MD/PhD Social Psych (Funding too)

[alizahawk]

Hi Everyone!
I'm not sure if/when this question has been asked but I am interested in pursuing an MD/PhD in social psych (or possibly psych, anthropology, sociology, or some other social science) and was wondering if any programs like that exist and how they are generally funded? (Do I get grants? take out loans? What will I end up paying for pending some specific scholarship?)

If you could provided sources/links with your answer that would be great.
If this question has already been answered, would you mind passing along the link as well?
Thanks!

P.S. I'm aware they have those combined programs at Harvard and UChicago but I still am not sure about funding and I'm not going to assume that I would be accepted to either of those places.

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[Therapist4Chnge]

I *highly* doubt you will find that kind of program, let alone a funded program. The Ph.D. portion of an M.D. / Ph.D. joint program is meant to develop full-time academic researchers. Period. Most M.D. / Ph.D. programs are restricted to certain areas that closely align with medical research (Ph.D. in cell biology, genetics, etc) because a program is investing hundreds of thousands of dollars into you so that you can stay or leave and be prestigious. Most of those programs "share" courses to lighten the class load for the Ph.D., as the person will need to still complete residency and fellowship before all is said and done.

I looked into quite a few M.D. / Ph.D. programs and they were *all* hard science related. Many of the places I looked I was warned by current/former students that you were guided to certain specialities and residencies, as joint programs don't want to "waste" their $ and training hours on someone who wants to work in PP in a small town. Some people may end up with an M.D. and then a Ph.D. in a humanity or softer area….but it won't be from a joint program because the investment is just too much to not develop a researcher who can bring in the $'s AMCs need to survive/thrive.

 

[AcronymAllergy]

Agreed with T4C--finding such a program is likely to be very difficult, given that (as T4C mentioned), they're 1) trying to train medical researchers in those programs, and 2) they usually aim to have some measure of class overlap so that much of the Ph.D. work is lab-related. Related to that latter point, the labs that med schools have available are likely to all be related to some type of medical/biological research. Thus, the odds of them even having a formal training situation setup with someone in the social sciences are pretty minimal. The closest I'd imagine you'd be able to get would be to find a program where they offer the Ph.D. in neurscience (definitely available), and hope that they have a faculty member who's researching the neuroscience aspect of some of the topics in which you're interested.