Penn's MD-PhD program has 167 current trainees and offers joint degrees in 19 separate programs including 8 in traditional biological sciences as well as 11 other programs, such as philosophy, demography, health care policy, and law. Similar analyses of MD-PhD programs have been published in recent years. The questionnaire also surveyed the percent of time spent on research, clinical practice, teaching, and administration, as well as records of publications and funding. Because of recent changes in the allocation of residency positions, our analysis focused on MD-PhD students graduating in the period 1992 to 1998. However, compared with residents at large, Penn MD-PhD graduates disproportionately favored neurology and neurological surgery, ophthalmology, and otolaryngology over the fields of emergency medicine, family practice, and orthopedic surgery.
Further data are available online.
The data gathered from the 216 respondents who graduated from 1969 to 1998 reveal that Penn's MD-PhD graduates enter academic and other research positions in high numbers. We note that these results were obtained primarily through self-reporting from graduates without independent verification. Our results indicate, however, those the career positions held by Penn's MD-PhD graduates are markedly different from that of Penn's MD trainees and more similar to those of biomedical science PhD trainees. The combination of basic and clinical training, which serves as an integral part of MD-PhD training programs, is evident in the activities of program graduates. Although the level of effort in research and clinical areas varied widely among individual graduates, there was a clear trend toward research rather than patient care.