Prospective MD/PHD

[nblarson]

I would first just like to say that I love this forum and I've been all over it asking various pertinent questions to my situation, and above all thank you all for taking the time to help out people such as myself.

That being said, a little about myself.... I graduated last year from a prestigious LAC with a degree in mathematics and applied statistics, along with a decent background in general science coursework (I was rather promiscuous in my academic comings and goings). I was a very good student, graduated magna cum laude with departmental distinction, a 3.7 overall GPA with a 3.88 science GPA and never received a grade below a B+. I did a summer VIGRE internship working in an interdisciplinary research group studying environmental effects on animals, a short stint as a intern at the WHO in Geneva working on vaccine data, and a year-long NSF funded research fellowship my senior year working on statistical genetics.

I will start a Ph.D. track program this fall in a interdisciplinary program studying statistics and computational biology under an NSF-IGERT program, which will place me on a lab rotation schedule where I will work in 3 month stints in various university labs ranging in specialty from animal proteomics to HIV genome research.

Well, this is all well and good, but I've been thinking a lot lately and realized that while I'm good at numbers, I love wet-lab experiences and more than anything want to do research in medical applications, notably oncology (hence all the genetics-oriented research) and really think a MD/PHD route would be a better way to go.

I have a decent prereq background (BIO I and II, CHEM I, 2 SEM ENGLISH, MOLECULAR GENETICS, CALC I, II, III, and about 6 stat classes). I would most likely bow out early from my PhD program with a Masters, and either jump into a post-bacc program immediately, or try and concurrently finish the rest of my prereq's during my master's program, then try to apply to a md/phd after that.

I don't know if many of you are non-trad turned md/phd, or if anyone has taken a pathway nearly as insane as this one, but I was just wondering if anyone would have advice as to whether or not to wait for a postbacc program, if such a profile as mine would even be considered competitive with my lacking experience in a purely medical route, etc. Thanks to anyone who responds, it's greatly appreciated...I've sort of just come up with this idea recently and it's extremely daunting to consider, so even simple words of encouragement would be nice!

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[dfsdiego]

i was actually suprised by the number of people i met on the mstp interview trail this year with biostatistics backgrounds...most getting in to great programs. also i wouldn't let your lack of clinical experience prevent you from pursuing md/phd, but it is probably just something to think about/experience personally before diving into the med school part. i never really had the traditional premed clinical experiences and it never really came up as a weak point in my mstp application, i'm sure youd be in even a better position than me with all of your world health-type experiences. as for the post-bac work, i don't think you need to enroll in a specific pre-med program, but rather just find a way to take the few classes that are required for med school. (i've been working in a lab at the university i attended and as staff i could enroll in classes a la carte as an extension student for a great price). and finally, to encourage what is already an existing enthusiasm, i met a handful of professors who were very excited about the prospect of recruiting more biostats people to mst programs. good luck figuring out what will work best for you!

 

[nblarson]

i was actually suprised by the number of people i met on the mstp interview trail this year with biostatistics backgrounds...most getting in to great programs. also i wouldn't let your lack of clinical experience prevent you from pursuing md/phd, but it is probably just something to think about/experience personally before diving into the med school part. i never really had the traditional premed clinical experiences and it never really came up as a weak point in my mstp application, i'm sure youd be in even a better position than me with all of your world health-type experiences. as for the post-bac work, i don't think you need to enroll in a specific pre-med program, but rather just find a way to take the few classes that are required for med school. (i've been working in a lab at the university i attended and as staff i could enroll in classes a la carte as an extension student for a great price). and finally, to encourage what is already an existing enthusiasm, i met a handful of professors who were very excited about the prospect of recruiting more biostats people to mst programs. good luck figuring out what will work best for you!

Thank you for your response! I do have a bit of liberty in choosing my classes during my Master's program since it is interdisiplinary, so I think I would be able to take most if not all of the rest of my prereq's before the culmination of the program (I'll have to load up a lot of summer school, but no pain no gain right?? ). I also have a few contacts at the local hospital, and they have a oncology clinical trial center...perhaps volunteering there will make my application a little more robust. Also, Mayo up in Rochester has a lot of summer internship opportunities in biostatistics for graduate students...perhaps if I also get my hand on one of those I'll be ok.

This may seem like a stupid question, but can prereqs be completed during the glide year as well, or does everything have to be completed prior to sending in your application?

 

[dfsdiego]

you can definitely take some prereqs during the application year...the application has a field for courses in progress or to be taken

 

[QofQuimica]

I

I don't know if many of you are non-trad turned md/phd, or if anyone has taken a pathway nearly as insane as this one, but I was just wondering if anyone would have advice as to whether or not to wait for a postbacc program, if such a profile as mine would even be considered competitive with my lacking experience in a purely medical route, etc. Thanks to anyone who responds, it's greatly appreciated...I've sort of just come up with this idea recently and it's extremely daunting to consider, so even simple words of encouragement would be nice!

