This program is designed to be a research-based multi-disciplinary program involving students with a variety of backgrounds. Students will work together in teams to research real clinical and biomedical health problems. They will gain both the scientific background for research and skills needed to address problems. The program is designed to meet the unique needs of each student by using a matrix curriculum plan with an advising committee to guide each student from admission through graduation. Each student must have a faculty academic advisor to guide each student through participation in research projects.
The doctoral program in Biomedical Informatics is conceptualized and designed to be inherently multi-disciplinary and integrative. This means that the fundamental informatics concepts that transcend and apply to all traditional healthcare disciplines will be emphasized in the doctoral program. This program will identify and teach the major informatics concepts that integrate and link diverse health disciplines.
The doctoral program in Biomedical Informatics is constructed as a post-baccalaureate degree that not only addresses the knowledge and skills that the student brings at admission, but allows the student to build on previous knowledge and skills in order to attain the research focus needed for the completion of the doctoral program in Health Informatics
Students admitted to the master program can apply to the doctoral track by meeting the same admission requirements as those who apply directly to the doctoral program.
Formal study of informatics at the doctoral level at UTHealth is designed to accomplish these major goals:
The doctoral program is a 93-semester credit hour full-time program developed as a post baccalaureate program. Part-time enrollment requires written approval of the advisor and advising committee.
The applicant should present a completed application and official documentation of the following to the Registrar’s Office:
Fall admission - March 1
Spring admission - July 1
Summer admission - November 1
Review by the Admissions, Progression, and Graduation (APG) Committee
Applicant materials will be organized into a portfolio for review by the admissions committee. The admissions committee will review the materials and recommend whether applicants will be offered an interview - the next step in the admissions process. The criteria that the committee considers are the same as for the master’s program including prior research experience. Students who are recommended for an interview will be contacted by Office of Academic Affairs to schedule an interview.
Interview
Applicants who proceed to the next level of the admission process will be interviewed by faculty members. The interview will focus on the applicant’s research goals and how they will be achieved in the doctoral program. Applicants will also complete a writing assessment as part of the interview process.
Faculty Governance Organization (FGO) Review and Recommendation
All interviewed applicants will be presented and discussed at a Faculty Governance Organization meeting. An admission recommendation by the FGO will be made to the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs.
The PhD Coordinator serves as the primary advisor until a Dissertation Chair is identified. Students are responsible for scheduling and planning meetings with their advisor and meeting milestones defined by this catalog Advisors and students confer prior to the beginning of each semester. Student course selection must be approved by the Academic Advisor and appropriately documented on the PhD Degree Plan form (available on the Current Students section of the website). Students are encouraged to meet with their advisor during the course of each semester to discuss ongoing progress and formulate plans for acceptable academic progress.
As students progress, they must identify an academic advisor. This person will serve as the Dissertation Chair. The Dissertation Chair (also known as mentor, PI, dissertation director, advisor) is a full-time member of the School of Biomedical Informatics faculty who works with the student to develop a research topic, helps formulate ideas and guides the progress of the dissertation. In some cases, although rare, there is a Dissertation Co-Chair (principal research, co-advisor) who also advises the student. The Dissertation Chair should be identified during the first year or initial semester of the second year. The Change of Advisor Form (available on the Current Students section of the website) changing the PhD Coordinator to the named advisor must be completed following identification of a Dissertation Chair.
The student, in consultation with his/her Dissertation Chair, will identify the other members of the Dissertation Committee. Committee members are those who have expertise in and inform the student's area of research, serve as a reader of the proposal and dissertation, and vote on the outcome of the qualifying exam, proposal defense and outcome of final dissertation. A minimum of three individuals must serve on the final dissertation committee. At least two members of this committee, including the Chair, must be full-time members of UTHealth SBMI faculty.
Transfer credit for courses taken at other universities or institutions, submitted to meet part of the degree requirements, may be awarded following review and written approval by the student’s faculty academic advisor and the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. The maximum number of transferable credit hours for the doctoral program is 36 semester credit hours. Courses for which grades of less than “B” were achieved will not be accepted for equivalency.
Credit for courses taken at other universities or institutions that are offered at SBMI is granted only through Petition for Equivalency Credit. Credit for support courses taken at other universities or institutions is approved by the students’ advising committee. Contact the Office of Academic Affairs for more information.
Applicants who are presenting coursework from universities or colleges outside the United States in order to meet graduation requirements should refer to the section on International Applicants for additional requirements.
