Medicine doctoral programs at Yale University

Certificate in Leadership and Research Management for Physician Scientists.

158 Current Students, 400 Graduates, 16 PhD Programs or Departments, 8 Years Average Time to Degree, 54 Years of NIGMS support.

The training of MD-PhD students has been central to this mission for nearly 50 years, with the establishment of the MD-PhD training program at Yale in 1969 that has graduated 348 students since 1973. Our goals go beyond collecting key outcomes information on all of our graduates, but to have them be an active part of our community of physician-scientists.

All MD-PhD students have passed the USMLE Step I and Step 2 CS CK exams, which are a requirement for graduation with the MD degree. MD and MD-PhD students do equally well on the required C-OSCE exams taken in Year 2 and in Year 4 (after return to wards). residencies as these become common.

The total time-to-degree averaged 8.2 y (median 8, range 6-11) for students who graduated between 2009 and 2018. This number is calculated by subtracting the year of matriculation from the year of graduation and adjusting by any formal leaves of absence (LOA) of 0.5y or longer. The time to degree is the same for students who join the program as medical students (average 8.1 y, median 8, range 6-9) or who belong to underrepresented groups (average 8.3 y, median 8, range 6-9).

The figure shows the specialty choices of our graduates, including 2 who did not pursue residency training. Even Emergency Medicine (ER) is a research-intensive path for one graduate, who is in the Yale Emergency Scholar program.

To measure efficacy, we examined how many graduates since 2009 have held individual NRSA fellowships, a predictor of subsequent academic success. Thirty-four graduates held F30s, and 2 held F31s (32% of 111). We continue to have good success in teaching students write proposals, as 24 of our current students have been awarded F30s and 3 have received F31s.

Even Emergency Medicine (ER) is a research-intensive path for one graduate, who is in the Yale Emergency Scholar program.

As of October 2018, the MD-PhD Program at Yale had 348 graduates spanning the years 1973-2018 35% (n 121) are women and 65% (n 227) are men. Our alumni gender distribution is similar to the percentages reported for MD-PhD programs nationwide (as reported in the AAMC National MD-PhD Outcomes Study) where women make up 27% of MD-PhD graduates between 1974 and 2014. The gender distribution of all current students in the program (134 students total, as of 2018) is 48% (n 64) women and 52% (n 70) men (data not shown).

We have used a combination of survey data and online data searches to examine the career outcomes of our alumni. 24% of all graduates are still in training (includes residency, fellowship, postdoctoral research training). 15% of alumni are in clinical practice (defined as any organization, e.g., hospital, clinic, private practice, where the primary responsibility is providing healthcare) 8% work in a for-profit setting (defined as any organization that operates to make a profit, including industry and consulting) 2% are employed in a government organization (i.e., operated by federal, state, local or foreign governments) 1% work in non-profits, and 4% include those who are on an extended leave of absence from the workforce, whose employment status is unknown, or deceased.