You are here

Pre-Health Advising Navigation

Pre-Health Advising

Physician-Scientist (MD-PhD) Programs

An MD-PhD program is a dual-degree program for students who want to blend research with clinical medicine throughout their careers. MD-PhD training efficiently integrates the scientific and medical education of the physician-scientist.

MD-PhD Career Path

The career of a physician-scientist is unique. There are few comparable careers that allow one to experience the passion of solving a patient's medical struggles while pursuing research that may define the mechanism of that patient’s disease and may ultimately translate into a clinical cure for the disease. A MD-PhD physician-scientist is typically a faculty member at an academic medical center who spends 70-80 percent of their time conducting research, though this can vary with specialty. Their research may be lab-based, translational, or clinical. The remaining time is often divided between clinical service, teaching, and administrative activities.

Thus, most MD-PhD graduates pursue a career where most of their time is spent on research. MD-PhD trainees are research scientists who solve mechanisms underlying disease, combined with their passion to treat patients in a clinical setting.

MD-PhD Education and Training

While medical school focuses on the learning and application of existing knowledge, graduate school emphasizes the discovery of new knowledge. MD-PhD programs are a unique combination of both with specialized courses designed to prepare aspiring physician-scientists. In these programs, the medical school and graduate school curricula are streamlined and integrated, reducing the total training time for each degree—MD usually takes 4 years, while a PhD often takes 5-6 years.

There are over 100 competitive MD-PhD Programs in the US. Most MD-PhD programs support trainees with a stipend and tuition scholarship during medical school and graduate school training.

Additional Resources