How to Become a Fully Funded US MD/PhD Student as a Canadian

Message from Sachi

Hi friends, happy Tuesday!

A few of you have told me that you want to learn from Canadian students who are doing graduate studies in the US, so I hope David’s interview has lots of insight for you! If you have other requests for fields & careers that you want to see in Invite Health, please fill out this form to let me know 😊 .

In the meantime, I’m looking to interview students & recent grads who are in the following fields: child health, engineering, consulting, health tech. If you know anyone who may want to share their story for Invite Health, send me a message!

Something that made my week - we’re being recognized from South Korea? 🇰🇷 Jaehyuk Imm, Chief Business Officer of GPCR Therapeutics, reposted Kyle’s interview and promoted Invite Health to his network. If you’re reading this Jaehyuk, thank you so much!

This week, I invited David Zhu to share his story. David shares his journey from Canadian undergrad at Western to MPH at Yale, and now as an MD/PhD student at VCU. David is an aspiring social epidemiologist and physician with interests in social medicine (ex: addiction, harm reduction, social determinants of health). What you’ll learn from David today:

• How David built his research career, from how he landed his positions and describing which positions were paid & unpaid

• When you should (and shouldn’t) consider pursuing an MD/PhD

• Insights for students interested in doing Master’s or an MD/PhD in the US - from applicant eligibility (as an international student) to scholarships

Enjoy today’s read,

Sachi 💌 

P.S. This newsletter may be clipped by your email, so press “read online” in the top right to read the full interview.

Interview with David Zhu: Fully-funded MD/PhD Student at VCU, Yale MPH, Social Medicine Researcher

First off, tell us about your journey so far. Where do you study, what inspired you to pursue this, and what’s next? What else do you like to do outside of studying?

Hi! I’m David (He/Him), a first-year MD/PhD candidate originally from Ottawa, ON, Canada. I enrolled in the Bachelor of Medical Sciences (BMSc) program at Western University where I pursued a specialization in Epidemiology and Biostatistics given my interest in public health and social determinants of health. In my third year, I applied to graduate programs (Master of Public Health at Yale, Columbia, and Dartmouth, as well as the Master of Science in Epidemiology program at Harvard). I also applied to four Canadian medical schools (Ottawa, Queens, Toronto, and McMaster) and was waitlisted for two of these programs post-interview (Ottawa and Queens). However, I was fortunate to receive acceptances to all four of my master’s programs, so I transferred to the “Bachelor of Science (BSc) in Medical Sciences” program which allowed me to graduate in three instead of four years, and I went on to pursue my Master’s of Public Health (MPH) at Yale in Social and Behavioral Sciences. I really enjoyed living in the US — lots of opportunities both personally (in terms of travel and social events) and professionally (in terms of the wide breadth of residency programs and academic hospitals that are aligned with my future career goals of a physician-social epidemiologist). I’m now at Virginia Commonwealth University’s Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP), which essentially means that it is an NIH-funded “MSTP” MD/PhD program (i.e., NIH is a federal level research agency for biomedical and other sciences… if you’re an NIH-funded MD/PhD program, this is called an “MSTP” and often comes with more structured funding and other benefits), and about to wrap up my first year of medical school. I’ll take one more semester of classes, take STEP1, then jump into my PhD for 3-4 years, then finally back to medical school for my last two years. 

I was inspired to pursue the MPH and MD/PhD programs out of the desire to learn more about social determinants of health. Did you know that only 20% of patients’ health outcomes are determined within clinical/hospital settings, whereas the vast majority (80%) is determined by social factors such as housing, food security, and more? I firmly believe that, to advocate for our patients and address preventable morbidity and mortality, the medical community needs to work together to implement systems-level change and address the social root causes of many health disparities we see today. I’m especially interested in addressing the root causes of addiction — by not only providing high quality addiction medicine care, but also addressing socioeconomic inequalities, cycles of violence and abuse that perpetuate substance use vulnerabilities, barriers to accessing naloxone and other harm reduction interventions, trauma and adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), social isolation, harmful news media framing of the opioid crisis, insurance barriers, and more!