Financial assistance packages and research assistantships will be available to all students on a competitive basis to facilitate full-time doctoral education.
Academic Requirements
A total of 93 semester credit hours must be completed prior to graduation. A full-time student in the Program in Biomedical Informatics has up to eight years from the time of entry to complete the required coursework. Continuous enrollment is required unless approval from the advising committee is obtained. A maximum of one year of an approved leave of absence will be allowed for continuance in the program. If more than one year of leave occurs, the student must apply for readmission to the program.
Each course with an HI/BMI prefix in the Biomedical Informatics degree plan is a graduate-level professional course and should be passed with a grade of “B” or better. Only one course grade of “C” is allowed. The minimum GPA required for graduation is 3.0 on all courses.
Other Requirements
In Residence Requirement: The term “in residence” refers to the requirement that a student completes 57 semester credit hours over the course of the program at UTHealth. A student must fulfill his or her in residence requirement in order to receive a doctoral degree from the School.
The curriculum of the doctoral degree in Biomedical Informatics includes required didactic courses and elective courses. Didactic courses (lecture/discussion, demonstration and student laboratories) are presented to provide facts, concepts, and theories related to the techniques, and procedures of biomedical informatics. They include instruction in basic informatics, research, advanced informatics and support courses. The elective courses are designed to give students the opportunity to apply theory and techniques in the hospital, research, or private laboratory setting.
Effective Spring 2017 all course alpha sequences will change from HI to BMI.
Through completion, transfer of equivalent courses or demonstrated competency, the following courses are prerequisites for the program. These courses will not count towards doctoral program requirements. Transfer of credits from prior work follow the procedure detailed in the “Petition for Course Equivalency” section.
HI/BMI 5300 Introduction to Biomedical Informatics
HI/BMI 5352 Statistical Methods in Biomedical Informatics
HI/BMI 5007 Data Structure and Algorithms or equivalent
HI/BMI 5351 Research Design and Evaluation
Additional Required Courses from SBMI catalog
HI/BMI 5304 Advanced Database Concepts in Biomedical Informatics*
HI/BMI 5330 Introduction to Bioinformatics*
HI/BMI 5310 Foundations of Biomedical Information Sciences I*
HI/BMI 5311 Foundations of Biomedical Information Sciences II*
HI/BMI 5313 Introduction to Electronic Health Records
HI/BMI 5301 The US Healthcare System or HI/BMI 5004 Introduction to Clinical Healthcare
HI/BMI 7301 Grant Writing
*Courses indicated with an asterisk must be completed prior to the qualifying exam
The following PhD only courses are required for the PhD degree plan. Courses indicated with * must be completed prior to the qualifying exam. Requirements for these courses can be met through concurrent enrollment at other institutions and/or by consent of the student’s Academic Advisor
BMI 6319 Advanced Data Structures in Biomedical Informatics*
BMI 7302 Theories and Frameworks for Biomedical Informatics Research*
BMI 7303 Critical Review of Biomedical Informatics Literature Seminar*
BMI 7304 Advanced Research Design for Biomedical Informatics*
Higher-level stats* Not offered at SBMI – See Advisor for concurrent enrollment options
The PhD Program requires at a minimum 93 semester hours of study including 9 semester hours in preceptorship courses, 21 credit hours in a specific research area approved by the advisor, 3 credit hours of research seminar and 9 semester hours dedicated to the dissertation.
Each year, students will be reviewed by the faculty to determine if adequate progress in the program has been made. This review is facilitated by the completion of annual Individualized Development Plans (IDP). It is the student’s responsibility to maintain and update this plan in cooperation with their advisor. IDPs are filed annually with the SBMI Office of Academic Affairs. Failure to make adequate progress will result in action by the Admission, Progression and Graduation committee. Action may include, but is not limited to additional review and monitoring of progress, changes in student standing (at risk, on probation, etc.) or dismissal from the program.
The goals of the PhD qualifying exam are:
Students should prepare for a comprehensive qualifying exam within the semester following their sixth completed full-time semester or after completion of their 48th semester credit hour. The plan for the qualifying exam will be developed in conjunction with the academic advisor. The qualifying exam consists of demonstration of competency with both:
Domain Specific Knowledge
Demonstration knowledge, understanding, and proficiency in domain specific content and methodology. One of the purposes is to challenge students to discover relevant literature and deepen their knowledge of interests within this track.
