Cultural and academic barriers toward physician-scientist (MD-PhD) careers: A mixed methods study

Abstract

In Saudi Arabia, there is yet to be a single MD-PhD program established despite calls for its implementation. Herein, we assess students’ and stakeholders’ perceived barriers and opinions towards the implementation of such a program. A mixed-method design was used. For the quantitative part, a sample of 190 medical students completed a pre-validated survey that addressed procedural, bureaucratic, and environmental challenges to the implementation of the program. In addition, three semi-structured interviews with stakeholders had been carried out to address the implementation of an MD-PhD track. While the semi-structured interviews resulted in a wide array of responses, most students indicated that limited funding (55.7%) and predicted high workload (63.2%) were amongst the most significant hurdles to enrolling in an MD-PhD if offered to do so. In addition, first-generation students and female students were less likely to encourage the establishment of such a program. This study reported multiple significant barriers to pursuing an MD-PhD track in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The findings of this study reflect the complexity of implementing an MD-PhD program in the country and can be useful for concerning bodies to holistically consider predicted barriers that students may face when establishing an MD-PhD.

Keywords:

• MD-PhD
• academia
• physician-scientist
• medical education

Acknowledgements

The authors of this study would like to acknowledge all of our data collectors who had made the data collection of this study possible, including Nada K. Naaman, Majid M. Hejazi, Rahaf A. Aljohani, as well as all of our invited interviewees for their valuable input and time. Special thanks as well to the research unit at the College of Medicine, King Saud Bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences, Jeddah for their valuable support throughout this study.

Authors’ contributions

IO: Conceptualization, investigation, methodology, validation, manuscript writing; NA: investigation, methodology, manuscript writing; GK: investigation, methodology, manuscript writing; AB: investigation, methodology, manuscript writing; AA: Conceptualization, formal analysis, methodology, project administration, software, validation, supervision.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon request.

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Informed consent was obtained from all participants and participation was voluntary. The approval for this study was provided by the Institutional Review Board at King Abdullah International Medical Research Center before the start of the data collection (JED-21-427,780-131,100). The authors confirm that all methods were carried out in accordance with relevant guidelines and regulations.

Correction

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

The authors received no direct funding for this research.