About Us
For over 30 years the MD/PhD Program at the University of Kentucky has provided rigorous education and training to prepare trainees for careers as independent physician-scientists and leaders in academic medicine.
Mission
To train the next generation of physician-scientist to lead, integrate, and innovate in health care, research, and education.
Vision
To improve human health by applying the scientific method to prevent and cure disease.
As you will learn in the pages that follow, we have a talented group of students who are distinguished by their dedication to becoming pre-eminent clinical investigators. Currently, over 80 percent of our graduates remain in academic medicine.
As one of only a handful of universities to have six health science colleges on the same medical campus and to be physically contiguous with the main campus, we offer a broad array of graduate training opportunities. In addition to traditional biomedical graduate training in the anatomy/neurobiology, biochemistry, immunology/microbiology/molecular genetics, pharmacology, physiology, toxicology, and nutritional sciences (UK College of Medicine), we also offer training in biomedical engineering (The Graduate School), pharmaceutical sciences (College of Pharmacy), and gerontology (College of Public Health). Graduate PhD training in epidemiology and biostatistics (College of Public Health) opened to enrollment in 2009 and clinical and translational science (College of Medicine) in 2010.
The exchange between investigators in different academic disciplines is facilitated by strong multi-disciplinary research centers.
Our particular strengths are in:
- Aging and Neurodegenerative Disorders (Sanders-Brown Center on Aging)
- Spinal Cord and Brain Injury Research Center (SCoBIRC)
- Cardiovascular Biology (Saha CVRC)
- Cancer Biology (Markey Cancer Center)
- Obesity and Diabetes (Barnstable Brown Diabetes and Obesity Center)
- Risk Behaviors (Center for Drug Abuse Research Translation, or CDART
and Center on Drug and Alcohol Research, or CDAR)
For a complete list of research centers, core facilities, and research resources at the University of Kentucky, click here.
We hope that this website conveys to you our excitement for training the very best clinician-scientists. We encourage you to take advantage of the information presented by this site and to learn more about our program by contacting individuals listed under the "Contact Us" page. We look forward to talking with you about our program!