MMI Undergraduate Club Minutes, Wednesday, February 5, 2005

Talked about volunteer activities coming up:

  1. Blood Drive Competition with Bacteriology Club: February 24/25.
  2. Ronald McDonald House: make food for families/sick people: looking at March – let us know if you are interested.
  3. Relay 4 Life – 4 more spots available, let us know ASAP.

Dr. Striker spoke about MD/PhD Program (and informal speech on his life):

  1. Went to Purdue, undergrad in Chem
  2. Spent sophomore year doing lab work about peptidoglycan in arthritis
  3. PhD advisor said to apply to MD/PhD, although he was more committed to PhD
  4. Important aspect of applications is what it is to be a PHYSICIAN, not a doctor in general.
  5. Applied between WashU for MD/PhD and Caltech for PhD
  6. WashU devoted to really trying to further scientific aspect of medicine and integrate physical science people into med centers instead of the normal public school under pressure to pump out doctors.
  7. MD/PhD at WashU similar to other programs: 2 years med student then 5 years PhD then 2 more years as the med student again. In the fourth year, apply for residency. At WashU however, lab can be an elective time, so he was already applying to a specific program.
  8. Did residency at private hospital different than the academic center; his residency was less well known and he then was thinking he wanted to do medicine full time, so he did a long residency – 10 years
  9. Did shorter fellowship with Infectious Disease: HIV and Hepatitis C
  10. Decided to switch to Virology. His wife came here so he had to start his lab immediately. The quick switch was hard and he feels like his research is still a learning experience, but it’s relevant to PEOPLE – focuses on mutations in people affecting the biology of the virus.
  11. He is a PI like others except one morning or afternoon a week, he sees patients in a clinic. Also 6 weeks out of the year he is the infectious disease attending physician on call. This means he consults with physicians for any infectious disease related question. He must keep up on any new infectious disease problems in the world. He also sees Hepatitis C in the clinic and compares it to what he has discovered in the lab – this gives a unique perspective.
  12. Now he wishes he spent more time seeing patients, since he’s close to the minimum amount
  13. As an MD/PhD, you don’t have to do residency. He recommends you ask yourself if you want to see patients or not. The more experiences you have, the more you can bring to the table, but the harder it is for you to focus on one set thing.
  14. As an MD/PhD, Med school is free, but honestly debt is not an issue because of the opportunities to work off the debt. HOWEVER the NIH wants more MD/PhD students and the NIH budget is greater than the NSF. Also if you decide to work in an underprivileged area, then it’s called a fellowship and the NIH finances everything.

If you have any questions about the MD/PhD program, please contact Dr. Striker at rtstriker@wisc.edu. We’d also like to thank him for coming!