Students interested in a career oriented toward bioengineering and medicine can pursue the combined MD/PhD program.
Stanford provides two ways to earn an MD/PhD:
- U.S. citizens and permanent residents can apply to the Medical Scientist Training Program (contact Lori Langdon at 650-723-6176) and can be accepted with funding from both the MD and PhD programs with stipend/tuition. They can then select a bioengineering laboratory for their PhD.
- Students not admitted to the Medical Scientist Training Program must apply and be admitted separately to the MD program and the PhD program of their choice.
The PhD degree is administered by the Department of Bioengineering. To be formally admitted as a PhD degree candidate in this combined degree program, the student must apply through normal departmental channels and must have earned or have plans to earn an MS in bioengineering or another engineering discipline at Stanford or another university. The MS requires 45 units of coursework, which consists of core bioengineering courses, technical electives, seminars and 6 unrestricted units. In addition, students will be expected to pass the Department of Bioengineering PhD qualifying examination.
For students fulfilling the full MD requirements who earned their master's-level engineering degree at Stanford, the Department of Bioengineering will waive its normal departmental requirement that the 15 units applied toward the PhD degree (beyond the master's degree level) be formal course work. Consistent with the university's PhD requirements, the department will instead accept 15 units comprised of courses, research or seminars that are approved by the student's academic advisor and the department chair. Students not completing their MS engineering degree at Stanford will be required to take 15 units of formal course work in engineering-related areas, as determined by their academic advisor.
If you have any further questions, please contact Justin Lind, student services manager, at justinmh@stanford.edu.