Outside of schools, I’m an avid biker, runner, and reader. I love digging into a good memoir and placing myself in the shoes of someone whose life is completely different than mine. I also really enjoy spending time with friends and family, traveling, and creative writing! I’m also part of the American Physician Scientists Association (APSA) Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) committee where we help applicants navigate how to apply to SSH-related MD/PhD programs.

You’re currently an MD/PhD student at VCU 🇺🇸 Can you tell us a bit about your journey to an MD/PhD? What are some of the most enjoyable and challenging parts of the program? What was the application process like? Where else did you apply? What are some misconceptions about an MD/PhD, and when should someone consider pursuing an MD/PhD?

My journey to an MD/PhD was both conventional and unconventional — in the sense that, while I did a bachelor’s program, followed by a master’s program, and now I’m here… it’s a pretty common pathway (however, note that a lot other people in my program didn’t do a master’s but rather worked for a few years in a lab… a master’s isn’t necessary!). On the other hand, I’m doing my MD/PhD in the health policy/health economics stream (I really enjoyed my MPH and wanted to gain more quantitative, technical skills and learn about how to conduct public health/health policy research to advocate for systems-level change), which is unconventional in the sense that most MD/PhD programs in the U.S. are biomedical programs and many programs will straight up tell you ‘we don’t take any social sciences students’. Also, as an international applicant, I was only eligible for like 14 schools since the MD/PhD program is federally funded at many institutions and therefore restricted to domestic students, which definitely was a challenge as well! As a Canadian applicant, these were the schools I applied to (and that, as of May 2023, accepted international applicants and had relatively similar PhD programs in my areas of interest — this may be subject to change over the years… I would recommend confirming on their website!): WashU St. Louis, UPenn, Maryland, UVA, VCU, Jefferson, Columbia, Northwestern, MCW, CCLCM, Vanderbilt, Texas A&M, West Virginia, Texas Southwestern.

In terms of what’s most enjoyable and challenging parts of the program, I would preface by saying that I’m a first-year student and therefore haven’t officially entered into my PhD phase — so can only share a small droplet of experience compared to MD/PhD’s later in their training. But I think it’s really the community that makes it enjoyable — everyone in medical school is essentially trauma bonding (joke, but not really haha) since we all have the same classes which are very, very challenging but since you’re all supporting each other, sharing resources, teaching each other, etc., it becomes very manageable after awhile. Also, the MD/PhD program means FREE TUITION. They also provide you with a stipend of about $2400/month to help cover living expenses. As an international student whose not eligible for other federal medical student scholarships such as the NHSC scholarship — and who wanted to avoid taking out loans from third party companies — this alleviates most of the financial burden and allows me to focus on studying, doing research, and spending time with friends. 

In terms of misconceptions about an MD/PhD, one thing that I would want to emphasize is that this program is really for people who want dedicated, protected time to learning specialized training skills in research and work on projects of interest. If you’re thinking of doing medical school and have an ‘interest in research’ — you can definitely get involved in research during your time in medical school (most people are!), but you don’t NEED to also add on a PhD — I haven’t started my PhD training yet but, through collaborations with other medical students at various institutions, I published 12 papers in my first year of medical school. Adding the PhD aspect will supplement 3-4 years of training, which is a high opportunity cost in terms of delaying the pipeline to becoming an attending physician, etc. While the PhD component is not necessary for becoming a clinician-scientist, if you want dedicated time to gain essential skills you need to become a fully autonomous researcher and find a great mentor who not only teaches you about research but also about life… those 3-4 years between your pre-clinical and clinical years that is carved out for you is super helpful!

You also did your MPH at Yale, can you tell us about your experience there? What advice do you have for students who want to study in the US for grad school?

