Straight to faculty position upon graduation

[EvoMed]

Hi all,

I’m looking for examples of physician scientists who went directly to a research faculty position upon completion of their degrees.

I personally anticipate that I will want to complete a residency, but I’m curious to read the profiles and paths of people who went straight to faculty.

Thanks in advance!

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[BiggiePow]

Se-Jin Lee Md/PHD. discovered a gene and basically skipped his phd or post doc (2 years or less?) right into a faculty position. He decided not to do a residency either.


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[BiggiePow]

Se-Jin Lee Md/PHD. discovered a gene and basically skipped his phd or post doc (2 years or less?) right into a faculty position. He decided not to do a residency either.


Sent from my iPhone using SDN

Sorry typo. I meant skipped his post doc not phd


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[babykarat]

One example that comes to mind is Aaron Ring (immunologist/biochemist extraordinaire), who got a lab at Yale soon after graduating from the Stanford MSTP

 

[JoaoMoutinho]

Se-Jin Lee Md/PHD. discovered a gene and basically skipped his phd or post doc (2 years or less?) right into a faculty position. He decided not to do a residency either.


Sent from my iPhone using SDN

IIRC he went to a private research institute for 2-3 years straight after graduation, then he got a faculty position at JHU and stayed there for most of his career.

 

[deleted981235]

Sydney Shaffer; Penn grad, won Early Independence Award, skipped residency & became Assistant Prof at Penn immediately after graduation.

 

[Ludwig2000]

So yeah I think the answer is it’s rare enough that there are a handful of memorable cases from the last 5-10 years.

My sense is that for even a great researcher it’s plenty difficult just to go straight to faculty after a PSTP style residency (i.e. no additional post doc years). Seems like a fair amount of luck involved because who can say whether you’ll have some fascinating result that gets you that sweet sweet funding as an early investigator

 

[CaliforniaAsian]

So yeah I think the answer is it’s rare enough that there are a handful of memorable cases from the last 5-10 years.

My sense is that for even a great researcher it’s plenty difficult just to go straight to faculty after a PSTP style residency (i.e. no additional post doc years). Seems like a fair amount of luck involved because who can say whether you’ll have some fascinating result that gets you that sweet sweet funding as an early investigator

Are there many MD/PhDs who do additional post-docs after a PSTP? I thought PSTPs usually include residency+fellowship, and I figure at that point you negotiate for some protected research time in your clinical contract and start making some money in the mean time rather than continue a post-doc.

 

[Syxx]

I'm including people that went straight from MD/PhD program to independent researcher whether that was in a traditional Asst. Prof. position or through a program such as Sandler Fellows Program at UCSF.

Jeremy Weiss (Wisconsin) at CMU
Kyle Eagen (Stanford) at Northwestern (didn't complete MD)
Aashish Manglik (Stanford) at UCSF
Kevin Yackle (Stanford) at UCSF
Steven Sloan (Stanford) at Emory
Jesse Dixon (UCSD) at Salk
Timothy Lu (Harvard) at MIT
Kristen Knouse (Harvard) at Whitehead
Marty Burke (Harvard) at UIUC
Alyssa Brewer (Stanford) at UC Irvine
Irene Chen (Harvard) at UCSB
David Sabatini (Hopkins) at MIT
Eric Mcfarland (Harvard) at UCSB (began immediately as Asst. Prof. at MIT after MD/PhD but did do a 1 year internship too)
Mike Ehlers (Hopkins) at Pfizer (went straight from MD/PhD to Asst. Prof. at Duke)

 

[EvoMed]

Thank you to everyone! especially @Syxx for the super comprehensive list. Tacking on the only one I knew of prior to this thread: Jay Shendure at UW

I’m quite certain that I will want to complete a residency and board certification, but these are good references for what a super successful PhD thesis would look like

 

[Lucca]

Are there many MD/PhDs who do additional post-docs after a PSTP? I thought PSTPs usually include residency+fellowship, and I figure at that point you negotiate for some protected research time in your clinical contract and start making some money in the mean time rather than continue a post-doc.

the most common pathway I've seen for junior physician-scientist faculty who are still looking to run a lab at my institution after completing fellowship is to negotiate an 80/20 postdoc with a faculty mentor (usually through a specific postdoctoral fellowship) with 80% of the time being devoted to research and the other 20% as an attending (officially categorized as "Instructor" level position here).

 

[Lucca]

Thank you to everyone! especially @Syxx for the super comprehensive list. Tacking on the only one I knew of prior to this thread: Jay Shendure at UW

I’m quite certain that I will want to complete a residency and board certification, but these are good references for what a super successful PhD thesis would look like

You can still do residency and win an early career award, and handily the NIH has links to the projects they proposed that earned them the award. A bit over half are MD/PhDs

NIH Director's Early Independence Award Program - Award Recipients

NIH Director's Early Independence Award Program - Award Recipients

commonfund.nih.gov

 

[gbwillner]

Why would you want to do this? It only applies if you are 100% certain you want no clinical duties as part of your career.

It's basically stating the MD was just a fact-finding mission.

I've known a few that have done this.