MD/Phd Program?

Pre-Med & Medical School Multiple Degree Programs
1

Hey folks,
I am a current undergraduate majoring in Anthropology (Biological Anthro emphasis) and also on the Pre-Med route. Inevitably, I have a interest in both Anthropology and medicine, and I always wondered if I could become a physician and also do research in anthropology. I recently came across combined MD/Phd programs that some schools offer and wondered how this worked.

  1. Do I need just a bachelors to get into this program?
  2. Do the schools offer specific majors for the Phd aspect of the program? As in, would a major like Anthropology be offered through the MD/Phd program? (Guess this depends on the school? perhaps gotta do more research).
  3. How difficult is it to get into this kind of dual degree program compared to just the MD program?

Thank you, I would appreciate any kind of help with this :x

2

Suggest to post it in pre-med area since few folks regularly respond in that area.
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/

  1. Yes
  2. Not sure. Typically you do first 2 years of MD and then complete 2-3 years for yoru Phd and do the 3 rd and 4th year of medical education (rotation) and then do 3-6 years residency.
  3. Getting MD is extremely hard and MD/Ph.D few seats and they expectation is high on research.
3

@Shagunbali

  1. Yes
  2. Yes, for all MD/PhD program your PhD must be in medically related field, chiefly biological sciences. A few schools offer PhDs in other area that are still medically related but aren't biology: medical anthropology, bioethics, computational biology, public health, biomedical engineering.

This document lists MD/PhD programs and what fields are available

https://aamc-orange.global.ssl.fastly.net/production/media/filer_public/71/8b/718bcf9f-21a3-4d77-9423-a2fce84408f1/faqtable.pdf

There appear to be just a few MD/PhD programs that allow a medical anthropology speciialization: Duke; Emory; Harvard; Michigan State; Robert Wood Johnson/Princeton; UCLA; UFlorida; UNC; and Penn.

  1. Much more difficult to gain an acceptance to MD/PhD program than it is to gain an acceptance to a MD program.
4

Wowmom, according to your list you missed a few: UC-Irvine and Illinois allow any PhD, UCSF, Chicago, Michigan, and WUSTL also offer anthropology.

I imagine these schools have at most 1 student per year doing an MD/PhD with a PhD in anthropology. I could be totally wrong though.

5

Thanks for the correction, IWBB. I was multi-tasking and apparently missed some programs from the list.

And I agree-- medical anthro has got to be a fairly rare admit for MD/PhD. I know at D1’s residency site, the program (which allows several other fields besides bio science, but not anthro), there is maybe one PhD in public health admitted every year or every other year out of 14 MD/PhDs per class.

Take U of IL-Urbana-Champaign off the list for anthro.

UIUC does not have a medical school right now. UIUC used to offer the first 2 years of didactics, but UICOM consolidated its regional campuses and moved everyone back to Chicago (where they do years 3-4 anyway). UiUC has petitioned to open a new med school, but the LCME hasn’t approved it yet. The new med school, Carle-Illinois COM, will focus on engineering applications in medicine exclusively.