I came across this Reddit post today:

My PI is moving to a different university across the country and has invited me to come with him. The plan is for him to move in a year from now, which is after I would be starting my Ph.D. I am currently starting MS2 and have only done lab rotations (and lab work throughout the year) in his lab.

My question is – will my MSTP director allow me to follow the PI? I have put all my eggs in one basket with this PI (skipping the option to rotate with other PIs), and I would be very happy to move with him.

Other students in my program have followed their PI to a different university, but they had already started grad school when they had to move. My situation is that I will not be starting grad school until my PI is about to leave, and would be in the lab for a few months prior to my PI leaving.

Am I technically able to follow my PI? Or is my program director going to prevent me from going? Has anyone experienced something like this?

I know the other grad students (not MD/PhD) are going and will still graduate from our home institution, despite doing their work at this new university.

Reddit, u/420premed69

The gist of the post it is just that this student rotated in a lab they loved, but unfortunately their PI is moving across the country, and they just want to know if they can move with them.

This exact thing happened to me last year: In the summer before M2, I rotated in a lab I was really excited about. At the end of the lab rotation, I mentioned to my PI wanting to do my PhD in his lab, but a few months into M2, he told me he was moving across the country. I was devastated because I was genuinely excited about the projects I was involved with in the summer, I have loved working in this PI’s lab, and I had invested some time into my rotation.

I had a really similar reaction to the Reddit poster, and I was immediately thinking about whether or not I could move institutions and still do the PhD with the PI. So… I called my program director to ask.

She said no… but interestingly, I found out that if I had started my PhD already (as opposed to just having done a rotation with the PI before and still being in the MD phase), then technically moving with the PI would be an option. So the “no” sounded like a timing issue more than anything (at least, on the MD-PhD side, I’m not sure what goes on at the graduate department side), and if the situation had happened just a year later when I would’ve started my PhD, then the answer would’ve been a “yes”. (Now, I didn’t dive into the logistics of what moving with the PI as an MD-PhD student would look like, so if anyone has answers to that it would definitely be interesting! For example, do you move back to the MD institution once you finish the PhD phase? where will the diploma be from? But my program director did say that other students have done this in the past, so it is done.)

She also told me that this sort of situations happen a lot more than we think.

I know that she told me that to reassure me that everything will be okay in the end, and that I will still end up in a lab that I fit into (and I did!). But I think the broader lesson in this conversation is that, especially for MD-PhD applicants, you should choose a school where there are at least a few PIs you can see yourself working with.

It can be really exciting when you meet a single PI on the interview trail that you really enjoyed talking to, and it can be really exciting to find a great research match while interviewing. But there are 1-2 years between medical school matriculation and the start of your PhD where a lot can happen: PIs can move institutions, or your own interests may change. If you come into your MD-PhD degree program wanting to work with only one specific PI, you could end up in a research lab situation that is not as good of a fit for you. You’re probably still going to be fine even if all of this happens, but you can save yourself a little bit of a headache if you knew you had several options to begin with.

So… don’t put all of your eggs in one basket when picking a school, and really think about the research fit at a specific institution!

If something like this has happened to you, please reach out, I’m happy to chat or vent or brainstorm with you. I’ve been there!