Breadth of Knowledge across the discipline
Demonstrate breadth of knowledge across health sciences disciplines through questions that require synthesis of knowledge from core areas.
Submission deadlines related to materials related for the qualifying exam (e.g. reading list, abstract/proposal to committee) will follow a set timeline following the student’s declaration of intent. All components of the qualifying exam must be attempted within 30 days.
The qualifying exam dossier will contain the following items:
a) Research project abstract
b) Preliminary dissertation proposal (one to two pages, demonstrating knowledge and work of the student and others, synthesized to present a rationale for the proposed dissertation topic (e.g., theory to be developed, hypotheses to be tested) as well as proposed methodology to fulfill the dissertation objective.)
c) List of references (30-50 articles) and syllabi for relevant classes for three domain areas related to their proposed research. Students should discuss these areas with their advisor in the process of planning their graduate program and prior to preparation of their qualifying exam materials.
d) Current CV
e) All previously completed Individualized Development Plans
Grading: The committee will assign one of the following grades to the overall qualifying exam:
a) pass unconditionally
b) pass conditionally (committee together with the Admissions, Progression, and Graduation committee to specify the conditions needed to pass, such as remedial coursework needed)
c) fail with option to retake
d) fail without option to retake
A student must be successful on each element of the progression exam to achieve pass unconditionally. Each component will be scored as pass/fail only based on its entirety (i.e. you cannot conditionally pass or pass only a portion of the written or oral Q/A). Committee decision will determine the specific requirements for options of a conditional pass or options to retake (e.g. retake the written and the oral, oral only, remediate with additional coursework.)
Students will be allowed to retake any portion of the exam once. Efforts to retake the progression sequence must be completed within 12 weeks. Failure to progress after this point will result in dismissal from the program.
Advanced Preceptorship is required for all PhD students. During Advanced Preceptorship, the student will develop and prepare his or her Advance to Candidacy Proposal including: defining the proposed research agenda; a review of the literature; research design, procedure and data analysis; collecting preliminary data; and scientific contribution to the discipline. The student’s primary advisor and advising committee must approve the focus of the research.
Admission to the PhD program does not constitute or guarantee a student’s admission to candidacy for the PhD degree. Within two full-time semesters or completion of 18 semester credit hours after completion of the qualifying exam, each student must submit an advance to candidacy proposal and give an oral presentation of their completed and proposed work to their Advising Committee. Successful advance to candidacy proposal defense includes approval of both the written proposal and its oral presentation. Approval of the advance to candidacy proposal is required for continued progress towards the degree and designation as a doctoral candidate.
A student passes their advance to candidacy proposal defense if the majority of their committee votes to pass and the student’s primary advisor votes to pass. If the student passes, he or she is admitted to candidacy. If the student does not pass, the committee can recommend failure without another attempt or failure with the opportunity to re-defend within 30 days. If the student again does not pass the defense, he or she will be given the option of completing a Master of Science in Biomedical Informatics degree, but will otherwise be dismissed from the doctoral program.
The faculty believes that communication and dissemination is a critical aspect of the research process. The student will have two options available for the dissertation. The first option will consist of three articles that are accepted for publication. Publication must be in journals or proceedings, which are both, peer reviewed and indexed for academic retrieval. The three papers are combined with an introduction and summary and bound as a dissertation. The second option requires the student to write a monograph or dissertation. The monograph will review the literature, research approaches and options, the data design and gathering processes. The findings and data will be discussed in the context of the published literature. The monograph will be bound.
The dissertation must be presented at an oral defense that is open to the public. All research papers, theses, and dissertations authored by degree candidates are available to interested members of the general public upon request. After the presentation, the student’s advising committee votes to award the degree, allow for re-defense of the dissertation within 30 calendar days of the failed attempt, or dismiss the student from the program without a degree.
Students who have exceeded their time to degree deadline or a milestone deadline for the qualifying exam or prospectus may petition APG for an extension. The Petition to Extend Time Boundary for Qualifying Exam, Advance to Candidacy or Dissertation Defense form can be found under the Current Student Forms section of the SBMI website.
For further curriculum information, contact:
UTHealth School of Biomedical Informatics Office of Academic Affairs
7000 Fannin Street Suite 650
Houston, Texas 77030
Telephone: (713) 500-3591
Email: SBMIAcademics@uth.tmc.edu