A Career Outcome Study

The number of students who have graduated with Ph.D.s in the biomedical sciences has grown substantially over the last 15 years. According to the Survey of Earned Doctorates: Summary Report 1997, the number of Ph.D. graduates in the biological sciences increased from 2,360 in 1967 to 5,717 in 1997, and an upward trend is indicated for future years. These data have made some of us in academia consider whether the market (academic or private) can bear an increased production of Ph.D.s in t

Douglas Boyd

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The number of students who have graduated with Ph.D.s in the biomedical sciences has grown substantially over the last 15 years. According to the Survey of Earned Doctorates: Summary Report 1997, the number of Ph.D. graduates in the biological sciences increased from 2,360 in 1967 to 5,717 in 1997, and an upward trend is indicated for future years.

These data have made some of us in academia consider whether the market (academic or private) can bear an increased production of Ph.D.s in the biological sciences. To address this question, we compared the career outcomes of two cohorts of Ph.D. recipients who graduated from the University of Texas Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Houston. The first cohort received their doctoral degrees between 1970 and 1972, and the second group obtained their Ph.D.s in 1989. To our knowledge, this is the first study to compare career outcomes of biomedical science Ph.D.s graduating ...

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