Are there MD/PhD programs for a PhD in medicinal chemistry or organic synthesis?

[jupiter78]

Hi guys,

so i'm a junior pre-med who has a huge interest in organic chemistry, especially its applications to drug design and drug interactions. I have always wanted to work in drug discovery/synthesis but I also loved the idea of becoming a doctor. I also never knew what it took to be a part of the pharmaceutical field until I got to university and took a medicinal chemistry course.

I still really want to be an medical doctor instead of getting a regular PhD in medicinal chemistry or another chemistry field but now i'm starting to wonder if I could study both in a MD/PhD program.

I have a 4.0 GPA and a few months of research experience in a biochemistry lab (which is I know is very little but I am taking a gap year to continue my research). I haven't taken the MCAT yet but i'm going to spend the whole summer to study for it.

Anyways, do any of you guys know if there are programs similar to what I am talking about? I am really uninformed on how MD/PhD programs work but I have read that some programs allow you to choose the field of your PhD as long as it has relevancy to biomedical science.

Would doing what i'm talking about even be feasible?

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[FFH]

You can pretty much do anything for phD at Yale for MDPhD. Right now there are two in applied math and one in statistics.

 

[Merely]

Become a pharmacist

 

[nimbus]

I have a friend who is a PhD in biophysics/X-ray crystallographer. He spent 5 years as a postdoc which is to say he trained for a very long time learning his craft. He headed a structural biology lab at Pfizer developing immunology, oncology, and diabetes drugs. We have completely different jobs. At some point you’ll have to decide what you want to do. An MD/PhD can be consistent with your goals but it’s definitely not the most efficient way to get into drug development.

 

[wholeheartedly]

@jupiter78 we have an MD/PhD forum on here you should check out.

 

[GoSpursGo]

@jupiter78 we have an MD/PhD forum on here you should check out.

In fact, moving to physician scientists.

 

[Principia]

Some MSTPs are more open to non-traditional PhD fields than others. I'm not sure about organic synthesis specifically, but my advice would be to peruse MSTP websites and see if any programs have current students doing a similar PhD OR if schools have students doing a lot of different PhDs (which would indicate a program that is open to non-traditional fields). I know that the MSTPs at Yale and Michigan are particularly open to non-traditional fields, so maybe start there. When you get closer to applying, you may also want to contact programs directly and ask.

 

[ClimbsRox]

Plenty of programs will allow you to do a PhD in a more chemistry related field. Look into places with strong chemistry departments that are doing medically relevant work.

 

[QofQuimica]

Become a pharmacist

Good suggestion.

OP, you need to think about what you want your future career to be. If you're interested in clinical applications of med chem, then pharmacy school (with or without a residency afterward) is probably your best bet. I'm a PhD-to-MD in organic chemistry (MS in med chem, PhD in pharmaceutical chem). If I could do it all again, I'd have forgone med school and done pharmacy instead. It's probably not impossible to do an MD/PhD in organic chem, but it's not the norm, and it's not going to be easy to find a niche for yourself if you intend to do chemistry research as a physician scientist. I'm now in addiction medicine, which does have some chemistry applications for drug testing, but it's more analytical chem as opposed to synthesis. There's definitely no need to be an MD/PhD to do drug testing work; you could get an analytical chem PhD and then do a fellowship in clinical chemistry if that's your interest.