“We saw that our students needed to be able to go up against other residency applicants from institutions with built-in research programs, and they needed support to do so,” says Chava Hurley, PhD, director of the dual degree program.

Five students are currently enrolled in the MD/MS program — on average it has accommodated between three and five students a year. That number, says Hurley, is driven by student interest and the mentors available to guide their research projects. The yearlong program is quite rigorous and research intensive in order to keep students on track to produce a thesis within 12 months. “By design we wanted the program to be supportive and collaborative, where students really leave feeling committed to their future path and well-prepared for their residency,” Hurley says.

The Right Fit

Students typically self-identify during their third year, based on their interests and aspirations, and work with Hurley to determine whether the program will be a good fit for them. They then select a mentor and develop a 10-page project proposal. The proposal is intended to outline a discrete and manageable set of research questions to explore. However, many students also participate in additional research with their mentor outside of their own thesis project, which gives them access to more ideas, as well as opportunities to author publications, present talks and gain additional hands-on professional experience that can shape their career path.

Hurley cites the experience of program graduate Alfredo Munoz, MD, MS ’22, who came to the College of Medicine through the Drexel Pathway to Medical School program. As a third-year, he enrolled in the MD/MS program, where he conducted a study on inequalities in stroke care. He published this work and completed his degrees at Drexel, and he is now training to be a neurosurgeon at Wayne State University.

“He’s a great example of someone who refined his interests during the program and built a foundation for his career,” Hurley says.

Expanding the Reach

Seven years in, the program has started to attract students outside of Drexel. Katie Mullen was in her third year at Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine when she decided she wanted to pursue a career in otolaryngology - head and neck surgery. “In my first two years of medical school, I hadn’t planned to pursue a specialty that required research as a core component of the residency application,” she says. “When I chose otolaryngology as a specialty, I knew that I needed to work on this part of my application.”

In what Mullen calls a “delightful happenstance,” her mentor heard about the Drexel program and specifically that Robert Sataloff, MD, DMA, professor and chair of the Department of Otolaryngology – Head & Neck Surgery, had research fellowships available.

“We were very excited that it was an opportunity we could offer to students at other schools,” says Hurley. “It requires creating a curriculum map for the applicant to make sure that their coursework aligns with our requirements for entering the program, but in Katie’s case we were able to successfully implement that and transition her for one year of graduate study here at Drexel, and then she will transfer back to her home medical school to complete her MD. This program fosters that wonderful inter-institutional collaboration that Drexel is so famous for.” Mullen says it was a bit of a challenge to get her thesis project up and running while she started to matriculate and navigate daily life at a new medical school, but the opportunity has been invaluable.

“What’s been great is that Dr. Sataloff subspecializes in both laryngology and neurotology, so he sees both of these patient populations in his practice. Within his laryngology practice he sees professional voice users and is a leading researcher on this population of patients. There are a number of research fellowships that are either paid or unpaid that don’t necessarily come with an academic degree,” Mullen says. “So, to be able to come away from this with a master’s is an incredible opportunity.”

Mullen homed in on the topic of laryngeal myasthenia gravis, an autoimmune condition that is not well characterized in current medical literature. In this vocal manifestation of myasthenia gravis, people experience voice fatigue. In her thesis project, Mullen is looking at the serological markers specific to the laryngeal form that will help providers diagnose the condition.

Mullen is one of two students working with Sataloff, who is passionate about mentorship as an essential thread of a career in academic medicine. He wholeheartedly lends his time to MD/MS students on a number of fronts.

“Preparation, including literature review, review of study design, consultation with a statistician and other preparatory activities, are not often taught in traditional medical education, either in medical school or in residency. And they are essential to efficient research,” he says. “I read and correct every word they write and meet with them regularly for counseling sessions before they start any research projects. I train the students to conduct their own research and teach research skills to others. So, in addition to publishing — on average about ten papers during their research year with me, including their thesis — they assist other medical students and residents in coordinating research.”

Broadening Horizons

Some Drexel students have gone farther afield to conduct their research. Bela Delvadia is working at Tulane University School of Medicine under Associate Professor of Orthopedic Surgery Dr. William Sherman. “My goal was to dive deeper into the research and the specialty that I plan to spend my life practicing. I wanted to get a flavor of what it would be like to be in academic medicine,” she says. “The MD/MS program was an ideal way to do that.”

Delvadia’s work to date has included retrospective reviews of cases in a national claims database — for example, one such project was looking at how smokeless tobacco impacted patient outcomes for orthopedic procedures. The experience has solidified her love of research and her vision for her career.

Delvadia has already presented to the National Medical Association and published her work in Arthroplasty Today. She attended the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons meeting in February 2024.

Benjamin Sherman, meanwhile, is working with Dr. Vivek Buch at Stanford University School of Medicine on a project titled “Human Intra-thalamic Electrophysiologic Synchrony During Cognition.” Sherman, who has always been fascinated by brain computer interfaces (BCI), embraced the chance to focus on the subject for a year in California.

“Dr. Buch and our lab take a unique look at BCI as a kind of network interaction,” Sherman says. “The typical approach is based on our knowledge that very specific regions of the brain do very specific things and we read electrophysiologic data from those regions. In our work right now, we are looking at multiple regions, and how activity is synchronized under different cognitive circumstances, such as temporal expectancy, which is when you expect something to happen and how quickly you can react to it. Of particular interest to us is thalamic activity due to the critical role that the thalamus plays in inter-region connectivity, and the fact that it has not been mapped electrophysiologically in humans before.”

Sherman has hypothesized that it will also be the case for other cognitive areas that, when someone is performing well on a reaction time task, there will be a co-activation in specific frequency bands of certain networks.

“The other thing that we’re looking at as a lab is the pre-task period — what network state exists in the brain before a task,” he says. “We want to know whether those indicators can be used to predict whether someone will perform well on that task or poorly.”

Sherman says he feels supported by Drexel as part of a structured program at home while he works in a lab across the country. He is applying for neurosurgery residency this year and he believes that both the research experience and Buch’s mentorship have laid a crucial foundation for his career.

Sustainable Growth

Hurley says she expects the program to grow in the coming years but at a pace that is sustainable and continues to foster intensive student-mentor relationships. “I think there’s potential for growth here, and I would love to see the program expand, but I think that’ll happen organically as more students and mentors learn about it and get involved.”

For right now, she says, she’s enjoying watching students achieve their objectives. Over 90% of MD/MS graduates have been accepted into the residency of their choice. “These are amazing students who are making incredible contributions to their chosen fields. The purpose of the program has always been to provide opportunities for our students to leverage these experiences into achieving their professional goals — it’s working exactly as it was intended.”