MD/PhD in Medical Physics

[DrBowtie]

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Are there any schools that offer this combination? My background is in physics and my interests are in rad/onc and radiology so I think this would fit more than the usual areas.

 

[carrie]

Medical Physics? I don't believe that there is a PhD in such an area. However, you can get your PhD in physics or biomedical engineering that would allow you to combine your interests. Most projects that an MD/PhD students pursues has to be medically related, so you would just need to find a prof who likes to look a medical problems in radiology with a physics angle.

Are there any schools that offer this combination? My background is in physics and my interests are in rad/onc and radiology so I think this would fit more than the usual areas.

 

[DrBowtie]

Medical Physics? I don't believe that there is a PhD in such an area. However, you can get your PhD in physics or biomedical engineering that would allow you to combine your interests. Most projects that an MD/PhD students pursues has to be medically related, so you would just need to find a prof who likes to look a medical problems in radiology with a physics angle.

There def. is a PhD in medical physics as I get recruitment letters from programs since I am a physics major.

 

[carrie]

You asked if schools offer this combination and I gave my oppinion. If you already knew the answer why did you ask? Most schools don't offer medical physics as part of an MD/PhD program or MSTP.

There def. is a PhD in medical physics as I get recruitment letters from programs since I am a physics major.

 

[solitude]

I know Duke has a recently formed program in medical physics. They offer the PhD. I am not sure, however, whether one can pursue the PhD through Duke's MSTP. The link is http://medicalphysics.duke.edu/

 

[fantasty]

I also couldn't find any programs listed in the AAMC combined degree program page, but it might just be because it's so rare. You might try UI at Urbana-Champ's Med Scholars program (they'll let you do anything they offer a PhD in). Also, I found this listing of accredited med physics programs (http://www.acmp.org/acmpinfo/2004/campepprog.pdf). Mayo, Wash U, etc were listed. You might look at that list for schools you are interested in, and then contact them directly to see if their MSTP offers it as an option. (Here at Iowa, you can do radiation biology for your graduate field).

 

[DrBowtie]

You asked if schools offer this combination and I gave my oppinion. If you already knew the answer why did you ask? Most schools don't offer medical physics as part of an MD/PhD program or MSTP.

That was what I was asking. If any had them integrated into the MSTP programs.

 

[dr.z]

Are there any schools that offer this combination? My background is in physics and my interests are in rad/onc and radiology so I think this would fit more than the usual areas.

Have you considered biophysics? I think there are lots of schools with biophysics programs.

 

[Napoleon4000]

BrettBachelor,
If you are interested in medical physics why don't you enter a doctoral program in that field? Why pursue a combined degree? Or why not one and then the other?

 

[DrBowtie]

BrettBachelor,
If you are interested in medical physics why don't you enter a doctoral program in that field? Why pursue a combined degree? Or why not one and then the other?

Truthfully, I can't really answer those questions as of now. I have been doing some thinking about MD vs. PhD and am still learning the differences in practice while shadowing in rad/onc this year.

As of now, I don't think my research would put me into the competitive category for MSTP. I was just curious if anyone knew if any schools had this option.

 

[entropy2]

mcw might have one.

 

[penguinophile]

I know for a fact that Chicago (Pritzker) has that program. even though I don't have a physics background, I consider it very interesting and was intrigued by the diversity of the programs they offered, which included medical physics.

 

[OddNath]

UT-Houston definitely has a med phys program (our recruitment weekend was with theirs). So, it's probably possible to do the MD/PhD with that department.

 

[Neuronix]

I'm in the department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics at Penn doing pulse sequence development and multinuclear MRI as an MD/PhD. I don't know how many schools have similar programs, but I'll try to get a hold of the first year who applied for this kind of research. All I heard previously was that there's "not many", but I'll try to get some more examples.

 

[scooter31]

I'm in the department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics at Penn doing pulse sequence development and multinuclear MRI as an MD/PhD. I don't know how many schools have similar programs, but I'll try to get a hold of the first year who applied for this kind of research. All I heard previously was that there's "not many", but I'll try to get some more examples.

I'd love to hear your experiences with this-- I am harassing the pulse sequence programmers where I work with the hopes of doing BME/imaging.... PM me if you get a free minute, yeah? 👍

 

[Neuronix]

I'm happy to talk to anyone about this (or anything else). Just AIM me at Neuronix2 or PM me with your questions.

 

[scooter31]

I'm happy to talk to anyone about this (or anything else). Just AIM me at Neuronix2 or PM me with your questions.

will do... many thanks!

 

[Neuronix]

So I talked with my first year MD/PhD friend in the lab. He was a Physics ugrad at UFL and applied looking for programs strong in imaging. Together we came up with a couple issues.

First, one has to consider whether they want to be in engineering or physics. Some programs are going to force you to do engineering if you do imaging research. We thought CWRU was probably a good example of this, though that's from a shared impression and may not be 100% true. Some programs, if they view this as engineering, may not let you do an MD/PhD with Radiology research at all as they don't take engineers (UCSF could be an example... Though, they're strong in fMRI?).

Another issue is that there aren't that many imaging MD/PhDs in general, so it's really hard to get a feel for how open a school is to having them.

Here's a small list we came up with. It's not all inclusive, but we went through schools that we knew had strong imaging cores, strong MD/PhD programs, and seemed to take a reasonable number of imaging interested people.

Penn -- Biophysics or Bioengineering. The med school in general produces a TON of Radiologists, the most in the country some years.
Stanford -- Very strong imaging group, unsure of details
Harvard
WashU
NYU -- A couple of ex-Penn people from this lab
CWRU
UMichigan -- Strong in rad-onc especially

 

[DrBowtie]

So I talked with my first year MD/PhD friend in the lab. He was a Physics ugrad at UFL and applied looking for programs strong in imaging. Together we came up with a couple issues.

First, one has to consider whether they want to be in engineering or physics. Some programs are going to force you to do engineering if you do imaging research. We thought CWRU was probably a good example of this, though that's from a shared impression and may not be 100% true. Some programs, if they view this as engineering, may not let you do an MD/PhD with Radiology research at all as they don't take engineers (UCSF could be an example... Though, they're strong in fMRI?).

Another issue is that there aren't that many imaging MD/PhDs in general, so it's really hard to get a feel for how open a school is to having them.

Here's a small list we came up with. It's not all inclusive, but we went through schools that we knew had strong imaging cores, strong MD/PhD programs, and seemed to take a reasonable number of imaging interested people.

Penn -- Biophysics or Bioengineering. The med school in general produces a TON of Radiologists, the most in the country some years.
Stanford -- Very strong imaging group, unsure of details
Harvard
WashU
NYU -- A couple of ex-Penn people from this lab
CWRU
UMichigan -- Strong in rad-onc especially

Thanks for taking the time to compile your thoughts.

In looking at the stand alone PhD in medical physics many offered tracks into either diagnostic radiology, rad/onc, preventive health (radiation safety), and a more pure physics. I would probably lean more towards rad/onc. A lot of the training seemed clinical so I'm not sure how well it would exactly integrate into an MSTP program.

Depending on my MCAT, I will probably apply to the places you listed MD only anyway as I'm not set on the PhD so I'm sure I can get involved in the research without the full PhD commitment.