Tri-Institutional MD-PhD Program - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Tri-Institutional MD-PhD, or Tri-I, program is an innovative biomedical partnership between the Weill Cornell Medical College (WMC), The Rockefeller University(RU) and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center

Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center

Memorial Sloan–Kettering Cancer Center is a cancer treatment and research institution founded in 1884 as the New York Cancer Hospital...

(MSKCC). Located in the Upper East Side

Upper East Side

The Upper East Side is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, between Central Park and the East River. The Upper East Side lies within an area bounded by 59th Street to 96th Street, and the East River to Fifth Avenue-Central Park...

of New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, the Tri-I campus is led by Craig Thompson (President of MSKCC), Marc Tessier-Lavigne

Marc Tessier-Lavigne

Marc Trevor Tessier-Lavigne is a Canadian-American neuroscientist who is president of The Rockefeller University in New York City. He was formerly executive vice president for research and the chief scientific officer at Genentech. Tessier-Lavigne succeeded Nobel laureate Paul Nurse...

(President of RU) and Antonio Gotto

Antonio Gotto

Dr. Antonio Gotto is Dean of Weill Medical College of Cornell University. He will be succeeded by Laurie H. Glimcher in January 2012. . Prior to his appointment in 1997, Gotto was chairman of the department of internal medicine at Baylor College of Medicine for twenty years, where he...

is the Dean

Dean (education)

In academic administration, a dean is a person with significant authority over a specific academic unit, or over a specific area of concern, or both...

of WMC. Dr. Olaf Andersen of Weill Cornell directs and Ruth Gotian manages the program.

Program

Student

A student is a learner, or someone who attends an educational institution. In some nations, the English term is reserved for those who attend university, while a schoolchild under the age of eighteen is called a pupil in English...

s complete medical studies at Weill Cornell and may choose a PhD

Doctor of Philosophy

Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...

thesis

Thesis

A dissertation or thesis is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings...

advisor in any of the institutions. Each year about 350 students apply for on average 12 positions; the positions are funded by National Institutes of Health

National Institutes of Health

The National Institutes of Health are an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services and are the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and health-related research. Its science and engineering counterpart is the National Science Foundation...

Medical Scientist Training Program

Medical Scientist Training Programs are combined M.D. and Ph.D. graduate degree programs offered by a small number of United States medical schools with financial support from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences , in recognition of the increasing need for scientists to bridge the...

(MSTP) for the full length of training (usually 7-8 years). Applicants often have strong undergraduate

Undergraduate education

Undergraduate education is an education level taken prior to gaining a first degree . Hence, in many subjects in many educational systems, undergraduate education is post-secondary education up to the level of a bachelor's degree, such as in the United States, where a university entry level is...

science preparation, extensive laboratory

Laboratory

A laboratory is a facility that provides controlled conditions in which scientific research, experiments, and measurement may be performed. The title of laboratory is also used for certain other facilities where the processes or equipment used are similar to those in scientific laboratories...

experience and strong MCAT

Medical College Admission Test

The Medical College Admission Test is a computer-based standardized examination for prospective medical students in the United States and Canada. It is designed to assess problem solving, critical thinking, written analysis, and writing skills in addition to knowledge of scientific concepts and...

test scores.

The medical curriculum is characterized by Problem Based Learning and early exposure to medical interviewing. While the Cornell Medical Center is frequented by Manhattan

Manhattan

Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...

celebrities and the wealthy, opportunities to serve in the new student-run free clinic

Clinic

A clinic is a health care facility that is primarily devoted to the care of outpatients...

or abroad in Haiti

Haiti

Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...

, Brazil

Brazil

Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

, Tanzania

Tanzania

The United Republic of Tanzania is a country in East Africa bordered by Kenya and Uganda to the north, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west, and Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique to the south. The country's eastern borders lie on the Indian Ocean.Tanzania is a state...

or Weill Cornell-Qatar campus are also available.

Students arrive the July 4th weekend before their first year of medical school to complete one of three rotations for the summer. The first year curriculum is similar to Cornell MD students except that MD-PhD students take Frontiers in Biomedical Sciences I (Frontiers). Students complete a second rotation after their first year and complete second year of Cornell MD curriculum while taking Frontiers II and the USMLE in June. The Thesis Years (3,4,5 and maybe 6 and 7): Students complete thesis research and graduate school requirements in one of the 270 laboratories on Tri-I campus. Clinical electives and courses are offered to keep students up to date with their medical training and clinical skills. During the 6th and 7th years, students complete clinical requirements at Cornell and pursue any electives.

Reputation

The Tri-I program boasts extensive medical and basic science resources. Notable achievements in the past year include the ranking of MSKCC as the nation's top cancer

Cancer

Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...

center, New York-Presbyterian Hospital ranked 7th by the U.S. News & World Report
U.S. News & World Report
U.S. News & World Report is an American news magazine published from Washington, D.C. Along with Time and Newsweek it was for many years a leading news weekly, focusing more than its counterparts on political, economic, health and education stories...

, and Rockefeller University as a top biomedical graduate school for cell

Cell biology

Cell biology is a scientific discipline that studies cells – their physiological properties, their structure, the organelles they contain, interactions with their environment, their life cycle, division and death. This is done both on a microscopic and molecular level...

and molecular biology

Molecular biology

Molecular biology is the branch of biology that deals with the molecular basis of biological activity. This field overlaps with other areas of biology and chemistry, particularly genetics and biochemistry...

