Choice of PhD Mentor
All of the MSTP Training Faculty, their research interests, and recent publications are listed on this website in the faculty section. Choice of potential mentors actually begins during the recruitment process, when applicants identify faculty they would like to meet during their visit to the Denver area. Additionally, MSTP students attend the retreat(s) of the Program(s) they are most interested in, and thus learn more about the specific research opportunities and meet the professors, other graduate students, and postdoctoral fellows in that Program.
To help the students in their choice of laboratory, the MSTP Director meets with each student several times during the first and second year and encourages the student to visit with several investigators and their laboratories and to attend their laboratory meetings in the spring. Also, for further and more specific advice, the students meet with the graduate advisor of the Programs that they are most highly considering.
MSTP students have the flexibility to choose one of the thesis advisor's Program affiliations, either departmental or interdisciplinary, in which to complete the PhD thesis requirements. Once the choice of thesis advisor is made, the student formally transfers into the appropriate PhD degree-granting program.
Comprehensive Exam and Thesis Defense
By the fall of the third year, most MSTP students have accumulated the necessary credit hours required to take the Comprehensive exam. In the majority of training programs, advancement to candidacy requires the successful completion of a qualifying comprehensive oral exam in which a student presents and defends a research proposal written in the format of a grant application.
The Comprehensive Examination Committee is usually also the Doctoral Thesis Committee, and we strongly encourage that a member of the Steering Committee, or one of its Subcommittees, be a member of MSTP student's comprehensive/thesis committee. Finally, the occasional required course, and any upper-level elective course(s) that the thesis advisor and student agree would contribute to the overall training goals, are completed during the research years. Other graduate program-specific requirements, such as annual seminar presentations, bi-annual thesis committee meetings, journal club, and Program retreat and seminar attendance, are also completed during the research years.
Foundations of Doctoring Thesis Years
This course allows students to work with a preceptor and follow patients over an extended period. Between the basic science and clinical years, while doing their PhD thesis research, MSTP students enroll in a 1 day-per-month, MSTP-specific Thesis Years - Foundations of Doctoring Course to continue their clinical training during the thesis years. The goals of this course are to maintain and further the clinical skills learned during Phases I and II, provide opportunities to engage in clinical/translation scholarly activities, experience potential career choices, and minimize the anxiety often encountered upon re-entry into the clinics after an extended absence.