I'm a non-trad, and my pathway is probably more insane than yours. I finished my MS, worked for a while, went back to school for my PhD, and am now doing my MD. Total time between graduating college and finishing my MD/PhD is going to be 14 years. My advice to you is that if you want both degrees and you need a post bac anyway, don't do the MS. Do the post bac instead, work part-time in a lab, and apply for an MSTP in one or two years after you complete the pre-reqs and take the MCAT. Not that there's anything wrong with doing things the long way, but if I could go back ten years and give my college-aged self advice, that's what I would tell her. You don't need an MS to get into an MSTP. Best of luck to you.

 

[Heyeon]

Congrats on all your hard work! A few post bacc courses along wid lab experience for that one year will count more than an MS degree. There is no point wasting 2 yrs on MS when it would not give you that much of an advantage with the admission process.
Can you tell me how you found out and got into the internship with WHO? I having been looking into this since long and would really appreciate your help

 

[nblarson]

you can definitely take some prereqs during the application year...the application has a field for courses in progress or to be taken

Whew...good to know...was afraid I was going to have to take 6-7 classes a semester! Having a glide year to finish up some of the more immaterial prereq's (physics was always cake with my math background, but would be hard to fit into an already busy curriculum!)

 

[nblarson]

Congrats on all your hard work! A few post bacc courses along wid lab experience for that one year will count more than an MS degree. There is no point wasting 2 yrs on MS when it would not give you that much of an advantage with the admission process.
Can you tell me how you found out and got into the internship with WHO? I having been looking into this since long and would really appreciate your help

It was a special program designed by one of my undergrad professors who has strong ties with some of the higher up's over at the Geneva office. From what I understand, it is extremely difficult to obtain one via the traditional application route and once in it is very costly (they're unpaid positions and Switzerland is far from cheap, let me tell you ). It was almost a fluke of luck that everything worked out the way it did but it was an amazing experience and above all else I highly recommend trying to get in...the people you meet and the connections you develop are priceless...Geneva as a city is incredible...always consider it a second home.

 

[Heyeon]

Wow thats great nblarson! I realized that it would be very competitive and did not even know where to start looking for the internships..if u dont mind me asking , Where did you do your undergrad from
Thanks for the info, I soo wanna go to Cologne and Geneva..cant wait!!

 

[nblarson]

Wow thats great nblarson! I realized that it would be very competitive and did not even know where to start looking for the internships..if u dont mind me asking , Where did you do your undergrad from
Thanks for the info, I soo wanna go to Cologne and Geneva..cant wait!!

I studied at St. Olaf College, a small private LAC in Minnesota and the program was under direction of Professor Julie Legler.

Wish you the best of luck!

 

[nblarson]

I'm a non-trad, and my pathway is probably more insane than yours. I finished my MS, worked for a while, went back to school for my PhD, and am now doing my MD. Total time between graduating college and finishing my MD/PhD is going to be 14 years. My advice to you is that if you want both degrees and you need a post bac anyway, don't do the MS. Do the post bac instead, work part-time in a lab, and apply for an MSTP in one or two years after you complete the pre-reqs and take the MCAT. Not that there's anything wrong with doing things the long way, but if I could go back ten years and give my college-aged self advice, that's what I would tell her. You don't need an MS to get into an MSTP. Best of luck to you.

Yeah, I was concerned that maybe I'd be wasting precious time, but the constraint of finances seems to make this a better option. As long as I'm on a Ph.D. track, my grant gives me a 30k stipend/year, a 5k initial expense budget for "settling in," full tuition waiver, as well as full health insurance, money for books and supplies, and a travel expenditure budget. If I can manage to get a majority of my prereqs finished concurrently, I think this will be a much more beneficial pathway than trying to take out tons of loans to cover a postbacc education.

 

[Heyeon]

I studied at St. Olaf College, a small private LAC in Minnesota and the program was under direction of Professor Julie Legler.

Wish you the best of luck!

Thanks for the infor and best of luck to u too!

 

[nblarson]

Well, I've been doing a lot of thinking and I really want to be an oncologist and focus on cancer research. Which programs (MD/PhD or MSTP) should I be looking at specifically that would be most appropriate for this area? (I noticed Columbia offered a PhD in "tumor biology" in conjunction with the MD)

Also, what higher level prereq's should I be concerned with taking besides the bare minimum? I plan on taking a few biochemistry courses and hopefully find a mentor when I start my MS that can help me out, but it never hurts to plan ahead!

Thanks again everyone!

 

[foo]

Well, I've been doing a lot of thinking and I really want to be an oncologist and focus on cancer research. Which programs (MD/PhD or MSTP) should I be looking at specifically that would be most appropriate for this area? (I noticed Columbia offered a PhD in "tumor biology" in conjunction with the MD)

Also, what higher level prereq's should I be concerned with taking besides the bare minimum? I plan on taking a few biochemistry courses and hopefully find a mentor when I start my MS that can help me out, but it never hurts to plan ahead!

Thanks again everyone!

If you are interested in oncology, you may want to consider doing the PhD portion od MD/PhD at the graduate program at Memorial Sloan Kettering (http://www.sloankettering.edu/gerstner/html/50725.cfm), also part of the Tri Institutional MSTP Cornell/Rockefeller/Sloan-Kettering.