I loved my experience at Yale! When I initially enrolled, I thought I’d be learning most from high caliber classes in public health allowing me to gain a robust technical skillset for application to epidemiological and health policy research… while this was true (and I had some amazing profs!), it was really the community I learned the most from. It was the most amazing group of passionate, like-minded students driven to address social disparities in health while also being engaged in so many different initiatives around campus. I was part of the Addiction Medicine Collaborative, where we engaged in opioid prevention and naloxone distribution education and helped people learn how to administer naloxone. I went to see theatre productions, travels to NYC/Boston/Maine/Vermont/New Hampshire and so many cool places around New England, add keynote speeches by the US Surgeon General, Kimberle Crenshaw, and other role models, attend global health discussions, and much more. The opportunities were truly endless. 

Tbh, I don’t think my background as an international student made any difference for applying to US grad programs/didn’t restrict me from applying to any schools — some schools didn’t let me apply, but that was mainly due to my accelerated 3-year undergraduate (they wanted to see a 4-year undergraduate since this was ‘equivalent’ to a U.S. undergraduate program) rather than my status as an international applicant. To apply, I submitted my transcript, letters of recommendation, personal statement, verification of quantification skills (short essay; please see this link), and list of extracurriculars/publications via SOPHAS (common application portal).

Can you tell us about some of your research positions & publications? How did you obtain each of them, were they paid/unpaid, and what did you enjoy about them? What field of research do you enjoy the most? 

I’m very passionate about social medicine — harm reduction for substance use disorders, health equity, health policy, addressing social and structural barriers to health, etc. You can learn more about my work here: http://tinyurl.com/googlescholardavidtzhu. I engaged in paid research for about 3 years with Dr. Kumanan Wilson over the course of my undergraduate studies and throughout part of my master’s as well. Most recently, I’ve been working with Dr. Suzanne Tamang from Stanford School of Medicine conducting harm reduction and addiction medicine research. Nowadays, I tend to do a lot more unpaid projects with friends. For instance, during the hematology-oncology block, we learned about multiple myeloma — and I reached out to some of my friends in medical school and asked them, “You down to do a project on this and learn more about it?” We reached out to Dr. Rebbeck from the Harvard Dana-Farber Cancer Institute who supervised us and submitted that project last night to the Nature Portfolio. I’m also doing some other projects with friends on clinical outcomes such as neonatal cancers, sepsis, firearm injuries, drug overdoses, etc., as well as health policy projects focused on private equity investments into healthcare and whether those positively or negatively affect patient morbidity and mortality. I also write op-eds for journals such as The Yale Herald, Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine, and others occasionally on the ‘humanistic side of medicine’. So all ‘loosely’ connected under the umbrella of health equity. 

I would say this isn’t very conventional for medical school students — most have a general idea of what medical specialities/residencies they want to do, and pursue research positions in these respective areas of research (e.g., cardiology, endocrinology, neurology, etc.) accordingly. I’m just a data science nerd. I love quantitatively investigating social disparities in health and using these findings to help mobilize health policy — so my projects don’t really have much interconnectedness a lot of the time. But I think it’s also because, as an MD/PhD who has 6-7 more years of training remaining, I’m not even beginning to think about applying to residency… it’s so far away. My friends, however, are applying to residency in 2-3 years and therefore need to be a lot more focused in their areas of research.

Based on your experiences, what advice do you have for students trying to land their first research position, especially if they don’t have experience yet?

I’d say emphasize your passion for the topic — be specific and precise — and how different prof’s research labs or projects would help you achieve those goals. Highlight these research goals via your cold email template or personal statement to structured research positions (please reach out to me personally via LinkedIn if you would like my cold email template). For instance, when applying to my research positions in the early stages of my undergrad, I talked a lot about how I wanted to learn more about learning epidemiological skills to analyze population-level datasets on substance use disorders, etc. Nowadays, I don’t do anymore paid research positions — I like to work more on independent projects with other undergraduate, medical, and graduate students, and play a data analysis and supervising role on these types of projects. 

But I think it really depends on every individual applicant and their personal interests — feel free to reach out to me and we can chat more!

