Graduation

[kassie]

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How does your school do the MSTP graduation?

Our school currently only lists "PhD (University) Year" in the program along with the BS degree and College that everyone gets. This has no distinction from others who got a PhD at some other time other than good detective work noticing that it was 1-2 years ago.

When you finish medical school, is there anything special for MSTPs either in the program or during the graduation ceremony? If so, what do they do?

Thanks!

 

[b&ierstiefel]

I'm not really sure but here's what I know so far...

A subset of medical students in the class, including all the graduating MSTP students, will be awarded the status of "graduating with distinction in research." We get to wear an extra special tassel or something. I don't think the MSTPs get any further recognition apart from that.

I'll let you know after June 2nd. That's the day of med school graduation here at Michigan.

 

[alhkim]

Here at Drexel, we have been talking with administration for a long while about how graduation for MD/PhDs should proceed. This is how our school does it--our ceremony is separate from the undergrad students, but our graduate school is actually run by the medical school (technically, the grad school for biomedical sciences is a subset of the college of medicine), so we walk with them. We go up with the other grad students to receive our PhD diploma and hood, then we sit down, take off our PhD hood, then walk later with the med students to receive our MD hood. Our names are read twice, and both times, we are announced as MD/PhD graduates. The program lists with an asterisk that we are MD/PhD graduates also. The MD/PhD students are more or less broken up, since we don't sit next to each other (we initially sit alphabetically with the other PhD graduates).

We were in favor of going up only once, receiving a dual-colored hood (which must be specially ordered). We would walk as a separate group also.

Would be also interested to hear how other schools hood MD/PhD graduates...

 

[BDavis]

How does your school do the MSTP graduation?

Our school currently only lists "PhD (University) Year" in the program along with the BS degree and College that everyone gets. This has no distinction from others who got a PhD at some other time other than good detective work noticing that it was 1-2 years ago.

When you finish medical school, is there anything special for MSTPs either in the program or during the graduation ceremony? If so, what do they do?

Thanks!

At Baylor, you get the PhD first and then the MD in successive years. There is no additional distinction during the ceremony. Our grades and degrees are treated as separate. We even have separate transcripts; 1 from the graduate school and 1 from the medical school. You are sort of like the bastard child of both schools. The biggest clue is you have a population of "graduate students" in which there is a 7-10 year period between their undergraduate degree and Ph.D. (which is 2 years for MD and 5-8 years for the PhD). The printed program may have some blurb about it and the MSTP has an independent special social event.

 

[GeneGoddess]

There is a separate MD and PhD graduation ceremony. (PhD is generally a few weeks earlier). The MD graduation program lists "PhD" in the list along with BS, etc and residency location. They don't even list the years of the degrees. Very subtle. We don't get anything special at the MD graduation ceremony, but we can wear out PhD hoods (and I damn well plan to). We wear the PhD hood in the processional, take it off before we cross the stage, carry it across the stage over our arm, and are then hooded with the MD hood. During the recessional, we carry the PhD hood over our arm.

The MD/PhD program also has an annual graduation party and we are presented with long whitecoats with our names embroidered on them (followed by MD, PhD).

OH, and I'm sewing my own dual degree hood (blue AND green velvet).

 

[alhkim]

What school are you from GeneGoddess?

There is a separate MD and PhD graduation ceremony. (PhD is generally a few weeks earlier). The MD graduation program lists "PhD" in the list along with BS, etc and residency location. They don't even list the years of the degrees. Very subtle. We don't get anything special at the MD graduation ceremony, but we can wear out PhD hoods (and I damn well plan to). We wear the PhD hood in the processional, take it off before we cross the stage, carry it across the stage over our arm, and are then hooded with the MD hood. During the recessional, we carry the PhD hood over our arm.

The MD/PhD program also has an annual graduation party and we are presented with long whitecoats with our names embroidered on them (followed by MD, PhD).

OH, and I'm sewing my own dual degree hood (blue AND green velvet).

 

[Vader]

There is a separate MD and PhD graduation ceremony. (PhD is generally a few weeks earlier). The MD graduation program lists "PhD" in the list along with BS, etc and residency location. They don't even list the years of the degrees. Very subtle. We don't get anything special at the MD graduation ceremony, but we can wear out PhD hoods (and I damn well plan to). We wear the PhD hood in the processional, take it off before we cross the stage, carry it across the stage over our arm, and are then hooded with the MD hood. During the recessional, we carry the PhD hood over our arm.

The MD/PhD program also has an annual graduation party and we are presented with long whitecoats with our names embroidered on them (followed by MD, PhD).

OH, and I'm sewing my own dual degree hood (blue AND green velvet).

Quite literally wearing two hats! 🙂

 

[the_one_smiley]

At Duke, the MD/PhD graduates did get their 15 seconds during commencement. The president of the university formally conferred each degree, starting with BA and BS, going through about twenty types of Masters, and ending with MD and PhD. Finally, she asked "persons who are listed separately as candidates for the degrees of doctor of medicine and doctor of philosophy" to stand up and be recognized. Seven people in the crowd of thousands of students stood up as everyone murmured "holy crap they must have been in school forever". It was pretty amusing. They got their own section in the program as well.