Welcome to the MD/PhD Training Program at the NYU School of Medicine

Dear Future Physician-Scientists:

You are fortunate to be starting your professional training during an extraordinary period in biomedical research. Elias Zerhouni, MD, former Director of the NIH, tells a revealing story: over several conferences, he asked a number of biotech leaders and Nobel laureates the question, "How much biology do we truly understand? How much do we need to know to be effective as scientists, as healers, as physicians? Ninety percent?...  Fifty?... Thirty percent?" No one would raise their hands until the figure came to "below ten percent." Combine this agreement with the equally respectable notion that half of what we think we know will turn out to be wrong, and it appears that at least 95% of what there is to discover remains ahead of us.

Medical science is a true 21st century terra incognita. It is the challenge of MSTP programs to teach you how to navigate this boundless (and boundary-less) terrain, and this is a rigorous discipline on its own. Not only are scientists increasingly called on to view their work in the context of the organismal biology, but physicians are facing a sea change of their own: medicine is orienting not just toward prevention but to individual variations in response to treatments and the interactions and participation of specialty teams (not to mention patients themselves). As we enter what I believe will be a golden age for translational research, the need for well-prepared physician-scientists has never been greater.

As the Director of the NYU Medical Scientist Training Program, let me welcome you to our new website. While the MSTP program undergoes exciting changes over the coming months, this site will post new and more detailed information about what we offer and the ways in which we are improving our program.

Anyone seriously considering the pursuit of an MD/PhD combined degree is poised to enter a realm of rare opportunity and challenge. My own training has proven invaluable for many of my career choices, sometimes in surprising ways. I have been an academic researcher, a teacher of medical and graduate students, a mentor, and a Chair, and I have savored all of these roles. I believe our program will provide superior training for as varied and individual a career as you choose to pursue.

David B. Roth, M.D., Ph.D.
Irene Diamond Professor of Immunology
Chair, Department of Pathology
Director, NYU Medical Scientist Training Program

A note on the image: The depiction above of a pilgrim's cosmological discovery is known as the "Flammarion woodcut." It is often reproduced to illustrate a break-through discovery across scientific boundaries or as a paradigmatic visualization of the medieval imaginary. Its earliest documented appearance, however, dates to the late 19th century in a book by the French astronomer Camille Flammarion. (Colorized version by Hugo Heikenwaelder, reproduced by permission.)