About Postgraduate studies at the Faculty of Medicine

Who is eligible for the doctoral programme?

Postgraduate studies may be concluded with a licentiate or a doctoral degree. The studies comprise 240 credits for a doctoral degree and 120 credits for a licentiate degree.

Permission to submit a doctoral thesis at the Faculty of Medicine in Lund requires that a significant part (>50%) of the research should have its origins within our Faculty. Only those who have completed their postgraduate studies are eligible to present and defend a thesis.

Requirements for a doctoral degree

Obtaining a doctorate requires that the candidate has passed the obligatory courses and other examinations included in the postgraduate medical programmme, and that the candidate has written a doctoral thesis that has been approved. The thesis must have been orally defended at a public examination.

Doctoral theses are to be presented either as a unified, coherent scientific treatise (monograph) or as a short summary (in the case of a composite thesis) of scientific papers that have been written by the student alone or with one or more co-authors. These may be written in either Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, English, French or German. Theses not written in English, French or German must contain a summary in one of those languages.

Requirements for a licentiate degree

Obtaining a licentiate requires that the candidate has passed the required examinations in the postgraduate medical programmme, and that the candidate has had a disseration approved. The dissertation must be orally defended at a public examination.

Courses and literature studies

With the intent of raising the quality of postgraduate studies, the Faculty Board has decided that all students admitted to postgraduate studies within the Faculty of Medicine after 1 July 1998 must have completed obligatory basic courses equivalent to a total of 17,5 credits. These courses must be completed before the halfway review, i.e. for full-time postgraduate students, as a rule, within two years after admission.

A number of voluntary postgraduate study courses are also held at intervals. A course in Laboratory Animal Studies is obligatory for postgraduate students who make direct use of laboratory animals in their research. Several departments arrange seminars as part of their graduate study programme.

Duration of the postgraduate studies

A postgraduate programme may be completed by full-time or part-time studies. If studies are pursued on a full-time basis, they must be completed within 4 years. For a doctor, for example, who is pursuing postgraduate studies parallel with clinical work, studies may be pursued on a part-time basis, in which case they must be completed within 8 years. Postgraduate studies must therefore be planned so that the total time invested is the equivalent of 4 years of full-time studies. Postgraduate students have the right to supervision during this period. Postgraduate students in clinical subjects are also entitled to the supervision required for postgraduate studies while they are engaged in clinical work.