Students should hand in a completed and defended dissertation or thesis before starting the junior year of medical school. The program administration must emphasize the severe adverse consequences of not completing the thesis work before returning to the junior year of medical school. Students should not plan a hiatus in research, during which time their planned original work may be done and published by others or otherwise become out of date before it is finished. In the end, the total time to complete both degrees would be no different than if the student returns to complete the PhD thesis after the MD, however the chances of success in finishing the PhD degree will be substantially higher. Faculty advisors must take special care to select research questions for combined degree students that can be answered satisfactorily, no matter how the data turn out.
Fishing expeditions are to be strongly discouraged.
Instead, very well thought out research designs, in which any possible experimental outcome is acceptable and meaningful, are a must. Students need to be forewarned that social separation from friends in their original medical school class is very likely. A support group of other combined degree students is helpful, and the creation of such a group is yet another justification for a formal combined degree program.