MD–Ph.D.
program
The MD–Ph.D. program is a joint collaboration between Al-Faisal University and KAUST
The goal of this program is to offer Saudi and resident students of medicine at Al-Faisal University state-of-the-art educational and research facilities. The program is tailored to those who aspire to build their careers as physician-scientists and will be the leaders of tomorrow.
The MD–Ph.D. program provides students with a combination of rich spectrum clinical sciences/experiences and emerging knowledge from research areas in basic and translational sciences pertinent to their respective fields of specialization. Students are challenged to contribute with innovative and effective health services as well as investigating health problems aimed at making new discoveries of applied value.
Producing a new generation cadre of clinician-scientists through what is now popularly known as an MD–Ph.D. program will greatly advance the goal of modernizing any health care/delivery system. Based on direct laboratory investigations, rapidly capturing the emerging knowledge in health sciences and associated technologies such smart-health and precision medicine tools and methods for immediate applications, a MD–Ph.D. will, thus, have a most successful career in medicine and research.
The new generation cadre of physician-scientists with MD–Ph.D. degrees are likely to introduce a paradigm shift in the methods of diagnostic and therapeutic practice in many Saudi hospitals. Most facilities already have excellent clinical facilities, but no truly functional laboratories and/or research opportunities to assist the physicians in adopting state of the art technology and investigational procedures for patient care.
Clinicians with MD–Ph.D. background joining such hospitals will have a critical role to stimulate the growth of an intellectual medical environment. Moreover, they will generate a growing interest in evidence-based and research-based approaches for patient care through educational activities, regular seminars and, above all, a demonstration of the benefits of their own research-based clinical practices.
These physician-scientists will be then able to convince the hospital authorities to invest in their own functional laboratories for modernizing the clinical practices broadening the scope of the services provided by them.
Collaboration with other in-Kingdom Universities is also planned for the future.
