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The benefit of the integrated curriculum is huge in terms of giving you exposure to possible mentors, helping you knock out core graduate school requirements early so you can concentrate on research after your first two years of medical school, and more generally making your education more continuous in terms of learning things relevant to physicians and scientists at the same time, instead of always learning them separately. - Tim Olson, MSTP Alum |
The unique curriculum for the Medical Scientist Training Program has been optimized to promote a student's development as a physician-scientist. The specialized MSTP curriculum integrates graduate core courses with the medical curriculum. (i.e. select Graduate courses replace certain Medical School courses). A major advantage of this integrated coursework is that it provides an emphasis on reading/analysis or primary research publications (as opposed to medical courses that frequently rely on textbook material) and it promotes experimental investigation. Also, students are exposed to many areas of research investigation and to many potential research mentors during these courses. An added benefit is the reduction in the number of core courses that MSTP students take during their Ph.D. training. More details can be found in our Program Handbook.