Educating the biomedical scientist

PhD graduate training programs in pathology: 2003 report from the American Society for Investigative Pathology workshop on pathology graduate education

“…A few years after the Tufts course appeared, The Harvard-Markey Biomedical Sciences program was described. 4 Central features of that program were that a modest group of students (not more than 16) agreed to take an additional 9 months of coursework and then were integrated into portions of the medical school curriculum, including the medical student courses in pathology and human systems. Although the Harvard-Markey program has been discontinued because of lack of funding, Harvard and MIT have continued other programs that have provided direct medical exposure for biomedical engineering students.…”

Integrating clinical perspectives into graduate education

“…The Harvard Immunology Program at Harvard University historically trained Ph.D. students in the core sciences as well as in the specifics of basic research in immunology, but there was no curricular content designed to address the integration of the clinical aspects in the field of immunology with the related basic science. This has become of increasing importance with the decline in physicians entering into the basic sciences and clinical research 1-6 . While this decline can be partially addressed by M.D.-Ph.D. programs, the length and nature of these programs does not make them ideal for many students interested in translational research, leading to an increasing need for Ph.D. scientists to conduct mechanistic, clinically related research.…”