Lauren Mancia: Facilitating flexibility

I met my current advisor who's in mechanical engineering in undergrad, and I worked in his lab for about a year. I knew I wanted to pursue a PhD in that lab if I could, and I ended up starting a project that involved biomedical applications, specifically therapeutic ultrasound. This is when I first considered going to medical school as well.

I thought it would be ideal if I could combine my mechanics research with a clinical background. I wanted to appreciate the research from a more practical standpoint and to potentially offer newly developed therapies to patients myself.

While my project motivated me to pursue medical school, I had always been pretty confident that I wanted to do mechanical engineering research.

My situation was kind of complicated. I was at a crossroads. I could either apply to other MSTPs; I could stop my PhD at the Masters and then go to MD-only programs; but ideally I did want to stay at Michigan and complete my MD/PhD. I ended up applying to MD-only programs first, and then was accepted to the MD/PhD after I started here.

I wanted to pursue a mechanical engineering PhD, and there aren't very many MSTPs that support that field as a PhD option. Michigan is pretty unique in that respect.

I'm the only mechanical engineering PhD student in the MSTP right now. I like the monthly seminars that we have as MSTP students, and we also have a retreat in the summer. I have a lot of friends in the MSTP and people I keep in touch with on the MD side. I'm also involved in the mechanical engineering graduate council and other tutoring and mentoring activities within the Mechanical Engineering department.

I don't have as much interaction with the medical school in mechanical engineering as I think students in the more traditional biomedical fields do. I think still maintaining some activity on the clinical side is important, and one of the things that helps me do that is the longitudinal clinical experience. You can work with a clinician regularly as it fits in your schedule. I've done that for several months in the Orthopaedics department, and I go once a week. My research advisor and clinical preceptor have been really supportive and flexible, which is helpful.

The most rewarding aspect has been the ability to start a clinical-engineering collaboration already. I recently submitted the first paper I've written with clinicians and mechanical engineers. I don't know that a collaboration like that would have come if I didn't have the interest in pursuing the clinical side as well. So although it was still a fundamental mechanics paper, it was nice to have clinicians to collaborate with. I hope to do more of that in the future.

I think this certainly is a unique situation. It wouldn't have worked unless people were pretty flexible with me. All of the people here have been extremely helpful and supportive throughout the process. I think that's definitely a positive trait of the MSTP here.

The flexibility of this program is really unique. I certainly have had a very unique track, and there aren't many places that would have supported me doing a mechanical engineering PhD, so I think that that's a definite plus. It's been a long road, but it would not have been possible without the support and flexibility of a lot of people.

Make sure that you go to a supportive program, and make sure that you have support on both sides: the MD side and the PhD side. The research advisor/principal investigator is extremely important in that process because you're going to want to integrate the two as much as possible. Because you're choosing a non-traditional field that doesn't normally interface much with the medical school, it's really important to have a supportive research mentor who gives you time to pursue the MD side of things, too.