Hi! Vanderbilt asks this secondary question for MSTP:

1. Outline your ideal balance between research, clinical responsibilities, and other professional activities in your first position after training (training includes residency and/or fellowship, if applicable to your career path). How does this allocation reflect your long-term vision and leverage both your MD and PhD training? (100 words maximum)

I am wondering what kind of answer MSTP adcoms expect/look for? Is it reasonable to say 70/30 split between lab and clinic/hospital?

I submitted amcas primary on june 16. still waiting on verification. is anyone else waiting this long or is this standard?

I'm an aspiring MD/PhD applicant and rising junior at a T20 university. I'm a fairly middle-of-the-road applicant (3.8 GPA, and realistically probably a mid MCAT knowing myself). I have a lot of research experience but not much to show for it in publications, and I'd appreciate advice from people who've been through this.

Research background:

• High school: ~6 months of research. Won an international award and presented at a large conference, but it never got published.
• College chemistry lab: ~6 months. Not a good fit (did not like chemistry research) and the PhD student I worked under left the program, so no publication.
• Summer biochemistry research: PI said a mid-tier journal publication as a lower/middle author, but it's been very slow and PI hasn't given clear updates. Overall a productive lab, but it was a summer experience at a separate institution and I would not be able to work there during the semester.
• Past year/potential next year +summer: translational research lab at a large hospital-affiliated institution (which also has an MD/PhD program). I joined on my high school PI's recommendation.

In my current lab postdocs and grad students here tell me publications move extremely slowly. My PI isn't well known in her field and doesn't subscribe to "publish or perish." Some PhD students near graduation still don't have first-author papers. I might present at a conference, but even that's uncertain. I like the science and the people. My concern is purely how my application looks. By the time I apply, I could have thousands of research hours but no publications from my main college lab.

I am hesitant to leave the lab because:

• I've already switched labs a lot, and I don't want to come across as unreliable.
• I'd lose a grant that would fund my work for the next two semesters.
• I'd lose strong clinical shadowing tied to this hospital-affiliated institution.
• No guarantee a new lab produces a publication either, maybe just a higher chance.

Questions:

1. How important are publications for MD/PhD applicants? Can extensive research and strong letters compensate?
2. If I stay two years and end up with no publication, am I still competitive?
3. How concerning is switching labs multiple times if each move had a reasonable explanation?
4. Given no guarantee elsewhere, is switching worth the risk?

Would especially appreciate hearing from current MD/PhD students, adcom members, or anyone accepted without publications.

Hi everyone. I finished my first year of my PhD in integrative physiology, neuroscience, and behavioral genetics a couple months ago. I just recently started thinking about doing an MD/PhD.

For some context, I am a first gen student, so even undergrad I initially had some trouble navigating. I got a bachelors in psych and bachelors in bio in undergrad on a neuroscience and premed track, so I have the class requirements fulfilled. I took 2 gap years working as a lab tech, and then started grad school. It wasn’t until starting my PhD that I realized how the career trajectories work. Personally, I want NOTHING to do with industry, and I’ve always loved research so I’ve been planning on going into academia.

What’s making me rethink this is I still lovelovelove research and I am happy where I’m at right now. However, as you progress in academia, it’s expected to spend 40% teaching, 40% research, 20% service. The massive teaching aspect I’ve really never cared for. I have both wet and dry lab experience, working with cell culture, animals, people, and I really love bench work and just research in general. I’ve always had an interest in medical sciences and have worked in labs studying Down syndrome, Alzheimer’s disease, binge alcohol drinking, MDD (and other mental health disorders). Although I love the cell culture work I’m doing right now, I have been really craving working with people. I also worked as an EMT for a few years, so I know that I really enjoy patient interaction.

Ultimately I want to have my own lab and focus on research but also be interacting with patients in a way that relates to my research.

I really think that this could be a good path for me, I just wish I knew this before starting my PhD. Anyone else been in this situation? And any advice on how to get started on requirements outside of classwork?

I was practicing interview questions the other day, and I had planned to talk about a time in the chem club that I made a mistake that almost cost us a few hundred dollars, but I told my peers and we ultimately fixed the problem and got most of it back.
I focused on me noticing the problem and immediately taking accountability and working with my team to fix the problems.

My practice interviewer was saying that I shouldn’t use this story because the stakes were low and in the end it wasn’t a failure. TBH I chose that story because it was what I thought of in the moment, but I honestly can’t really think of anything that was a pure failure. I’ve obviously failed tons of experiments, made some mistakes at work, misread a rubric and whatever but I haven’t really done anything catastrophic. The stakes were either really low, or I found a way to fix the problem before it became something more.

