Interview with Dr. Daniel Barron, MD/PhD, resident physician at Yale University and writer for Scientific American [Show Summary]

Dr. Daniel Barron is Chief Resident at Yale’s Neuroscience Research Training Program and Clinical Neuroscience Research Unit. In today’s episode he shares the various twists and turns in his med school education and career that helped him determine what he wanted to do. He also discusses his controversial article for Scientific American on where your med school tuition dollars really go.

Dr. Barron discusses his path to a career in neuroscience and shares his thoughts on the cost of medical education [Show Notes]

Our guest today is Dr. Daniel Barron. Dr. Barron grew up in Texas, and studied neuroscience and philosophy as an undergrad at UT. He then pursued his MD/PhD there. His research focuses on brain disease, and he is currently the Chief Resident at Yale’s Neuroscience Research Training Program and Clinical Neuroscience Research Unit.

Can you tell us about your background outside of medicine? Where you grew up? What do you like to do for fun? [2:00]

I grew up in many places, primarily in Texas, but also in Maryland and Utah, where I went to high school. I spent a lot of time in the countryside and really didn’t consider science until my sophomore year in high school. My biology teacher was a huge influence. I found the course really captivating and ended up doing well in it and then decided to pursue more science classes. As for what I like to do for fun, I have a two-year-old son and a hobby of mine is repairing old things. I recently fixed up an old sailboat, and we went on a sail yesterday. It was great.

You seem to have been attracted to neuroscience and been fairly directed all along in college. How did you select neuroscience and psychiatry? [4:35]

I remember my senior trip just after graduating high school, and I was reading a book that talked about a lot of neuroscience experiments. There was one in particular where monkeys would have nerves severed in their arms, but could eventually use their arms again. It was fascinating to me to know that by a matter of will these monkeys convinced neurons to grow. I was also interested in why people have the motivations, desires, and thoughts that they do. The first class I signed up for in college was neuroscience. It was taught by Michael Brown and was the hardest class I had ever taken. It was really difficult, but also really interesting. My first exam I got a low C which wasn’t very promising. I went to talk to him about it, and he gave me in retrospect some good therapy and then I went back at it. I started doing neuroscience research at the same time and really enjoyed it.

The decision to go into psychiatry wasn’t until my fourth year. I initially thought epilepsy was fascinating – seizure disorders, changes in consciousness, and looking for brain damage in epilepsy. I also thought I would go into neurosurgery when I studied in Bologna, and after observing I went all the way through to surgical intervention. I decided the lifestyle of a neurosurgeon wasn’t something I could endure. With psychiatry what I enjoyed in my rotation was a lot of exposure to patients whose world view was changed by treating specific symptoms in their cognition.

What was the hardest part of the med school and residency application process for you? [9:31]

I remember one conversation in particular with a guidance counselor in undergrad. I had real interest in research but also in intera...