This isn’t possible. No DO program is going to give you 5-7 years between 2nd/3rd year where you aren’t doing the PhD in house or within an already established pathway of doing so.
AZCOM allows this. Someone did it recently and matched neurosurgery at pcom
They allowed someone to take a completely unrelated 5-7 years for a PhD that wasn't part of AZCOM or through a linkage somewhere?
They did let him do an unrelated Phd. If you look at AZCOM policies, they allow this. He just graduated then
I thought there was a COCA rule that says you have to graduate within 6 years of matriculation.
I would say that a PhD is a waste of time, especially if you’re just doing it to match a fellowship. If you want to be an academic surgeon then go to a surgery program that affords research years. Some of those places will even let you complete a PhD. Obviously academic surgery residencies are difficult for a DO to match, but a decent number do it every year.
Yep. The exception being an official linked program.
Because those sabbaticals typically happen either enfolded in residency or fellowship, or in medical school in a combined program (some people get a PhD before applying to medical school but that number is very small).
To be blunt, if there is no research in this field available in ANY surgical program then it’s likely not relevant to the practice or development of surgery and your friend would be better off simply pursuing the PhD only.
Would it be possible to do locum work as a gen surge while pursuing a PhD or are there any retraining programs prior to starting the fellowship?
Technically ya sure. But why would you do this.
No. And fellowships will not take someone who has been out of clinical practice that long.
But again, why? I fail to see any sort of benefit of this. The only relatively similar concept would be like Harvard’s MSTP program, which is a combined and structured pathway.