, biochemistry

Biochemistry

Biochemistry, sometimes called biological chemistry, is the study of chemical processes in living organisms, including, but not limited to, living matter. Biochemistry governs all living organisms and living processes...

and structural biology

Structural biology

Structural biology is a branch of molecular biology, biochemistry, and biophysics concerned with the molecular structure of biological macromolecules, especially proteins and nucleic acids, how they acquire the structures they have, and how alterations in their structures affect their function...

. The institution has been associated with 23 Nobel Prize

Nobel Prize

The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...

winners in its 100 year history.

Notable faculty

Harold Varmus - Nobel Laureate, president of MSKCC
Lloyd Old
Lloyd Old
Dr. Lloyd J. Old is internationally recognized as one of the founders and standard-bearers of the field of cancer immunology. When Dr. Old began his career in 1958, tumor immunology was in its infancy. Today, cancer immunotherapies are emerging as a significant advance in cancer therapy...

- Discoverer of Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha, MSKCC
Sir Paul Nurse - Nobel Laureate, president of RU
Antonio Gotto
Antonio Gotto
Dr. Antonio Gotto is Dean of Weill Medical College of Cornell University. He will be succeeded by Laurie H. Glimcher in January 2012. . Prior to his appointment in 1997, Gotto was chairman of the department of internal medicine at Baylor College of Medicine for twenty years, where he...

- Cardiologist, Dean of Weill Cornell
Paul Greengard
Paul Greengard
Paul Greengard is an American neuroscientist best known for his work on the molecular and cellular function of neurons. In 2000, Greengard, Arvid Carlsson and Eric Kandel were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for their discoveries concerning signal transduction in the nervous...

- Nobel Laureate, RU
David Ho - HIV/AIDS, TIME Man of the Year in 1996, RU
Jeffrey Friedman
Jeffrey M. Friedman
Jeffrey Friedman, MD, PhD, is a molecular geneticist at New York City's Rockefeller University. His discovery of the hormone leptin and its role in regulating body weight has had a major role in the area of human obesity.-Biography:...

- Discoverer of Leptin, RU
Roderick MacKinnon
Roderick MacKinnon
Roderick MacKinnon is a professor of Molecular Neurobiology and Biophysics at Rockefeller University who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry together with Peter Agre in 2003 for his work on the structure and operation of ion channels....

- Nobel Laureate, Ion Channels, RU
Günter Blobel
Günter Blobel
-Biography:Blobel was born in Waltersdorf in the Prussian Province of Lower Silesia. In January 1945 his family fled from native Silesia from the advancing Red Army. On their way to the West they passed through the beautiful old city of Dresden, which left deep impressions in the young boy...

- Nobel Laureate, Intracellular trafficking, RU
Torsten Wiesel
Torsten Wiesel
Torsten Nils Wiesel was a Swedish co-recipient with David H. Hubel of the 1981 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, for their discoveries concerning information processing in the visual system; the prize was shared with Roger W...

- NMS, Nobel Laureate, RU
Christian de Duve
Christian de Duve
Christian René, viscount de Duve is a Nobel Prize-winning cytologist and biochemist. De Duve was born in Thames Ditton, Surrey, Great Britain, as a son of Belgian refugees. They returned to Belgium in 1920...

- Nobel Laureate, RU
Joshua Lederberg
Joshua Lederberg
Joshua Lederberg ForMemRS was an American molecular biologist known for his work in microbial genetics, artificial intelligence, and the United States space program. He was just 33 years old when he won the 1958 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering that bacteria can mate and...

- NMS, Nobel Laureate, RU
James E. Darnell Jr. - NMS, RU

Housing

Subsidized housing by the program is available to Tri-I students for all years. The first year is based in Olin Hall with dorm-style rooms, at 69th St and York Avenue across the street from the medical college, while years 2-4 are based in Lasdon Hall with apartment style rooms. Students have option of moving to Sloan Kettering or Rockefeller housing for years 5-completion.

Placement

The Students often proceed to internal medicine

Internal medicine

Internal medicine is the medical specialty dealing with the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of adult diseases. Physicians specializing in internal medicine are called internists. They are especially skilled in the management of patients who have undifferentiated or multi-system disease processes...

or pathology

Pathology

Pathology is the precise study and diagnosis of disease. The word pathology is from Ancient Greek , pathos, "feeling, suffering"; and , -logia, "the study of". Pathologization, to pathologize, refers to the process of defining a condition or behavior as pathological, e.g. pathological gambling....

residencies

Residency (medicine)

Residency is a stage of graduate medical training. A resident physician or resident is a person who has received a medical degree , Podiatric degree , Dental Degree and who practices...

either at Weill Cornell Medical College, Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

(Brigham and Women's Hospital

Brigham and Women's Hospital

Brigham and Women's Hospital is the largest hospital of the Longwood Medical and Academic Area in Boston, Massachusetts. It is directly adjacent to Harvard Medical School of which it is the second largest teaching affiliate with 793 beds...

, Massachusetts General Hospital

Massachusetts General Hospital

Massachusetts General Hospital is a teaching hospital and biomedical research facility in the West End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts...

) or University of California, San Francisco

University of California, San Francisco

The University of California, San Francisco is one of the world's leading centers of health sciences research, patient care, and education. UCSF's medical, pharmacy, dentistry, nursing, and graduate schools are among the top health science professional schools in the world...

. The program has been successful, as 80% of the nearly 150 graduates now hold academic posts in a basic research or clinical capacity.

External links