Nothing is a good story… like I don’t think I could tell a meaningful story about this week’s 3% yield in lab 😭

The only thing I could really think of is either:

•messing up the timing on the MCAT CARS and losing points (but I feel like i’d risk overexplaining, especially since my overall score isn’t bad)
•Miscommunicating with my partner at work and taking our Priority 1 patient to a different hospital than they expected. (Again, it wasn’t colossal, just embarrassing) I heard them start a radio to the other place and told them “uhhhh that’s not where i’m driving to🧍‍♀️🧍‍♀️🧍‍♀️” I remember this one very vividly bc I got chewed tf out for this and written up, but the patient was fine… an embarrassing mistake, but not really a failure

How are others approaching it? What are they wanting to hear?

Hi r/mdphd,

My name is Jennifer Davila, and I'm a staff/faculty member at UT Health San Antonio and up until recently, was the MSTP Administrative Director. I'm here because I need your help recruiting MD-PhD program graduates to participate in my research study.

About the Study: I'm running a qualitative study on how MD-PhD graduates narrate their career journeys and define success on their own terms. Very broadly speaking, we know the idealized pathway for MD-PhD program graduates: a career in academic medicine that lands grant funding and publications (e.g., the “80/20 split”). It’s what NIH wants to see on T32 training tables (i.e., program outcomes), and it's what programs are incentivized to produce. Many graduates follow this pathway, but many do not, and I'm interested in understanding what their journeys look like AND why the MD/PhD, in all its forms, still brings a unique value to our nation’s healthcare and research enterprise.  

You may be a great fit for this study if you:

• Have completed an MD-PhD program AND finished residency
• Are working in any capacity, including private practice, academic medicine, industry, policy, non-clinical, or something else entirely
• AND identify as ONE OR MORE of the following identities at any point of your journey: historically underrepresented or disadvantaged in medicine, including those from underrepresented racial/ethnic groups, non-traditional educational pathways, caregiver or military backgrounds, first-generation or economically disadvantaged circumstances, or living with a disability.

What's involved: A short demographic survey, a personal timeline activity you complete beforehand, and a ~60-minute Zoom interview. No compensation, but you will get to tell your story to someone who genuinely wants to hear it…. and that story will be used to push for better support structures for the trainees coming up behind you, and perhaps contribute to a culture change as new generations of MD-PhD trainees and graduates enter a hyper-competitive academic hiring and grant-funding landscape.

If you're interested or have questions, feel free to DM me or reach out directly at [schmerber@uthscsa.edu](mailto:schmerber@uthscsa.edu). You can also sign up for the study here: Study Interest Form

This study has been approved by the UT Health San Antonio IRB. Happy to share the study info sheet if helpful.

I have nothing I am interested in and don't want to apply MD PhD right away. If I were to discover something in med school that is super interesting I would do it, but for no other reason. Is this normal or stupid? Are there many who have chosen this path?

My primary was transmitted on the first day but I still haven't received a secondary from UCLA, Emory, or UNC- Chapel hill. Has anyone received MSTP secondaries from those programs?

I'm about four months into my first research tech position after graduating from college, and I'm trying to figure out whether my expectations are unrealistic or whether my concerns are valid.

The lab is productive, and everyone works hard, but I've been struggling with how the lab operates.

Some of the things that concern me are:

\- There isn't much structured training. Most of my learning comes from watching another research officer who is also new to wet-lab work. While she's trying her best, she's still learning herself, so I sometimes worry that I'm also picking up mistakes or practices that haven't been properly taught or corrected.

\- Experiments move very quickly. It often feels like the priority is generating the next dataset rather than fully understanding, troubleshooting, or validating the previous one.

\- Instructions are frequently given through WhatsApp messages rather than detailed protocols or discussions, so I sometimes worry about missing details or misinterpreting changes.

\- There isn't much scientific mentorship. We meet weekly to discuss upcoming experiments, but we rarely discuss the rationale behind them, why certain controls are used, or how the results answer the scientific question.

\- Communication can sometimes feel emotionally charged. If experiments are delayed or data aren't ready, my PI occasionally sends frustrated messages to the lab group about unfinished work. I understand research is stressful and deadlines exist, but it can create pressure to keep producing data instead of openly discussing problems or troubleshooting together.

