If you have evidence to prove me wrong, please post it. That was my point. Then again, I never said I was the sharpest knife in the drawer
Even if you thought that there are more than "very few" fully-funded DO/PhD students, that's as good as I've posted, but I stand by what I said. There's no need to get huffy about it. I presented it as a challenge because for years we've been hearing that x school may have one fully-funded spot or heard that a school is fully-funded only to find out later that it's not. Some DO/PhD students are able to secure funding by applying through the NIH F30 mechanism individually and there's a separate mechanism for funding URM combined degree students. Since you're going to MSU, I will ask for more information: are all DO/PhD students at MSU funded? How many per year? For how long have they offered full funding? Have they applied for the MSTP grant?
I will state this explicitly, though I've been trying to live to it implicitly. There is no topic on this forum that is taboo if it relates to combined degree programs. You can ask about the money, dropping out, private practice, alternate PhDs, DO/PhD, whatever... It's hard to get straight advice sometimes. People dance around questions if they know the answer is controversial or there isn't a clear answer. Some people will flame you if you ask a question that connotes something unpopular. IMO, that's not acceptable. You will very rarely find me shutting down threads like you see all the time in pre-allo. Part of this is that we don't have quite the same anarchy and part if it is that I feel like I'm a very liberal moderator.
That being said, because some of my opinions or facts are unpopular, I expect someone won't like what I say once and awhile. That's life. When I meet people in person, I occasionally get the "I disagreed with your post about x several years ago and I'm mad about it!"
It's all good. If you dance around questions for a living trying not to make anyone upset, you're a politician. I'm the opposite. I also want to make it very clear that just because I'm the moderator it doesn't mean I'm always right. That's why I like SDN. If I'm wrong about something, people will be attracted to it like flies on ****. I like that. It's why I've always been hesitant to codify some of the things I put on this forum over the years. If I'm wrong, please point it out. I'm not sure I'm wrong in this case, but that's ok. People reading this thread can decide for themselves.
I would be
very surprised if a DO/PhD program became funded under the MSTP grant. This is for a few reasons.
1) "Equality" has nothing to do with NIH grant funding. The MSTP grant is a competitive grant that medical schools must apply for.
2) The grant is very competitive. There are many top programs vying to get onto that grant and have been failing yet after year. The most recent addition I'm aware of was Mayo and that was a few years ago. There are many well established and fairly big name MD/PhD programs trying to get MSTP status and have been failing for years.
3) The training budget is shrinking. NIH funding in general is very hard to come by.
There are simply no DO/PhD programs that have the depth and breadth of research to successfully compete for the grant as far as I see it. Even if you take the case of MSU or UMDNJ these are not major research institutions compared to the schools competing for the grant. This is not anti-DO/PhD bias--I can't imagine the MD/PhD programs at MSU or UMDNJ getting on the MSTP grant.
This forum is entirely supported by The Coastal Research Group, its advertisers, and its donors. I was not aware that APSA had contributed money to the site. Lee Burnett has donated quite a bit of money out of his own pocket as well as copious amounts of time to help this website flourish and for that I applaud him.
Lee Burnett is a DO, BTW. I'd like to see the attitude here "against" DO/PhD students. I would be the first to rush in if I thought I saw that happening, but I've read every thread posted on this forum for ~5 years. I don't remember any such thing.
It will always be my opinion that given the choice one should attend a MSTP school. I think it is great that a pro-student outside agency critiques your program and provides some level of oversight. One of the clear cut benefits is that no MSTP is allowed to ask for money back if you drop out of their program. Many MD/PhD programs require pay back if you leave the program. In that sense you could say I'm anti non-MSTP, but that applies to DO/PhD or MD/PhD alike.
unhinged. I'm not sure I've never been called that one, but I like it. I'll keep attempting to be fair. I appreciate the support in the thread which helps to convince me that I haven't done anything wrong. Ocasionally I do slip up, people call me on it, and I hope that keeps happening. The last thing the world needs is more ass kissers.
Still, I thought I would add the part about DO/PhD because I thought about posting in your other thread but thought it would be fine lumped into one post. If I was being unfair I could pop into your other thread and say all sorts of things against DO/PhD, but what would be the sense in that? I want more information about DO/PhD because frankly there isn't much available. A big part of that is that there aren't many DO/PhD programs or students compared to MD/PhD.