MD-MS Combined Degree

Overview

The MD/MS in Health Humanities and Bioethics lets University of Rochester medical students earn a Master of Science alongside the MD within the standard four-year curriculum. Offered through the Department of Health Humanities & Bioethics, the program builds on Rochester's more than half-century of leadership in the biopsychosocial model of medicine, first articulated here by George Engel. Students enter an established, New York State-registered MS program (launched in 2014) through a course plan designed specifically for medical students.

Why Pursue the MD/MS

Medicine asks physicians to do more than apply scientific expertise. The MS deepens the capacities that define excellent, humanistic clinicians: ethical reasoning, narrative and cultural understanding, and the ability to communicate with patients, families, and colleagues through difficult moments. Graduates leave with a credential that distinguishes them in residency applications and prepares them for leadership in clinical ethics, medical education, health policy, and academic medicine.

What Makes Rochester Distinctive

Rochester is one of the few programs in the country to treat the humanities and bioethics as true equals, drawing on literature and narrative medicine, history of medicine, visual arts, philosophy and bioethics, and disability and cultural studies. The curriculum is woven into the medical school timeline rather than requiring a year away, and it preserves the in-person, seminar-based tradition of graduate humanities education. The result is a program that is both more time-efficient than typical five-year combined degrees and more rigorous than accelerated four-year alternatives.

Contact 

Jason Wasserman, PhD, HEC-C
Professor and Director of Education, Department of Health Humanities and Bioethics
Phone: (585) 275-5800

Olivia Harrington
Department Program Specialist
Phone: (585) 276-6687