A question about doctoral admission.

[rangrz]

This is not about me, but relates to the girl I am seeing. She is interested in doing a doctoral degree. She is a physician, but did her medical studies overseas, and therefore has the 'undergraduate' Bachelor of Medicine/Bachelor of Surgery credential. She has met with no luck getting into a doctoral program and has been told to go for a masters program, based on it being 'undergraduate' Is this right/normal? It does not make much sense... Its not quite the same as a typical undergrad, and it covers the same material as an M.D. program does. (Neither are research based per say either) Anyone have any insight on how how/if her problem can be handled?

 

[Jerry Atrick]

When you say she is going for a doctoral degree, do you mean a PhD or an MD? They are two different schools.

In the US many (or most) PhD programs accept students with an undergraduate degree and give them the opportunity to earn a Masters en route to a PhD. There is also the option of doing what I'm doing which is to get a terminal Masters (my current school does not have a PhD program in my field of study) and apply to PhD programs with a Masters in hand.

As far as MD programs go, in the US at least, all you need is an undergraduate degree to get accepted to medical school....no Masters required.

Of course, I don't know how any of this stuff plays out in Canada. Sorry I couldn't help more.

 

[rangrz]

PhD. Her medical degree is the same as M.D. and in any event she is licensed to practice and does so(Both as a medical officer in the army reserve and in civilian hospital). It seems the programs she wants do not admit undergrad to PhD, but do admit M.D. to PhD, which is the cause of contention, as her degree is equivalent and she is done residency and all, so it should be treated the same. That being said, no formal application has been filed, just talking to admissions staff... any suggestions on how to show equivalence?

 

[lulzkiller]

A few things might bother the admissions staff:

Many places outside the US/Canada follows this model for higher education: 3 year bachelor -> 2 year master -> 3 year PhD. This is at least the case most places in Europe, and can AFAIK cause a bit of trouble if you want to go to the US for a PhD straight after your bachelor (unless that bachelor is from, say, Oxbridge).

Another thing is that some institutions look down on others, some with good reason, and some without.

Try to get her to talk to the overseas university counsellors and see if they want to have a chat with the prospective PhD-awarding school.

Best of luck!

 

[Cyc]

A medical degrifee is an undergrad degree, she needs to do her masters if she wants to get into a phd program

 

[rangrz]

A medical degrifee is an undergrad degree, she needs to do her masters if she wants to get into a phd program

Orly?
http://www.gradschool.utoronto.ca/Admission_Requirements.htm

Doctoral Programs

an appropriate master's degree, or its equivalent, with an average of at least B+ or demonstrated comparable research competence
some departments admit directly to the doctoral program from a bachelor's degree for highly qualified candidates (minimum average A- required)

that being said, I think I will show this to her as the program she wanted is available there, she was looking at another school that appears to not offer that. (and which is located the wastelands that calls it self "hamilton ontario")

tl;dr tentatively solved problem.

 

[yucatanboy2]

Depends on what PhD program. Many programs (like chemistry and biology) don't care if you have a masters or not. Most dont have masters and get them on the way to get their PhD in those programs. Remember that a PhD can be 5-6 years with low pay, you really have to love it to go into it.

 

[rangrz]

^
yeah, the program@UToronto of interest is Laboratory Medicine&pathobiology.
I don't really know why she wants to do it; I just figured I'd use my tweaker powers of staying up and looking for info to help. I actually suspect she wants to do it as to append even more letters after her name. lol.