DMD/PhD DMD/MS programs how to prepare while in undergrad?

[RedPill1785]

Does anyone have any experiences with DMD/MS or DMD/PhD programs? In particular, I'm interesting in dental academia. Ideally, I would like to practice as an associate while remaining on faculty and doing research for most of the time.

Is getting a position in dental faculty difficult? Is it becoming more difficult with decreased funding for researchers? In particular, I have an interest in tissue engineering, regenerative medicine, craniofacial biology, biotechnologies and genetics.

How can I prepare for a DMD/MS or DMD/PhD program? Is a PhD really required for the level of involvement I want? Even looking at Harvard and Columbia faculty, most of them are DMD/MS. Most programs I look at have 5 year combined programs. This sounds like something I would want to look into.

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[K31]

If you have a professional degree (MD or DDS/DMD), a PhD is never **required**. However, the dedicated research training you recieve in a PhD can definitely be valuable for establishing a research program.

Whether a PhD would be beneficial to your career goals depends on what those goals are. Speaking from an MD/PhD perspective, a PhD is probably not worth it if you want to be teaching faculty +/- some component of clinical or translational research. However, if you want the main focus of your career to be lab-based research with some clinical responsibilities, a combined degree program may be valuable to you.