May 15, 2008

Medical School for Physician-Scientists Will Offer Free Tuition

The Cleveland Clinic’s medical school will offer full-tuition scholarships to all of its students in an effort to encourage more people to pursue careers in academic medicine, the clinic announced today.

The free-tuition offer, which will begin with the class that enters in July, will initially be supported through endowment income and clinical revenues. The clinic hopes eventually to pay for it entirely through endowment income. Students will still pay about $22,000 a year for living expenses, fees, books, and equipment.

“The average debt for students graduating from private U.S. medical schools, such as the Lerner College of Medicine, is more than $150,000, making many graduates less likely to pursue careers in academic medicine,” said Delos M. (Toby) Cosgrove, president of the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western University. “By providing full-tuition support, we want to ensure that debt does not hinder the ability of our graduates to pursue academic careers as physician scientists.”

In 2002 the Cleveland Clinic Foundation and Case Western Reserve University announced that they were opening a new medical school to train physicians and scientists for clinical-research careers. The school accepted its first students in 2004. —Katherine Mangan

Comments

1. Many medical schools are promoting MD-PhD programs to train “physician-scientists” in the hopes that graduates will pursue medical research in academic medicine settings. However, it’s commonly believed that most of these graduates never enter biomedical research, opting instead to go into clinical practice where they can make considerably more money. Is anyone aware of data that show: (1) the proportion of MD-PhDs that actually become researchers and (2) the impact or contributions of MD-PhD’s compared to “mere” PhDs? As you can probably tell from my comment and question, I suspect that the cost of these programs doesn’t justify the outcomes.

   — murphyd    May 16, 11:40 AM    #

2. I agree. I’m a physician who also went to grad school. MD-PhDs do not get rigorous training in scientific studies or statistical analysis of data, and their research is usually limited. It is not equivalent to regular PhD training programs. Any review of medical journals can reveal the often shoddy statistical analysis.

   — Linda    May 16, 12:17 PM    #

3. The larger issue here from a public policy perspective is the idea of subsidizing medical school students to enter certain fields. I think that’s a good precedent and should be emulated in other fields like primary care, OB-GYN, geriatrics, etc. As for the secondary issue of MD-PhD degrees versus straight PhDs in biosciences, that’s another matter altogether and should be debated separately.

   — Harris Cohen    May 16, 04:32 PM    #

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