Medical Scientists

Summary

Medical scientists conduct research with the goal of improving overall human health.

Quick Facts: Medical Scientists
2010 Median Pay	$76,700 per year $36.87 per hour
Entry-Level Education	Doctoral or professional degree
Work Experience in a Related Occupation	None
On-the-job Training	None
Number of Jobs, 2010	100,000
Job Outlook, 2010-20	36% (Much faster than average)
Employment Change, 2010-20	36,400

What Medical Scientists Do

Medical scientists conduct research aimed at improving overall human health. They often use clinical trials and other investigative methods to reach their findings.

Work Environment

Medical scientists work in offices and laboratories. Most work full time.

How to Become a Medical Scientist

Medical scientists typically need a Ph.D., usually in biology or a related life science, from an accredited postsecondary institution. Some also have a medical degree.

Pay

The median annual wage of medical scientists except epidemiologists was $76,700 in May 2010.

Job Outlook

Employment of medical scientists is expected to increase by 36 percent between 2010 and 2020, much faster than the average for all occupations.

Similar Occupations

Compare the job duties, education, job growth, and pay of medical scientists with similar occupations.

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Contacts for More Information

Learn more about medical scientists by contacting these additional resources.

What Medical Scientists Do About this section

Medical scientists plan and direct studies to investigate human diseases, and methods to prevent and treat them.

Medical scientists conduct research aimed at improving overall human health. They often use clinical trials and other investigative methods to reach their findings.

Duties

Medical scientists typically do the following:

• Plan and direct studies to investigate human diseases, preventive methods, and the treatment of disease
• Develop methods, instruments, and procedures for medical applications and data analysis
• Prepare and analyze medical samples to identify toxicity, bacteria, or microorganisms or to study cell structure
• Standardize drug doses and immunization methods for manufacturing drugs and other medicinal compounds
• Work with health departments, industry personnel, and physicians to develop programs that improve health safety standards
• Prepare research grant proposals to get funding from government agencies
• Follow safety procedures to avoid contamination

Many medical scientists, especially in universities, work with little supervision, forming their own hypotheses and developing experiments accordingly. In addition, they often lead teams, technicians, and, sometimes, students who do support tasks. For example, a medical scientist working in a university laboratory may have undergraduate assistants take measurements and observations for the scientist’s research.

Medical scientists study biological systems to understand the causes of diseases and other health problems. For example, medical scientists who do cancer research might put together a combination of drugs that could slow the progress of the disease. They would then study that combination in a clinical trial. Physicians may work with the medical scientists to try the new combination with patients who are willing to participate in the study.

In a clinical trial, patients agree to help find out if a particular drug, or combination of drugs, or other medical intervention works. Without knowing which group they are in, patients in a drug-related clinical trial either receive the trial drug or receive a placebo, a drug that looks like the trial drug but does not have the special ingredients.

Medical scientists analyze the data from all the patients in the clinical trial to see if the trial drug did better than the placebo, for whom it worked better, and to answer other research questions. They then write up and report their findings.

Medical scientists do research both to develop new treatments and to try to prevent health problems. For example, they may study the link between smoking and lung cancer or between alcoholism and liver disease.

Medical scientists who work in private industry usually have less freedom to choose their research topics. Although they may not have the pressure of writing grant proposals to get money for their research, they may have to explain their research plans to nonscientist managers or executives.

Many medical scientists work in the federal government, in research universities, or in private industry.

In the federal government, medical scientists conduct research on human diseases and on exploratory methods of solving medical problems. They spend most of their time carrying out clinical trials or developing experiments on nonhuman subjects. Medical scientists eventually present their findings in medical journals or other publications.

In universities, medical scientists do research and investigate new medicinal methods of improving health. They also write grants, to organizations such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF), to secure steady funding for their research.

In addition to doing research, medical scientists in universities and in government who are also medical doctors may see patients, particularly those participating in clinical trials.  

In private industry, medical scientists focus on the development of products such as pharmaceutical drugs and medical instruments. Companies place strong emphasis on the development of products, a process that they hope will culminate with approval from a government agency, often the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The approval process can take several years and be very costly, so private companies typically emphasize development over research.

Work Environment About this section

Medical scientists work in offices and laboratories.

Medical scientists held about 100,000 jobs in 2010. The industries employing the largest numbers of medical scientists in 2010 were as follows:

Medical scientists usually work in offices and laboratories. They spend most of their time studying data and reports in an office or laboratory. Medical scientists sometimes work with inherently unsafe samples, but they take appropriate precautions to ensure that their environment is safe, stable, and sterile.

Most medical scientists work full time.

How to Become a Medical Scientist About this section

Most medical scientists have a Ph.D. in biology or a related life science.

