It can take twice as long to get a PhD in biomedical sciences in the United States as it does in other countries such as the United Kingdom and Australia. This month’s Editorial in Nature Medicine (13, 1265; 2007) asks whether US PhDs are worth more, or whether there are advantages to a speedier system.
Which is the better system probably depends on who you ask. Ask the students and they would probably prefer the short PhD, as it allows them to try out research within a shorter time frame and get out early if they decide it’s not for them. And if the purpose of a PhD is not simply training for a life in academia, but also training in the sort of intellectual discipline that can be used in activities aside from the bench, there are clear advantages to not lingering around. Even for those students who are keen to continue on in research, completing a PhD in three years allows them to pursue the next step in a different, perhaps more successful lab if they are not happy with the lab they chose as green, inexperienced novices.
Principal investigators might have a different viewpoint: why should they spend three years training a student, only for that student to leave the lab and pursue a postdoc elsewhere as soon as he or she becomes competent enough to do experiments without close supervision? It’s only natural for researchers to want to maximize the return on their investment.