Pre-MD/PhD Advising?

[Anthodite]

I go to an R1 public school for undergrad, lots of students with the rep of being a decent local college, and I feel like the prehealth advising has not been able to help with the PhD part. I have no pre graduate school specific advising available to me at my school. How did you guys navigate this when you were in my shoes? I am also a nontraditional student which makes it so much more complicated.

I love SDN compared to reddit and I would share more online but I genuinely feel like my combo of experiences are unique enough that I can be easily identified. How do I get a pre-md/phd advisor? How do I know I'm not completely delusional for applying the next cycle?

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[dimplesage]

For me, I sought out both current MD/PhD students at my institution and current physician scientist faculty. I do admit that my advisors at my undergrad were a little more in the dark when it came to pre-MD/PhD compared to pre-MD. They recommended that I reach out to the director of the MD/PhD at my undergrad institution and I was very fortunate that the director was willing to offer her time. Obviously that's not always the case with directors, but I think finding students and current faculty members is helpful.

APSA (https://www.physicianscientists.org/) will often hold webinars for pre-MD/PhDs so you should be able to get good info there and potentially meet students who can help. Also happy to answer questions.

 

[Anthodite]

For me, I sought out both current MD/PhD students at my institution and current physician scientist faculty. I do admit that my advisors at my undergrad were a little more in the dark when it came to pre-MD/PhD compared to pre-MD. They recommended that I reach out to the director of the MD/PhD at my undergrad institution and I was very fortunate that the director was willing to offer her time. Obviously that's not always the case with directors, but I think finding students and current faculty members is helpful.

APSA (https://www.physicianscientists.org/) will often hold webinars for pre-MD/PhDs so you should be able to get good info there and potentially meet students who can help. Also happy to answer questions.

I don’t have a medical school or hospital attached to my university to do that nor any school affiliated physician scientists to reach out to (none are faculty and at rare occasion they may collaborate with an unknown PI at my university) I have one MD/PhD student contact who I think is cool but we also very different experiences. I have a LinkedIn but I feel awkward actually reaching out to MD/PhD students at other institutions. I know one MD/PhD physician scientist who was pretty cool from a past internship who after a coffee chat told me to reach out to apply for a scholarship that got cancelled by the government this year if that counts as a contact?

I will check out APSA, this is my first time actually hearing about it so thanks so much for sharing!

 

[ophthoaspirant]

My 2 cents…..speaking to or getting advice from current MD/PhD students or faculty/director is not necessary with all the information available on SDN, Reddit and the internet.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

I also encourage looking up webinars run by the NIH OITE that specifically address MD/PhD applicants or graduate school applications (PhD). They're on YouTube and go back a few years. Access them before DOGE decides to pull them.

We also published articles about comparable DDS/PhD and DVM/PhD tracks last year. The advice is similar.