Doctor of Medicinee

Our mission is to improve health in the communities and region we serve. We do this by educating excellent clinicians and scientists, by providing patient centered and high-quality care and by producing nationally recognized research in focused areas.

The mission of the M.D./Ph.D. Program at The University of Toledo College of Medicine and Life Sciences (UTCOMLS) is to provide outstanding training that integrates clinical medicine, biomedical science, compassionate care and professionalism to enable students to succeed as independent physician-scientists with the skills, creativity and vision to shape the future of healthcare. Our goal is to provide rigorous training in a supportive environment for students who will become the next generation of leaders in academic medicine or a variety of alternative career paths.

Introduction and History

The combined M.D./Ph.D. degree program at UTCOMLS began in the mid-1980s as an informal mechanism to allow simultaneous pursuit of both the M.D. and Ph.D. degrees and its first student graduated in 1992. The program offers students outstanding integrated training as both physicians and laboratory scientists. Most students accepted into the program are granted full medical school tuition scholarships and receive both tuition and a stipend at the NIH predoctoral level during their graduate school years. The unique interdisciplinary nature of our program provides a supportive atmosphere for students to pursue both medical and research training for careers as academic physician-scientists. Graduates from our M.D./Ph.D. program have progressed to highly competitive residencies and serve as faculty at prestigious institutions. 

Our goal is to provide students with the skills needed to conduct independent biomedical research and a firm clinical foundation for subsequent residency, fellowship and/or post-doctoral training. It usually takes seven to eight years to complete all requirements for both degrees — the national average is currently 8 years. Typically two students per year matriculate into the M.D./Ph.D. track. Thus there are generally a total of 14-16 students in the program at any given time.