Advice on possible MD PhD in humanities

[marie909]

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So I’m a senior finishing up a semester early and applying this upcoming cycle. Im sitting on a 3.5 cgpa and 3.2 sgpa, but expect that then both to go up a bit by the conclusion of this semester. I have extensive ECs and leadership that involve me working in communities of color and with disadvantaged populations. Additionally, I have a minor in Africana Studies and am currently doing independent research and my professor believes that it could (knock on wood) lead to a publication . I really enjoy the research and my professor asked me if I ever considered getting an advanced degree in Africana Studies. It is something I have considered, but I don’t know much about MD/PhDs, especially in the humanities. I would probably do it in history with a concentration in Africana Studies. Does anyone have any advice for me? What schools could I look into? It’s a pretty niche area of study I think, so would that make my chances better, or worse? Any bit of information would help!

 

[eigen]

These programs exist, but they're a significant challenge.

The main difficulty is the length of the PhD program and how variable it is.

Many organized MD/PhD programs have relatively predictable times of the PhD portion of the degree. For example, where I did my PhD, while it was possible to do an MD/PhD in synthetic organic chemistry the school strongly recommended against it because the +/- 3 year variability in the PhD portion in that area, due to how dependent it was on whether things worked out or not with your project.

A lot of humanities programs have very long average time to degree (some closing in on 10 years, granted that's often including people working part-time as they start a faculty position ABD), and a high variability that makes it difficult to predict.

For MD/PhD programs where you do didactic years, then PhD, then back to clinicals, how long the PhD takes matters a lot. I do have a good friend that did a PhD in anthropology (granted, forensic anthro and he wanted to go the pathology route) and it was a lot more challenging for him than folks doing biology/biomedical sciences degrees.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

I agree and suggest you do the PhD at a different time independent of your medical training.