that this average includes people who are not MDs. If you graduate with an MD or DO you would make significantly more than the average. Even when considering non-MD roles, medical science is ranked as the 6th highest paid career in the BLS “Life, Physical, and Social Science Occupations” category. The number of jobs is expected to grow by 17% over the next 10 years, which is much faster than the national average for all occupations.
Recall that medical research typically falls into one of three main fields: laboratorial, clinical, and epidemiological work. Generally speaking, laboratory research scientists analyze diseases and their treatments, working to improve existing methods or to create new ones. Clinical researchers test new and established forms of treatment with participating patients, determining what works, why it works, and how they can replicate the results under varying conditions. Epidemiologists place their attention on whole populations to investigate the cause and distribution of diseases such as cancer or the flu.
Most medical researchers work in academia, industrial medicine (also called contract research organizations or CROs), or a governmental department, where all three fields of medical research are needed. Medical industries, such as pharmaceuticals, invest the most in R&D by far. In 2018, industry spending totaled $129.5 billion in medical and health R&D, 66.7% of all medical and health R&D for the U.S.. Federal agencies invested $43 billion (22.2%), although state and local governments spent just $2.1 billion (1.1%). Academic research facilities accounted for $15.7 billion (8.1%) of R&D investment in 2018. While the U.S. is the biggest spender as far as medical research goes, the global medical R&D spending sits at around $240 billion every year.
Top research employers
According to the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), the largest public research body in Spain, these are the world’s top 10 medical research facilities:
| Facility Name | ||
| National Institutes of Health | ||
| Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique CNRS | ||
| Max Planck Gesellschaft | ||
| Chinese Academy of Science CAS / 中国科学院 | ||
| Centers for Disease Control and Prevention | ||
| US Department of Veterans Affairs | ||
| Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas CSIC | ||
| Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization | ||
| INSERM (Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale) | ||
| University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center |
As you can see, biomedical research opportunities can be found all over the world, they’re mostly funded by governments, and many of the top facilities are in the United States. The research labs at Harvard and Stanford are often mentioned alongside these top performers as well, though it’s difficult for these academic institutions to compete with facilities whose singular focus is scientific research.
This ranked list also doesn’t paint the full picture of available jobs. Naturally, not everyone will be in a top research facility, but there are a number of large, private, for-profit players in the medical research field. Although ranking for-profit research companies can be subjective, we’ve compiled a list of some of the top-performing medical research companies (in no particular order):
| Company Name | ||
| Pharmaceutical Product Development (PPD) | ||
| KCR | ||
| ICON | ||
| IQVIA | ||
| Parexel | ||
| MedPace | ||
| Syneos Health | ||
| Labcorp | ||
| CTI | ||
| PSI |
All of these companies have labs in multiple locations across the globe, so it’s easy to enter a role where you’re able to do research that suits your lifestyle and long-term career goals.
Common medical research career terminology
When searching for jobs, a wide variety of terms are used, mostly because research scientists can serve a lot of different roles. For instance, some companies hire graduates with an MD or PhD to sell biomedical research to investors. In such a career, your expertise would influence the flow of millions of dollars every year. Usually a job title of “research scientist” doesn’t require you to be a doctor of any kind, MD or PhD, so searching for positions that will use all of your skills (and pay you for them) can be a unique challenge. Here are some of the most common titles you’ll find for medical research jobs:
Modeler - Typically refers to PBPK/PBBM modeling. PBPK is “Pharmacokinetics” and describes the absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion of a compound. PBBM is “physiologically based biopharmaceutics modeling” and is used during the development of a generic drug to create a bioequivalent formula. This career closely ties digital simulation, chemistry, and biomedical engineering.
Imaging Specialist/Scientist - Typically involves working with MRI and MRSI technology to either improve said tech or use it to investigate internal medical conditions, through tasks such as recording cancer growth or gathering data during various stages of reproduction.
Post-Doctoral Scientist - These positions often come with a subtitle indicating a specialty. Depending on the specialty, you may only need a PhD, though many open positions require extensive experience in biomedical labs or even patient-forward experience, regardless of which doctoral degrees they list as required.
Staff/Senior Scientist II - This cryptic title is another that is often followed by a specialty subtitle. Be aware that “staff scientist” and “research scientist” may be similar terms but will ultimately underutilize your education and pay a much lower salary compared to Staff Scientist II. (Note: “Scientist 3” is a common, more advanced position, though that role typically doesn’t require an MD and focuses more on non-research tasks, such as grant writing and pharmaceutical sales.)
Faculty Position - This role includes things like editors for magazines/websites, research professors, etc. This is a fairly broad term used to describe many roles at educational institutions and you’ll normally see it listed with a modifier indicating a specialty, tenure opportunities (“tenured” or “not tenured”), or the industry (“medical journalist”, “pharmaceutical board”, etc). This is a great goal to have, as most applicants are expected to have 5-10 years of work experience before they will be considered for faculty positions.
Investigator - Typically tied to a modifier, such as “principal” or a medical specialty, this is a role where you would be proposing and leading new research. While the scope and general direction of your research is dictated by your employer, as a medical research investigator you’d be expected to evaluate study participants, analyze results, write grant proposals to continue receiving funding, and everything else that comes with running a research project.
Program/Assistant Director - This position is essentially the next step after a career as a medical research investigator, though it’s certainly not for everyone. This role looks at the big picture of a research lab, doing less hands-on work while instead supporting subordinate scientists with whatever tasks they need help with and handling most, if not all, of the paperwork side of medical research. Program directors are also often asked to speak as an authority to board members, at conferences, and sometimes during press releases. Depending on the size of the facility, there may be multiple experts needed to handle everything, hence the “assistant” prefix sometimes seen.
