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MD/PhD Programs in the Social Sciences & Humanities - University of Pennsylvania

Disclaimer Notice: The following information was provided by MD/PhD students, and is not official data from the MD/PhD program administration or from APSA. For official information, please contact the program administration listed below. If you are aware of any outdated or incorrect information on this page, or if you can think of anything useful to include, please let us know at ssh@physicianscientists.org so that we may improve the page.

University of Pennsylvania

Social Science/Humanities PhD Field Supported:

Philosophy, History and Sociology of Science, Anthropology, English, Sociology/Demography

Description of Program:

Humanities and social science combined degree students pursue a degree in two schools, the majority have been in Wharton and the School of Arts and Science. At some point during the MD/PhD they are admitted to the combined degree program and receive funding for the MD from the combined degree office at Penn. This may be MSTP funding or internal, but the students are not privy to that information. To be considered a combined degree student, applicants must apply to the program before they advance to dissertation status in the PhD or early in the MD. Penn has extensive faculty and administrative support for MD/PhD students including mentoring, internal research presentations called "grand rounds", and supplemental funding including funding for conference travel. Combined degree students are supported by the combined degree office at Penn no matter what their PhD department is in. However, coordination between schools at Penn is notoriously administratively difficult so combined degree students outside of the medical school should be on top of all paperwork and administrative details of their funding and degree progress. The combined degree office in the medical school is enormously helpful in this matter, but the student her or himself often has to facilitate. This includes the application process.

Structure of Program:

Penn's program is a Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP). Students can start in either school. Many student in the School of Arts and Sciences start the PhD first, often applying while a PhD student, complete the coursework and exams to advance to dissertation status, and then do the first two years of medical school (at Penn these are not entirely "pre-clinical" since clinical years start in January of the second year). They then return to dissertation status, finish the PhD, and then finish the MD after two years. Some students have started with the MD for two years and then finished the PhD before returning to complete the MD. This depends however on the PhD program's ability to defer PhD acceptances for two years, which is less possible in SAS. Students in the MD years are treated as a member of the entering MD/PhD cohort with the expectation that they will participate in the combined degree "grand rounds" and retreats with everyone else.

Size of incoming joint MD/PhD class:

20

Number of students in the social sciences or humanities:

1-2

Number of graduates from the SSH joint MD/PhD program:

10-20

Application Process:

Students can apply first to the PhD, then while in graduate school, apply as a combined degree student to the medical school before they advance to dissertation status. Alternatively, they can apply to the combined degree program and the PhD program at the same time, the combined degree program will forward the application to the PhD department. This type of coordination is often lacking so the applicant should provide the PhD department independently with everything they need to admit them and do all the customary things that other PhD applicants do, including visiting the department independently. Applicants must remember that they are really applying separately to the School of Medicine's combined degree program and to the PhD program in either SAS or Wharton or any of Penn's other schools. This may mean that you should visit the campus twice if the combined degree program's interviews do not coincide with the PhD program usual visiting days. Confirm this with the PhD program, not only the combined degree office.

Funding:

Students are funded for both tuition and stipend by the combined degree program while in medical school. While doing the PhD the student is funded by their department. The combined degree program funds at the NIH level or above and will supplement stipends during the PhD that are lower than this level, which is typically the case in SAS.

Contact information:

University of Pennsylvania Medical Scientist Training Program
http://www.med.upenn.edu/mstp/index.shtml
Suite 100 Stemmler Hall
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6087
Lawrence (Skip) Brass, MD, PhD
Associate Dean and Director
Email: brass@mail.med.upenn.edu
Phone: 215-573-3540
Assistant: Barbara Zolotorow (bzoloto2@mail.med.upenn.edu, 215-573-4669)

Maggie Krall
Director of Administration
Email: krall@mail.med.upenn.edu
Phone: 215-898-8025