DOCTORAL PROGRAM IN MEDICAL SCIENCES ASSOCIATED WITH A SPECIALTY. A HISTORY CLOSELY LINKED TO THE CHILEAN ACADEMY OF MEDICINE

Abstract

The Doctoral Program in Medical Sciences (DPMC) associated with a specialty of the Faculty of Medicine of Universidad de Chile is an academic development project that aims to train specialists with a PhD degree, who are inserted in clinical centers and have the ability to respond questions of medical interest with a translational basis, putting the generation of knowledge at the service of patients. Universidad de Chile hopes that the graduates of this program will be the basis of the academic turnover of future generations. The DPMC was created in 2000, to date (2023), 85 students have entered, 46 have graduated, 8 have withdrawn and there are 31 current students. Sixty-five per cent of the graduates work as academics at the Faculty of Medicine of Universidad de Chile, with outstanding activity as specialists, teachers and researchers, incorporated into the different Advanced Clinical Research Centers (CICAs) that the faculty has created in different hospitals. Fifty-four per cent of them have been or are principal investigators of competitive projects: FONDECYT, FONDEF, FONIS, with one or more projects awarded, depending on the time since their degree, with an average of 55 publications/year for the defined group. After 23 years of uninterrupted operation, the DPMC is a consolidated, unique, accredited, successful program, financed by Universidad de Chile, sustainable, a pillar of the academic development of the Faculty of Medicine, which as it grows will allow the CICA network to be strengthened and will contribute to the creation of knowledge at the service of the patients and the country.