Appointment for MD/PhD student until round June 2016 and from round October 2018 onwards

If an application for a MD/PhD programme is approved, the student will be nominated for an appointment as an MD/PhD student.

Distribution of years of appointment during the MD/PhD period
A full MD/PhD programme consists of the last 2 years of the regular Master’s programme combined with 2 years of research; a feasible 4-year MD/PhD programme . A total of two full years of appointment are available for an MD/PhD-student. These years may be spread over a maximum of four years (48 calendar months).

During the periods in which the MD/PhD student is doing fulltime scientific research, the appointment must be at least 0.5 FTE. So long as MD/PhD students take this rule into account when spreading the two years of research over the four years of the MD/PhD programme, they are otherwise free to vary the size of the appointment depending on their personal financial situation. A direct correlation between the actual hours spent on research and the number of working hours is not required. However, there must be one continuous appointment for a maximum of four years with varying working hours. Obviously the size should not fluctuate every month.

If an appointment of at least 0.5 FTE has adverse consequences for other sources of funding (student grants and loans etc.), the MD/PhD student can submit a request for a dispensation, stating the reasons.

Salary classification for MD/PhD students
MD/PhD students are appointed as such for a maximum of four years. During this period their salary classification is based on scales 7.0 (year 1) to 7.3 (last year).

If an MD/PhD student completes the MD/PhD programme within three years of appointment (to be agreed before the programme begins), the salary classification will begin at scale 7.1 and rise to 7.3. The point of departure is that in the last year of appointment an MD/PhD student will in fact be in scale 7.3.

MD/PhD students are not appointed as research trainees (AIO), because an AIO appointment is associated with a number of specific rights and obligations which are not applicable to or cannot be implemented for MD/PhD students. MD/PhD students are not appointed as student assistants either, because this type of appointment has too many restrictions for an MD/PhD student.

Holidays
An MD/PhD student is expected to use up his or her days of leave during the appointment. An MD/PhD student is personally responsible for planning his or her work in such a way that it is possible to go on holiday. Because a maximum of two years of appointment are funded, unused leave days will not be paid out.

Tuition fees
During a MD/PhD programme it may be the case that a student is enrolled as a student, but is not actively receiving tuition. For instance, this problem may arise if a student concentrates on studying during the first months of an academic year and then later in the same year focuses completely on research. MD/PhD students are advised to ensure that years spent studying and research years coincide with academic years for as far as possible. In a research year a student can then decide not to enrol as a student, so that he or she does not have to pay tuition fees.*,** Current information on restitution of tuition fees is found on the website of the UG.

Note:
^{* So long as a student is NOT enrolled, he or she may NOT attend classes and may NOT achieve or register any marks; this includes taking Progress Tests and handing in clerkship reports (!).
** For MD/PhD students who concentrate on their research during the first months of an academic year and only have study obligations later, a simple way to solve this problem is to enrol later. In this situation students only have to pay tuition fees pro rata and will not be financially disadvantaged.}

Bonus
A full 4-year MD/PhD programme consists of 2 years from the regular Master’s programme combined with 2 years of research. MD/PhD students who manage to complete this tough programme within the allocated time (48 months) receive a performance-related bonus in addition to their salary. The bonus is paid in the form of a gross bonus of EUR 6000,-. When the programme is not completed within the allocated time the bonus will be reduced with 10% for each month of delay, which means 90% for completion within the allocated time + 1 month, 80% within the allocated time + 2 months, etc. etc.. When the programme is delayed with more than 6 months the MD/PhD student will not receive a performance-related bonus. As is stated in the appointment decision, the end date of the appointment is the benchmark.

For MD/PhD candidates who have less than 2 years of their medical training to complete when they begin the MD/PhD programme, the following provision applies: the period within which the PhD thesis must be finished if the student is to be eligible for the bonus depends on the remaining training time plus the two funded research years. The work plan (distribution of clerkships and research), included in the application for the MD/PhD programme, and the appointment end date are the benchmarks.

Other points
MD/PhD students quite frequently contact the HR consultant, the JSM policy officer or the Chief Financial Officer to ask questions about the collective labour agreement (CAO). In all cases the UMC CAO applies to MD/PhD students, as it does to the rest of the staff of FMW/UMCG. For research trainees and student assistants there are specific exceptions; however, these do not apply to MD/PhD students.