Doctor of Medicine/Doctor of Philosophy in Biomedical Engineering

The McMaster MD/PhD program enrolled its first student in 2007 and was developed to help fill the need for clinician-scientists within the health care research environment in Canada and to engage McMaster graduate programs and faculty in meeting this goal. Clinician-scientists have a nuanced understanding of important patient-relevant clinical questions and research methodology, and are in a unique position to rapidly direct research programs to address pressing clinical problems and translate these findings into clinical practice. As an important pathway to a clinician-scientist career, a combined MD/PhD program allows for efficiency and integration in training and has been demonstrated to be effective at helping to develop active and successful medical researchers.

When the MD/PhD program at McMaster University was developed, Ontario had only two MD/PhD programs a longstanding and well-established program at University of Toronto and a relatively new and fledgling program at Western University. Today, there are five MD/PhD degree programs in Ontario: University of Toronto, McMaster University, Western University, Queens University and University of Ottawa, which comprise nearly half of the MD/PhD programs in Canada. McMaster now admits three students per year. The McMaster MD/PhD Program initially accepted interested and successful MD applicants into a dual degree in Medicine along with a PhD in either the Biochemistry or Medical Sciences Graduate Programs. The MD/PhD program has now expanded the number of eligible graduate programs beyond the original two graduate programs of Biochemistry and Medical Sciences to now include: Health Research Methodology, Health Policy, Neuroscience, Biomedical Engineering and Chemical Biology.

Student must have: Master’s Degree; B+ minimum average, based on previous graduate work.

Language Requirements

Applicants are required to submit evidence of their proficiency in the English language as part of their application. The most common evidence is a score on one of the following exams:

TOEFL: minimum score of 92 (internet based), 237 (computer based) or 580 (paper based), minimum of 20 per band; for the Faculty of Engineering a minimum score of 88 (internet based) or 213 on the (computer based) or 550 (paper based)

IELTS (Academic): minimum overall score of 6.5, with at least 5.5 in each section

CAEL: minimum overall score of 70, with at least 60 per band

MELAB: minimum score of 85

PTE Academic: minimum score of 63; for the Faculty of Engineering a minimum score of 70

York University course: YUELI Level 6 with a minimum final grade of B

University of Toronto course: Academic Level 60 with a minimum final grade of B