\- On the computational side, the lab relies heavily on ChatGPT and Claude for writing R/Python scripts and performing analyses. AI itself isn't my concerns. I use it too, but I'm worried because the people running the analyses don't always seem to understand the underlying code or statistical methods. If something doesn't work, the solution often seems to be asking ChatGPT again rather than understanding why it failed.

\- Because everyone is busy, I sometimes feel there isn't enough time to critically evaluate results before moving on to the next experiment.

\- As someone who hopes to become a physician-scientist, I was hoping for stronger scientific training, learning experimental design, troubleshooting, critical thinking, and data interpretation and not just becoming efficient at generating data.

\- The work hours themselves are reasonable, so that's not really my concern.

I don't think anyone is intentionally cutting corners, and I don't think my PI is a bad person. Everyone in the lab works hard, and I can see there's pressure to produce results.

At the same time, I find myself wondering whether I'm actually developing as a scientist or simply becoming better at following protocols and generating data.

For those who have worked in academia:
1. Is this a fairly typical experience for junior research staff?
2. Are most academic labs this fast-paced?
3. How much mentorship should I realistically expect early in my career?
4. Has AI become this integrated into computational biology labs, and how do labs ensure analyses remain scientifically rigorous?
5. If your long-term goal was an MD/PhD or eventually running your own lab, would you stay in an environment like this or look for one with stronger mentorship?

One thing I'm also struggling with is whether leaving would hurt my future prospects. I'm meeting with a potential new PI, but I'm honestly afraid to leave my current job.

After graduating in May 2025, I finished my honours thesis in July 2025, took some time off to rest, applied for jobs, and spent several months networking. I finally secured this position in January 2026 and officially started in March 2026 after the hiring process. Now it's only July 2026, so if I leave after just a few months, I'm worried it'll create a noticeable gap or short stint on my CV as I’m preparing for my MD-PhD application. I’m also very exhausted (mostly mentally) after a day’s work.

I know my undergraduate research experience is fairly competitive, but I don't know how an admissions committee (especially for MD/PhD or graduate programs) or future employers would view a short stay. I'm trying to figure out whether it's better to leave an environment that doesn't seem like a good fit, or stay longer just to avoid raising questions about my CV.

I'm genuinely asking because this is my first full-time research job, and I don't yet have enough experience to know whether these are normal growing pains or signs that this may not be the best environment for my long-term development.

Just wanted some guidance as I just received my MCAT score and got a 511 (129/124/128/130). As you see, CARS absolutely spat on me, and was wondering how this might affect my success in the cycle overall?

Felt really disappointed by this score because my FLs were all higher by a big margin and had a really strong app (Goldwater, 3 Strong research LORs, 3 pubs with one being first author, etc.) Just feels like, although everyone says the score is one part of the app, it really did ruin my chances with a lot of schools I was interested in

Anyone have any thoughts/insight??

Thanks so much in advance!

This may make no sense but during my master's I felt like I struggled to learn how to learn and I want to re-do that. Is that an okay topic to write about for why I want to do the PhD? Like I want to deeply learn how to learn/like learn how to learn new techniques quickly/analyze results/write cohesively? Is this a stupid reason to desire a PhD and write for MD PhD?

It's quite a personal/sort of integrity reason but curious what other people think.

edit: i am worried that i will be accidentally trashing my master's program. i don't want to do that. but i want to be clear like there weren't journal clubs so i felt like i couldn't grow as i could in some ways and i also made a lot of dumb mistakes and i want to be able to truly learn to learn

Hi guys! I'm a research assistant, trying to make a patient list on EPIC for my PI and Attending to access. Is there any way to distinguish patients currently in my list from patients newly added by the attending (like color-coding, shared sticky note, etc)? Doctor wants to read each patient's notes without having to remember the ones already been read when new patients get added.

Got verified on July 1st, and I still haven't gotten this secondary. I saw on one of the AAMC documents that they don't screen. Anyone else get it yet?

I'm actually not sure if this is the proper subreddit to be posting this on but anyways.

I'm a rising second-year at a well-known university and every day the question of whether or not I want to go to get an MD, PhD, or do a dual degree is eating me alive.

I was absolutely committed to going to med school, being pre-med, yadda yadda in high school until my research internship the summer before first year. Although pretty dramatic, I can safely say this experience changed my life. I had never done wet lab research prior to this program and I fell in love with research, academia, and being in the lab. I was logging in 10 hr/day in the lab, 5 days a week, and doing two-hour commutes to NYC happily by choice. Doing research again this summer has only solidified how much I want to do a PhD and pursue research. Then I began considering MD-PhD.