What other experiential learning opportunities did you have in undergrad/Master’s that you think were the most pivotal in getting you to where you are today?

Yeah, this is a great question — I touched on this a bit in my previous response on why I enjoyed my time at Yale so much (learning from such a diverse, talented, and driven community of aspiring public health professionals) but I just wanted to emphasize that… whether you’re applying for research or master’s or MD or PhD or MD/PhD programs, the most important thing to emphasize is your unique story — how did it get you to where you are today, how does it relate to where you want to go (MD, PhD, MD/PhD, etc.)? 

I realize now that I’m typing this that I’m basically answering a question with a question… so let me try to be a bit more specific haha. I worked as an interview coach for a year while I was doing my master’s program at Yale. I encountered nearly 100 or so applicants — all of whom are super accomplished, very driven, and very smart students. But after awhile… the answers would start to blend together. When I asked them, “Why do you want to go to medical school?”, all the stories of how hospital volunteering, etc., allowed them to heal patients — while they were all great answers — started to sound the same. I couldn’t remember who said what. But there were a few students who I remember their answers to this day — people who described caring for immigrant parents and navigating cultural and language barriers, people who started nonprofits or social initiatives to address a societal disparity in health, people who saw something broken with our healthcare system and took steps along the way to address it… and learned a lot on the way. Those are the responses that I remember. 

So my advise is the following — leave an impression with your story. Tell them about YOU, not what others tell you is the ‘gold standard’ answer for what makes a good medical/graduate school application response. Is there a patient, family member, friend, etc., that changed the way you see life and medicine? Tell me about it. Was there a research project that changed your view of medicine? Tell me about it. For instance, I worked on a project where we looked into news media framing of the drug epidemic and how it can be stigmatizing… this was very influential in my decision to pursue a PhD in health policy to study social determinants of health in relation to substance use disorders. I want to hear about your story!

Where can students go if they want to learn more about your experiences? 

Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn and we can chat more: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidtzhu/ 

Is there any final advice or resources that you would like to share with Invite Health readers?

Day in the Life at Yale School of Public Health (YSPH): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zVE2jcbRCY 

American Physician Scientists Association (APSA) Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) website for more information on applying to SSH-related MD/PhD programs: https://www.physicianscientists.org/page/SSH

Next Up ⏭️ 

I interview Alexia Piccolo, an emerging global health leader. Alexia has an impressive global health background, including an internship with Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO), MSc in Global Health at McMaster University, and volunteering with Peer Medical Foundation! Alexia shares how she obtained these opportunities, and shares many insights for students wanting to build a career in global health.

Alexia’s interview will be available next week.

Jobs, Opportunities & Resources 💻️ 

Most of these resources are reposted on Invite Health’s LinkedIn page

• 🇨🇦 Co-Op Research Student, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Office | The Canadian Medical Protective Association | LinkedIn (paid)

• 🇨🇦 BC Children’s Hospital (BCCHR) Summer Student Research Program (paid)

  • PS, read our interview with the Director of the BCCHR for application tips + insight

• 🇨🇦 Xplore Program | Longevity Xplorers for high school and undergrad students (free to participate, with opportunity for paid internship)

• 💡 How this student landed research positions at Stanford and Scripps Research as an undergrad

• 💡 How all job postings should be written, by Kids Help Phone

• Check out previous postings in last’s week newsletter:

About Invite Health 💌 

I started Invite Health for my younger self who was trying to figure out what to do with my health sci degree that wasn’t a career in medicine.

Today, I’d say this quote is the primary reason I continue to build Invite Health:

The mission of Invite Health is to close this talent-opportunity gap for students in the life and health sciences.

Since 2022, we’re the leading resource for students figuring out what to do with a life sci / health sci degree. I interview students pursuing diverse careers in healthcare, and how they got there - no gatekeeping here. Every newsletter is rich with resources and insights.

Our main channel is this newsletter, and I occasionally share resources on social media (LinkedIn and Instagram).

You can read more about why I built Invite Health here

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