Effects of competitive research training funding on the careers of medical doctors

Only few laureates of a M2 degree were continuing with research activities. Although several factors are influencing the decision to engage significantly in research, as analysed by Amgad and colleagues (2015), some laureates might have done a M2 degree in research to fulfil the requirements of such a degree to pretend to senior tenure positions in a hospital department in France. A return to clinical activities between a Master 2 degree and a PhD in research was often observed, deemed by former laureates as important for clinical expertise and insured senior tenure positions. Even if the hindsight did not allow us to have the complete career paths, we observed a clear tendency for doctorate laureates to engage more in career paths involving research.

The career wishes as expressed by laureates were also presenting a clear shift after a PhD with more laureates reporting wishes to have research activities, albeit mostly together with clinical work. Interestingly, the fulfilment of those wishes was also increasing with the doctorate laureates having a career mostly in accordance to the expressed wishes.

The medical students of the contrafactual group were less likely to be involved in research later in their careers even though all of them did a PhD thesis funded by other means. This could be explained either by an attractiveness of the programme that successfully recruited or selected medical students interested in research or by features of the programme that allowed the laureates to perform well in research.

This study on medical students laureates of research trainings therefore indicates that engaging in a PhD thesis in research is more indicative of future research activities than a Master 2 degree. The scope of the programme has been reassessed upon this analysis to focus on PhD thesis grants.