Medical scientists typically need a Ph.D., usually in biology or a related life science, from an accredited postsecondary institution. Some medical scientists get a medical degree instead of a Ph.D. but prefer doing research to practicing as a physician. It is helpful for medical scientists to have both a Ph.D. and a medical degree.

Education

Students planning careers as medical scientists should pursue a bachelor's degree in a biological science. Undergraduate programs typically include courses in life sciences, as well as chemistry, physics, and mathematics. Humanities courses also are beneficial for developing writing and communication skills, which are necessary for drafting grant proposals and publishing research results.

After students have completed undergraduate studies, there are two main degree paths for prospective medical scientists: either a Ph.D. or a joint M.D.-Ph.D. Students can enroll in a university Ph.D. program in the biological sciences, which typically take about 6 years of study. Ph.D. students specialize in one particular field, such as genetics, pathology, or bioinformatics. For a joint M.D.-Ph.D. program, students enroll at a medical college that typically takes 7 to 8 years of study. Students learn both the clinical skills needed to be a physician and the research skills needed to be a scientist.

Graduate programs place additional emphasis on laboratory work and original research. These programs offer prospective medical scientists the opportunity to develop their experiments and, sometimes, to supervise undergraduates. A Ph.D. culminates in a thesis, which the candidate presents before a committee of professors.

Those who go to medical school spend most of the first 2 years in labs and classrooms, taking courses such as anatomy, biochemistry, physiology, pharmacology, psychology, microbiology, pathology, medical ethics, and medical law. They also learn to take medical histories, examine patients, and diagnose illnesses. For more information, see the profile on physicians and surgeons.

Medical scientists often continue their education with postdoctoral work at universities or with federal agencies, such as the National Institutes of Health. Postdoctoral work provides valuable lab experience, including in specific processes and techniques such as gene splicing, which is transferable to other research projects. In some institutions, the postdoctoral position leads to a permanent job.

Licenses

Medical scientists who administer drug or gene therapy to human patients, or who otherwise interact medically with patients—drawing blood, excising tissue, or performing other invasive procedures—must be licensed physicians. To be licensed, physicians must graduate from an accredited medical school, pass a licensing examination, and complete 1 to 7 years of graduate medical education.

Important Qualities

Communication skills. Communication is critical because medical scientists must be able to explain their conclusions. Also, communication skills are important when medical scientists write grant proposals, which are often required to continue their research.

Critical-thinking skills. Medical scientists must use their expertise to determine the best method for solving a specific research question.

Data-analysis skills. Medical scientists use statistical techniques so that they can properly quantify and analyze health research questions.

Decision-making skills. Medical scientists must use their expertise and experience to determine what research questions to ask, how best to investigate the questions, and what data to will best answer the questions. 

Observation skills. Medical scientists conduct experiments that require precise observation of samples and other health data. Any mistake could lead to inconclusive results.

Pay About this section

The median annual wage of medical scientists was $76,700 in May 2010. The median wage is the wage at which half the workers in an occupation earned that amount and half earned less. The lowest 10 percent earned less than $41,560, and the top 10 percent earned more than $142,800.

Median annual wages in the industries employing the largest numbers of medical scientists in May 2010 were as follows:

Most medical scientists work full time.

Job Outlook About this section

Employment of medical scientists is expected to increase by 36 percent between 2010 and 2020, much faster than the average for all occupations.

Ongoing medical research, as well as an increased reliance on pharmaceuticals, will likely maintain current levels of demand for medical scientists. A growing and aging population also is expected to increase demand for these scientists.

Most employment growth for medical scientists over the next 10 years will likely be in private industry. Demand has increased because medical scientists’ expertise is needed in developing prescription drugs and other biomedical tools. Pharmaceutical companies and other firms whose work is not just in biotechnology have adopted biotechnology techniques in their other work, thus creating employment for medical scientists.

Employment also should grow as a result of an expected expansion in research related to illnesses such as AIDS, Alzheimer’s disease, and cancer. Treatment problems, such as antibiotic resistance, also should spur growth. Moreover, environmental conditions, such as overcrowding and the increasing frequency of international travel, will spread existing diseases and give rise to new ones. Medical scientists will continue to be needed because they contribute to the development of treatments and medicines that improve human health.

The federal government is a major source of funding for medical research. Large budget increases at the National Institutes of Health in the early part of the decade led to increases in federal basic research and development spending, with research grants growing both in number and dollar amount. However, the increase in spending slowed substantially in recent years. Going forward, the level of federal funding will continue to impact competition for winning and renewing research grants.

Contacts for More Information About this section

For more information about medical scientists, including careers and schools offering education in medical science, visit

American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

For more information about medical science career requirements in the federal government and for information about the grant application process, visit

National Institutes of Health