Research Fellow - This role often has a specialty tied to it which determines whether you need just a PhD or a full MD for the role. For example, “Research Fellow - Neuroscience & Regeneration” requires an MD, but “Research Fellow - Medicinal Chemist/Organic Chemist/Radiochemist” only requires a PhD. The difference here is that the former is much more focused on advanced human biology and clinical treatments, whereas the latter will mostly involve advanced chemistry in relation to medicine.
While this list is not exhaustive, using this information will make it easier to search for specific jobs you may be interested in and that more closely match your background to the qualifications employers are looking for. Job boards like New Scientist Jobs, BioSpace, Clinical Research Crossing, and even Indeed are good places to get started. If you’re looking to work with a specific company or in a certain city, you should also visit the “careers” section of research facility websites to see what open positions are available.
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Part 3: How do you become a Medical Researcher?
Whether you’re more interested in biomedical scientific research or are leaning towards a career as a physician scientist, you have your work cut out for you. You’ll need to earn degrees, gain hands-on experience, post-doctoral training, and in some cases additional certifications—and that’s just to become qualified! If you want to be competitive in highly sought-after positions, you’ll need to do all of this better than your competition.
Education
First, you’ll need to complete the typical MD/DO path—premed studies, followed by med school. You should spend your undergraduate years gaining additional knowledge regarding technical writing and statistics, both of which are required for most premed paths and will be heavily utilized throughout your career.
Secondly, the most competitive medical research scientists have an additional PhD that makes them an expert in some specific aspect of their work. For example, a researcher that specializes in oncology might also have a PhD in genetics if they want to mainly perform investigative research. The AAMC has a ton of resources for medical students to complete an MD/PhD training program, which would allow for a strong resume immediately upon graduation.
Alternatively, the AAMC also offers training for physician scientists that does not necessarily require a PhD, though it is recommended.
Experience
Most of the research experience employers expect should be completed over the course of your time as a medical student. You’ll need experience working and leading in a research facility. If you’re looking to be a physician-scientist, you should also work with patients directly, either through shadowing a doctor or working as an entry level medical professional, such as a scribe or assistant. For biomedical science researchers, taking any opportunities to teach will go far—you’ll be expected to guide, assist, and teach subordinates in your lab, as well as discuss complex concepts to board members who won’t always have a medical background.
Certifications and licensure
Professional certifications - Having additional, specific knowledge looks fantastic on a resume and actually does help prepare you for your career better than simply applying after completing your degree requirements. Some med schools offer certifications that employers seek, such as Yale’s Certificate in Leadership and Research Management for Physician Scientists, which is designed to be completed alongside their MD-PhD program.
State licensure - If you live in California, Hawaii, Florida, New York, North Dakota, Tennessee, Louisiana, Nevada, West Virginia, Montana, Georgia, or Puerto Rico, you will need to be licensed in order to work in a clinical research lab. There are some exceptions, but ultimately you will need to be licensed to work in any of these states. Your medical education might not be aligned with each state’s requirements, but you can see a full list of the licensing bodies on the The American Society for Clinical Laboratory Science website, here.
Equipment certifications As you begin and continue a career in medical research, technology and lab regulations will change. There are a number of certifications available that can show employers that you are staying on top of new developments and know how to use new devices and equipment. For instance, a current popular certification is the Molecular Diagnostics Technologist (MDT), which simply reviews biochemical information and, more importantly, the most up-to-date lab procedures. While you aren’t likely to need this type of certification right after graduation, it’s important to stay abreast of what’s available so that you don’t fall behind your colleagues 10 or 20 years into your career.
Facility certifications Even if you aren’t planning on running your own lab, it’s a good idea to familiarize yourself with Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA), a regulatory certification issued by the Center of Medicare and Medicaid Services. There are a number of certifications labs test for, each dependent on what kind of clinical research is being performed. Only New York and Washington do not need to comply with CLIA, as they have their own independent State Agencies to regulate clinical research labs.
Connections
Networking is one of the most important things you can do to begin a career in medical research. Currently, the industry is rife with established professionals and few fresh faces, meaning that the gap between professionals and graduates is causing a shortage of biomedical researchers.
In order to combat this issue, the AAMC created GREAT, The Group on Research, Education, and Training. This group, “provides professional development to, and fosters the exchange of information and ideas among the faculty and administrative leaders of biomedical PhD, MD-PhD, and postdoctoral programs.”
There are other valuable networking opportunities available to help you as you work towards becoming a research scientist. For instance, the Society of Clinical Research Associates (SOCRA) aims to provide “education, certification, and networking opportunities to all persons involved in clinical research activities.” Be sure to speak with your medical school dean to get networking information specific to your region. Additionally, you should ask any professionals you’re working with about connections or memberships that they find especially valuable and would be willing to help you grow your network.
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Part 4: Which schools are best for medical research careers?
Unfortunately, there isn’t clear data on where graduates end up practicing what they learned in med school. However, US News & World Report releases annual rankings for colleges and universities in a number of categories, including research. Attending one of these schools will give you access to top of the line facilities, innovative research projects, and a strong network of like-minded peers and advisors. Here are the top 20 med schools for research:
Final thoughts
Just like with the premed path and med school admissions, choosing a career in biomedical research takes serious planning. With a clear goal in mind and the information in this guide, you can head right back into a lab after graduation for a lifetime of discovery!
About the Author
Dr. Shirag Shemmassian is the Founder of Shemmassian Academic Consulting and one of the world's foremost experts on medical school admissions. For nearly 20 years, he and his team have helped thousands of students get into medical school using his exclusive approach.
