Master of Science in Medicine Degree Program
   
  Program director Ben Barres, MD, PhD, and graduate students Anna Poukchanski and Catherine Del Vecchio discuss the Master's of Medicine Program and how it helps move research discoveries from the bench to the bedside. Video length: 4 min 30 sec

The "Masters of Medicine" (MOM) program is a new master's degree program that will provide PhD candidates serious exposure to clinical medicine with a view to fostering translational research. The incredible pace of basic science discovery today stands in dramatic contrast to the slow rate of development of useful medical advances. There is urgent need for a more efficient mechanism to generate a larger pool of scientists knowledgeable about human biology and disease. The goal of the MOM program is to train a new generation of PhD students about human biology and disease, and thus more able to translate new scientific discoveries into useful medical advances.

Stanford University School of Medicine has long been a world leader in medical training and research and is therefore an ideal location for this program. Under the leadership of Dean Philip Pizzo, the School is currently in the midst of launching four new Institutes of Medicine, whose primary purpose is to promote translational research in the areas of Cancer/Stem Cells, Cardiovascular Disease, Neuroscience, and Immunity/Transplantation/Infection. As the School and its Master of Science in Medicine degree program are located on the central campus of Stanford University, chemistry, physics, bioengineering, and biology students - as well as those enrolled in the various Biosciences PhD programs housed at the School of Medicine - will be able to participate.

MOM In The News

The MOM program will admit an elite group of highly talented people who have a serious commitment to translational research but are not interested in becoming clinicians. Students admitted to any of the PhD programs offered at Stanford University will have the opportunity to apply for admission to this program on a competitive basis. The first group of MOM students will be admitted in spring 2006 (see Admissions). The program will begin with six students per year, and competition for these six slots is expected to be intense. The cost of the MOM program for each student during the first year of the program will be completely covered by scholarship support from the MOM program. All remaining costs will be covered by each student's home PhD program beginning in the second year. Thus, all students selected to participate in the MOM program will be able to do so regardless of financial need as all tuition, stipend, and health insurance costs will be fully covered by the MOM and PhD programs.

In practice, the program will extend the total time of training by about one year beyond the usual length of PhD training. During their first two years MOM participants will take basic biomedical science courses with the School of Medicine's MD students, as well as seminar series dedicated to issues in translational medicine. This course schedule allows MOM students to concurrently undertake PhD course requirements and lab rotations. By early in the second year, students will choose labs for thesis research and elect clinical mentors. The Master of Science in Medicine degree will be conferred with the PhD degree upon each student's successful completion of her or his doctoral program.

 

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