The PhD Years

Following the conclusion of the second year medical school curriculum and the time given to study for and take the Step 1 of the National Board Medical Licensing Exam, MSTP trainees begin life as full-time PhD students, in many respects functioning equivalently to second year students in the Graduate School. Students pursue advanced courses that are recommended by their Training Area and appropriate for their particular interests. Many advanced courses are modular; that is, three one-credit modules are offered in a given semester, and students may register for all three or individually for one or two modules. This arrangement enables students to "mix-and-match" modules from different areas, e.g., an immunobiology module, a signal transduction module, and an oncogene module, to best fit their interests. In the fall of the third year, a General Knowledge Exam (also known as the “qual”) is administered to determine if the trainee has the sufficient scientific skills in their Training Area to successfully undertake a thesis project.

Following completion of the exam, the trainee works with their chosen thesis advisor to develop a thesis proposal and begin work on the thesis itself. While in the PhD phase, trainees are able to maintain their clinical skills through the Clinical Exposure course, helping them bridge the gap between the first two and last two years of their medical education. In this course, students perform three rotations through any of the clinical disciplines available in the last two years of medical school, such as Medicine, Neurosurgery, Pediatrics, or Psychiatry, in order to refresh and enhance their patient interviewing, physical exam, and presentation skills.

Next: The Clinical Years