The UBC Faculty of Medicine is offering a new pathway for graduate students who want to pursue a research-oriented master’s degree or doctorate outside of Vancouver.
The offering, which builds upon the distribution of medical education throughout the province, is aimed at students who want to pursue an advanced degree under the supervision of a member of the Faculty of Medicine at one of the distributed sites in Kelowna, Prince George or Victoria.
The new pathway is intended to provide an option for students who want to pursue a degree in an area not currently available at the University of Victoria, the University of Northern British Columbia, or UBC’s Okanagan campus, and to take advantage of research expertise of members of the Faculty of Medicine who are based at those distributed sites.
The Faculty of Medicine offers graduate programs in such areas as neuroscience, medical genetics, biochemistry and molecular biology, experimental medicine, rehabilitation sciences, health administration and public health. The Faculty of Medicine has over 1,500 graduate students, almost all of them based at UBC’s Vancouver campus.
“This new pathway represents another chapter in the distribution of health sciences education throughout British Columbia,” says Peter Leung, Associate Dean for Graduate and Postdoctoral Education. “For ten years now, we have been educating MD students in Victoria and Prince George, and more recently in Kelowna. We have also established cohorts of physical therapy students in the North, and will soon be doing the same with midwifery students on the Island. It’s a logical extension of our mission to provide similar opportunities for students who want to pursue research-based advanced degrees in places where we already have qualified, willing faculty members.”
Prospective students will have to identify a potential supervisor in the Faculty of Medicine before applying. Once a faculty member has provisionally agreed to supervise a prospective student, the faculty member and student will discuss the feasibility and logistics of a potential program of study with the graduate program director for that area.
Only after the graduate program director has approved of the plan would the student formally apply for admission.
Affiliate faculty members from our partner universities who are actively engaged in research and have experience with graduate education are eligible to be supervisors if approved by the graduate program director and UBC’s Dean of Graduate & Postdoctoral Studies.
Once admitted, the student and supervisor will arrange details of the program with the graduate program director, including the composition of the supervisory committee, arrangements for completion of coursework, the potential for peer interaction, potential travel requirements, and the format of committee meetings and examinations.
Any questions regarding this new offering should be directed to the Faculty of Medicine’s Research Coordinator, Graduate & Postdoctoral Education, at med.research@ubc.ca.