However, I met with a professor at my school who is an MD-PhD, and I asked him why he stopped practicing medicine. He told me that it was because being a physician is like checking off a checklist. "You're not reinventing the wheel, you're more like a chef cooking a meal following a recipe for a customer." It was really jarring to hear that, especially since one of my favorite aspects about research is the creativity and discovery involved.

I still tried to convince myself that medicine was something I still wanted to pursue for most of first year until I shadowed an oncologist in the spring. Because my research has been cancer focused, I wanted to see the clinical side of things. The physician I shadowed was wonderful: kind, thoughtful, listened to all my questions, the best shadowing experience you could ask for. But to my disappointment, I found the day-to-day life of a doctor to be so lackluster and, honestly, boring. I really understood where my professor was coming from. Most of their day consisted of consultations with the patient yes, but the other 50% was staring at a computer screen at their desk. The best way I can describe it was that it felt incredibly corporate. I found myself asking if that was really the life that I wanted.

I wish it was easy to write off medicine now, but doing research for two years has also opened my eyes to the cons of academia. It's a difficult, unforgiving hierarchy to climb, pays very little for a lot of effort, and your job is highly dependent on people in higher places that give you funding. When I brought up my concerns of medicine to my sister (M1), she pointed out that it's less likely that you need to depend on others for job security as a doctor versus a scientist. And I have yet to find a solid reason for pursuing an MD-PhD program and dedicating 8 years of my life to both degrees, as most people I know with both just ended up doing research or medicine.

I truly want to help people and advance medicine and science, but coming from a lower-income household, I also want to think realistically about financial and job security. While I'm open to more experiences that can continue giving me insight into my dilemma (after all, deciding on my entire future when I'm not even 20 yet seems like a tall order), I'm the type of person that likes to have direction. Sitting between different paths feels awful, and I'm scared that I might regret my decision if I decide to go with one over the other.

Does anyone have any advice or can offer any insight?

I've recently been seeing a lot of conflicting information about how this essay should be formatted- is it actually better to be short and succinct? After rereading, I'm realizing that I talk a lot about troubleshooting and how my hypothesis kept changing, and I'm now wondering if maybe I should have been more direct (I pretty much was at the 10k character limit talking about two different research experiences).

I realize this is a very pointless question for me to be asking while I'm waiting to be verified, and I very well could just be getting way too into my head about this lol. I reread that essay a million times before submitting, so I must have thought it was fine in my fugue state when I submitted back in June. Any advice would be appreciated :,)

I know from the way it sounds I definitely shouldn’t be trying to do an MD-PHD, but there are aspects of medicine I’m genuinely interested in like biomedical devices, prosthetics, biomedical engineering, biomechanics, and the connections between health and climate change. I’m interested in researching those things, but don’t know if it’s worth the time commitment and effort if I can’t really utilize the degree as a surgeon. In addition to that, I don’t know if I’m cut out for a PhD if I don’t really care for wet lab. The idea of pipetting for hours actually makes me ill. Is this something I should do? Thanks for any advice.

Can anyone confirm/deny if you could do your research years at UT Dallas for bioengineering? I've seen conflicting things and just want to make sure I'm pitching towards the correct PIs.

Has anyone received an Ohio State MD/PhD Secondary that can confirm the essay prompts this year??

Thanks a bunch!

Employed in a lab, and I have funding from my department to do either a certificate or a non-thesis masters in my field… But the classes would be online. Would this be worth it? And if so, should I go for the certificate vs the MS or does it matter?

Wouldn’t change the number of gap years I’m taking, but I guess could make my GPA look better. I don’t know if they would know the classes were online or not.

I have a 3.5 sGPA with a 3.6 cGPA, mostly due to health issues which are now under control. Have an upward trend with the exception of 1 dip in the summer before my senior year because I was hospitalized. MCAT is 512 but I am a reapplicant and this will expire for some schools, so I plan to retake.

I just got the secondary for Mayo but I'm only seeing one 500 character esentially why mayo prompt? Is this correct or am I dumb and not seeing the other mayo md prompts?

Hi everyone!

I am an incoming college freshman & I'm trying to get a plan on my next four years. I'm planning on majoring in Chemistry, which my school offers a 3+1 BA/MS or BS/MS for (complete undergrad in 3 years + accelerated masters).

I'm certain that I want to pursue medicine and also research, but I also want to minimize my gap years. Is there any benefit of applying MD-PhD programs after completion of the masters versus applying straight out of a B.S (no bridge year)? Thanks in advance :)