Med-into-Grad Program

The training of medical and graduate students is quite distinct. While medical education must focus on clinical application, PhD students often pursue research questions without an immediate link to patient care. Many basic science questions, though not immediately clinical, ultimately drive advances in medicine, public health, and industry. When graduate students are trained to understand the pathology and clinical treatment of disease, they can better translate the insights and momentum of basic research into meaningful clinical impact.

Columbia University provides this bridge through the Med into Grad Program, directed by Ronald Liem, PhD, professor of pathology and cell biology, with co-directors Howard Worman, MD, and Patrice Spitalnik, MD, both professors of pathology and cell biology.

The program began in 2005 as part of a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) initiative to integrate medical knowledge into PhD education. Although HHMI’s initial funding has ended, many programs—including Columbia’s—continue to thrive.

Applications

To be eligible, students must have completed at least one of the semesters of the Mechanisms of Human Disease course (see below). The program will start in January and continue through the calendar year.  All eligible students will receive an email informing them that applications are open late during the fall semester.   For the application, students are asked to submit their academic records and an application essay describing their interest in the Med into Grad Program.  They will also have a personal interview with the Program Directors.

Structure of the Med into Grad Program

As part of the Med into Grad Program, students will be assigned a clinical mentor in their area of research. They will attend clinic or rounds with their clinical mentor once or twice a month. The students also go on hospital rounds at least once during the year. The Program Directors meet with all the students twice a month and the students take turns presenting cases that they observed. Students get course credit for their participation in the Med into Grad Program and it will count as an elective course in their home program.

Students will observe the requirements of their home programs with regard to other coursework, the qualifying examinations, seminar attendance, or other elements of the graduate programs.

Coursework

Mechanisms of Human Disease

To foster a direct interest in disease and the complexities that clinicians and researchers confront, we developed a course called Mechanisms of Human Disease. It is directed by the Director of the Med into Grad Program, Dr. Ron Liem, and is taken by students interested in translational research. This one-year course has six modules, with three each semester. Each module is primarily concerned with one organ system and one or more diseases associated with this organ system. Each module describes the physiology, nutritional status, health, pathophysiology, and anatomy of an organ system and its role in disease. Intensive reading and discussion cover the pathologies associated with the disease and their molecular basis. Finally, interventions and therapeutics are discussed for each disease. Students meet patients or caregivers of patients. This is a new experience for PhD students, who do not usually see the effects of a disease on a person. At least one semester of this course is required to be eligible to apply for admission into the Med into Grad Program.

Med into Grad Courses

Contact

For questions regarding the Columbia University Med into Grad Program, please contact: