PhD in Medical School to Medical School?

[nave119]

HI all,

I was hoping that I could get some advice from all of you medical school experts! I graduated from UC Berkeley last year with degrees in Statistics and Economics, and in my senior year, I realized that I - like the rest of the world - had a strong yearning to become a physician. Rather than continuing with a post-bac program (didn't complete the majority of pre-med reqs), I decided to apply for PhD's in Biostatistics to get some more medical research under my belt.

I am now in UPenn's Medical School's Biostatistics PhD program - a 4-5 year program. While I realize that this is the longest possible "post-bac" program I could have chosen, I actually enjoy studying Statistics and have been researching in my field of interest (HIV), with perhaps a few publications in the near future. The connections to the medical school have been good too, however, I found out that in order to apply for the combined PhD/MD program at Penn, I would have to apply after year 1...this is SUCH a rush for me because I can only realistically take 1 pre-med courses per semester. The director of the PhD/MD program said I could apply as long as I "complete all the reqs before I matriculate in the PhD/MD program". I have my strong doubts about being able to get into this program, so I was hoping to get some feedback from you guys about other options.

Since I am thinking that I might have to apply for medical school AFTER completing the PhD (doing the PhD + MD serially), I am trying to figure out if there are any medical school scholarships available for holders of PhD's, particularly medical research based PhD's. I am hoping that after researching HIV Prevention/Clinical Trials for 4 years, somebody might be convinced/tricked into thinking that I have some skills to offer the medical field!

Also, fyi, I don't think I am the greatest medical school candidate. I'd be rushing to take pre-med reqs at a state university rather than at Penn, and my undergrad GPA is good but not great (~3.7)

Any advice would be great. Thanks!

[CaribMD]

3.7 undergrad is very good, if your grad GPA is 3.5 or above as well then I think that will help you a lot.

But you need to have Volunteer and patient experience time as well, with no mention of it in the post I have to mention it because it will make a big difference applying.

If you have this experience then the app will look pretty good I think.

As far as the preqs, any University is fine.

When applying to PHD/MD you are just like any other premed, you must "Stack up" to the competition.

[nave119]

Thanks for bringing up that point about volunteer/patient care, because I was sort of scared to ask the PhD/MD Director too much about this when I met with him...

According to their PhD/MD website, it says that about 95% of their students go on to residency, which presumably means that they end up doing some kind of clinical work along with research. However, I know that in the PhD world, all people care about is research, publications, grants, and more research! If am trying to get into an eventual career as a medical researcher with part-time clinical practice (either 10% or 50%, which is what is common here at Penn), then would you think that prior clinical experience is a high priority?

In my last 2 years of undergrad, I worked as an HIV Testing Counselor and HIV Hotline Volunteer (answering phone calls about STD/HIV questions and referring them out to clinics), and in the summer before grad school, I spent a week at an HIV Treatment Clinic in South Africa while working on an honors' thesis. Since my current research position is with the HIV Research Prevention Division's HIV Vaccine Trials Network, I get to do some pre-screening of participants, but nothing like patient care. What types of patient care experiences do applicants typically have?

Given my current time constraints, it's unlikely that I'll be able do much more "patient care" volunteering.

[CaribMD]

Looks good to me then.

Good Luck!