November 11th's meeting had a presentation by Neha Wali, a UMBC alumnus currently in an MD/PhD program in the South Texas Medical Scientist Training Program. She is in the NIH OxCam Program, which allows her to pursue a joint PhD between the National Cancer Institute and Oxford University. Here are some of the highlights of the presentation:
This is a good program for students who are independent and don't need a structured experience, and those who are problem-solvers not easily discouraged. Students should be able to work well across two continents, labs, and PIs. They should also enjoy traveling, meeting new people, and having new experiences.
Basic program outline:
Participants generally finish their PhD in 4 years. There is no official coursework. Students usually apply as a graduate student, where you don't have a connection to medical school. Otherwise students currently applying to medical schools can also apply, then apply later to UK schools or students currently in MD/PhD programs can apply (easiest path).
While there is no application fee for OxCam, there are UK application fees associated with Oxford for accepted students.
The application opened on August 3rd this year, and the deadline is December 1st. Applicants are notified in January, and interviews take place in February. The interview is only 25 minutes, and with longer time periods to talk to current program members and PIs, and attend info sessions.
Applications are viewed holistically. You don't have to already have a PI when applying to OxCam, but it is helpful to be in conversations with potential PIs.
When applying to medical school in general, a high MCAT and mediocre GPA is preferable to a mediocre MCAT and a high GPA. Students should apply to about 30 schools, but have a backup plan. For MD/PhD, you should generally have at least a thousand research hours. Having a published work is not required, but is recommended.
The slides presented are attached to this post. You can also find a recording of the meeting at the following WebEx link: https://umbc.webex.com/umbc/ldr.php?RCID=3dc33ab12a8e4277981e1d4a4465c443