Hi all,
I understand that there's no great way to rank MD/PhD programs (aside maybe from saying that MSTP's comprise the top 49 programs), and competitiveness doesn't correlate perfectly with quality. Also, anyone's personal rankings would strongly depend on his/her research interests, cultural preferences, priorities, etc, so a general "rank" for MD/PhD programs would be kind of meaningless for an individual applicant. But suppose I have no preference regarding location, culture, etc, and no significant ties to a particular field of research. I just want to enter the program with the best reputation, structure, programmatic support, institutional support, outcomes--I just want to learn how to think and thrive as a physician-scientist. What programs would be on your short list?
Thanks!
Unfortunately, a hypothetical candidate with "no preference regarding location, culture, etc, and no significant ties to a particular field of research" is unlikely to be successful at any program. This may be an unpopular opinion, but I think the program itself makes relatively little difference in outcomes. Even very small and very new programs regularly graduate candidates to faculty. By far the main determinant of outcomes is your internal drive as a candidate and the research skills you possess, and successful candidates all already have significant experience in research before deciding the MD-PhD is the right track for them - which usually translates into strong preferences with regard to lab culture, field of research, the kind of people you want to work with, etc.
Some programs have introduced measures to be more "hands-on" with their students like requiring regular progress reports, extra meetings with faculty to review performance on top of the many already required of graduate and medical students, obligatory meetings with arbitrarily assigned mentors, special (mandatory) seminars, workshops and "retreats", etc., etc. I don't think there's any evidence that this approach improves outcomes, and if anything I'd expect constantly having someone looking over your shoulder would have a detrimental effect by taking away time from research. For example, there was one school (which shall remain nameless) that I turned down specifically because during the interview they held out pairing you with a senior faculty member (who may not be a physician and may not have any connection even to your
field) who would keep tabs every month on your classes, how you do on exams, your research, even your personal life, ostensibly to make sure you graduate on time, as a "perk" of their program.
There are two absolutes you want to look for in any MD-PhD program. The first is funding: you want to go to an institution with lots of established and well-funded PIs in your areas of interest (you can check on
Query Form - NIH RePORTER - NIH Research Portfolio Online Reporting Tools Expenditures and Results ), so you can join the lab you want to join and do the project you want to do. The second is, you want to look for a program that's willing to bend rules and twist the arm of the med school, grad school, hospital, university registrar, whoever, to make exceptions for you. As an MD-PhD candidate, you will constantly be dealing with people who don't understand the multiple obligations demanding your time, and you need someone you can call upon for help e.g. registering for graduate classes while still in med school, or taking classes in nontraditional departments, or modifying clerkship and rotation schedules that are supposedly "set in stone" to make everything play nice. Run far, far away from any program that you even have an inkling might be fighting against you rather than fighting for you.
