By Margaret Baron, MD, PhD

On behalf of the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, I would like to officially welcome the 13 MD/PhD students in the Matriculating Class of 2015, whose names, undergraduate institutions, and tentative Multidisciplinary Training Areas (MTA) are listed below in this Newsletter. They are a talented and energetic group! This past summer, I and my two Associate Directors, Ben Chen and Talia Swartz, had a wonderful time interacting with the new students in the course Problem Solving in Biomedical Sciences. They are now immersed in their first medical school course, STRUCTURES, while the 10 students who will be graduating in May 2016 are about to begin applying for residencies. My own milestone is that I am about to enter my ninth month as the new Director of the Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP); it has been a whirlwind, a privilege, and a pleasure. I thank our students for their enthusiastic welcome and for giving so generously of their time in planning and organizing the highly successful Revisit event in April, the upcoming Retreat in October, and for discussions about program iniatives.

Another highlight of the MD/PhD Program is the success of the graduating class of 2015 in matching in their top-choice residency programs in Medicine (NYU, Research Track), Pediatrics (Children’s Hospital, Boston; New York Presbyterian Hospital, Columbia Medical Center; University of Pittsburgh Medical Center), Obstetrics and Gyncecology (Cleveland Clinic Foundation), General Surgery (Brigham & Womens Hospital, Boston), Vascular Surgery (Barnes Jewish Hospital and Medical Center, St. Louis), Psychiatry (George Washington University, Washington DC), and Anesthesiology (Hospital of the University of PA) [one student deferred his residency to pursue entrepreneurial endeavors]. A reception was held in their honor, to celebrate this important achievement.

Initiatives undertaken since the start of my position as Director of the MD/PhD Program include:

1. Development of a new integrated MD/PhD Program Curriculum: at the request of students in the program, we agreed to design a new curriculum that integrates the medical school and graduate school curricula and aims to reduce redundancy in material covered. The course directors (Ben Chen and Matthew O’Connell) and I met with a group of students for a debriefing, which included a strong recommendation to incorporate the medical school’s course “Molecular, Cellular, and Genomic Foundations (MCG)” in the fall semester. Ben and Matt then worked very hard to design an innovative curriculum built around MCG that includes more in-depth material to build on lectures from MCG, an MD/PhD program journal club, and small group problem-solving sessions. We met again with students to present Ben and Matt’s plan and several suggestions were adopted. This new course, “Biomedical Sciences for MD/PhD – Fall (BSR1017)” will begin in late October, after the end of STRUCTURES. Ben and Matt have also redesigned the course for the spring semester (BSR1018) to parallel the first year medical school curriculum to the extent possible and to add additional material (e.g. on stem cell biology) not covered in the fall.

2. The summer course for matriculating students, “Problem Solving in Biomedical Sciences (PSBS)” or BSR1016, was based on last summer’s course, but with a focus on specific scientific problems presented by each of 6 invited faculty, rather than on technologies, and was restructured to allow for increased class discuss and small group problem solving.

3. Steps toward accelerating time to graduation:

   • Reduction in course load for students entering the lab during the PhD years of the program: Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR), required of all graduate students, will be offered for the first time as a course specifically for MD/PhD students this fall. Also, for the first time, the course will be taken by first year students (along with any other more senior students who have not yet taken the course). Biostatistics: MD/PhD students will now take the rigorous course MPH0800, directed by Drs. Emilia Bagiella and Emma Benn, in the fall. We hope to work with Drs. Bagiella and Benn to design a course for MD/PhD students that will begin during the first summer of the program, for matriculating students, and will continue during the academic year. This change will also reduce the course load for students entering the lab during the PhD years of the program and may help accelerate the time to graduation.

   • Elimination of the Qualifying Exam by the Graduate School and change in timing of the Thesis Defense Exam to the first PhD year of the program.

4. Medical Scientist Grand Rounds (MSGR): will replace the former Medical Scientist Research Seminars (MSRS). This new forum will include a research presentation by a senior MD/PhD student (typically in year 3 or 4 in the lab) and an interactive case discussion that highlights a problem, placing the student’s research in a clinical context. This course will now be required of all MD/PhD students through their PhD years, with excused absences approved by the Director on a case by case basis for students writing a thesis. We hope this course will become a cornerstone of the program and that it will be one of several ways we will help facilitate the transition of our students from PhD years back into the clinical clerkships.

5. Google Life Sciences Fellowships for MD/PhD students to conduct their thesis research in Mountain View, California. Cindy Tian was selected after a competitive review of applicants as our first GLS Fellow.

Upcoming initiatives include our Annual Retreat at the Bushkill Inn, located in the beautiful Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania, with a keynote address to be given by internationally recognized stem cell biologist Dr. Elaine Fuchs; a revamping of the Program web site and updated program Flyer (in progress); and, of course, the start of the Admissions process for 2016. I am excited about these new initiatives and look forward to sharing a productive and rewarding academic year with our students, alumni, and faculty.