The UAB Heersink School of Medicine MD program

The school says its curriculum integrates basic science with clinical knowledge and encourages active, case-based learning and teamwork. Pre-clerkship teaching mixes large-group discussions, face-to-face and online lectures, demonstrations, imaging and dissection labs, simulation, team-based and case-based sessions, patient presentations and self-directed study.

Fundamentals of Medicine opens year 1 with five blocks: Biomolecules and Bioenergetics; Development and Anatomic Structure; Cells and Foundations of Pharmacology; Pathology and Immunology; and Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. From January the organ-system modules take over. Each covers one system's structure, normal function, disease, drug treatment and prevention, with clinical correlates.

Threads run alongside. CRISP teaches interviewing, physical examination, clinical reasoning, communication and professionalism. Project AHEAD, the four-year health equity curriculum, covers bias, inclusion and the social determinants of health in every pre-clerkship course and in monthly grand rounds during clerkships. Nutrition and interprofessional simulation with students from other health professions also recur.

Once clerkships start in year 2, you learn mainly on clinical teams, with a longitudinal Clerkship Core Curriculum alongside. Some teaching links the campuses: Huntsville's pediatrics clerkship, for example, holds morning report by Zoom with students on the other campuses.

A school policy caps scheduled time in the pre-clerkship years. Averaged over a module, face-to-face learning should not exceed 20 contact hours a week and asynchronous work 10, with a contact hour usually 50 minutes. Face-to-face time covers lectures, labs, case-based and team-based learning, learning community sessions, simulations, clinical skills and assessments.

Asynchronous work means assigned reading, videos and problems done outside class, and your own independent study comes on top, uncounted. Attendance is generally required at active learning sessions and assessments, while lecture attendance is optional. The Medical Education Committee checks contact hours when it reviews each module.

Gross anatomy is taught in conjunction with Fundamentals of Medicine and the organ modules, through labs, lectures, small groups, cases, team-based learning and self-directed study. The labs center on cadaver dissections and prosections, complemented by radiological and surgical anatomy, including ultrasound and CT images. The Gross Anatomy Lab in Volker Hall uses formalin-embalmed donors and also serves UAB's dentistry, optometry, health professions and nursing schools.

Anatomy follows the systems. Fundamentals Block 2, Development and Anatomic Structure, covers the major vessels, peripheral nerves, and the chest and abdomen in cross-section and imaging. Its assessments include anatomy and histology practicals, hands-on exams on specimens and slides. Neurosciences adds the neck, cranial cavity, face and orbit, with its own lab practical. Musculoskeletal and Skin has practicals on the lower and upper limbs.

Fourth-year anatomy teaching associates each choose 6 of the year 1 and 2 dissections to teach. They perform each dissection in advance so it can be shown in your lab, then help your group link it to clinical practice.

Clinical skills start in orientation week, when CRISP begins. In the first Fundamentals block you practice taking the history of a presenting illness, and in Block 2 you learn to obtain an ultrasound image. Sessions use clinic practice rooms on the second floor of Volker Hall, standardized patients and simulation. The school says students also work with real patients alongside the pre-clerkship courses.

Optional programs add real patients early. SHARP lets CRISP students follow patients over time in a precepted, interprofessional clinic. Students also volunteer at Equal Access Birmingham, a student-run free clinic for uninsured and underinsured people, open on Wednesday evenings and Sunday afternoons.

Primary Care Track students add four half-day sessions in a mentor's Tuscaloosa clinic in year 1, and 11 in total by the end of year 2. Before year 2 they spend two to three weeks in Tuscaloosa on SCOPE, the Summer Community Oriented Primary Care Experience. For everyone, full-time clinical work starts with clerkships in the spring of year 2 (May for current classes), always under supervision.

Pre-clerkship courses show as pass/fail on your transcript, but each is scored from 0 to 100, with 70 to pass. Many modules have a knowledge component (exams and quizzes) and an individual and group performance component (skills, participation, professionalism, small groups and labs), and you must pass both. A weighted average of 92.0 or higher earns Preclinical Honors; Patient, Doctor & Society, Fundamentals and Evidence-Based Medicine are excluded.

Tests come often: on the 2026-27 schedule, about three per Fundamentals block and quizzes or exams before each organ module's NBME final. Courses of four weeks or more give formal feedback by their midpoint. Failed Fundamentals blocks are remediated over winter break, and failed organ modules in the spring or summer break. Failing two Fundamentals blocks, or two courses in a year, typically means repeating the year.

Clerkships are graded Honors, High Pass, Pass or Fail on two components: clinical performance, which may include an oral exam, and the NBME subject exam. Honors in both earns Honors, and Honors in one earns High Pass, assuming you pass the shelf exam at the first attempt. Each clerkship's raw score weights clinical work 65 percent and the shelf 35, or 70 and 30 in family medicine and, under the Class of 2027 criteria, OB/GYN.

These numbers feed a ranking. Raw scores are kept for internal use and feedback, not printed on your transcript or Medical Student Performance Evaluation (MSPE), the dean's letter for residency applications. Converted to T-scores, which place you relative to classmates, they produce an overall average. That average decides honors, Alpha Omega Alpha (AOA) honor society nominations and the class rank reported in residency applications, and you see your quartile.

Step 1 of the USMLE tests the science behind medicine in one day and has been pass/fail only since January 26, 2022. The school's USMLE policy, the governing rule, requires you to sit it before clerkships; the August 2025 core-components overview says you must pass it first. The same USMLE policy has you attempt Step 2 CK, which keeps a three-digit score, by November 1 of year 4. You must pass it at least a week before graduation or, if you enter the Match, by the earlier date the school confirms your eligibility with the NRMP.

In August 2026 the USMLE program announced a move to designated testing dates from January 2029, with Step exams offered less often each year. Its June 2026 notice had said 2028. The calendar for your year 2 (2028-29) is not yet posted. The school says its fall 2027 changes add time for clinical training, so you may sit Step 1 earlier than current classes, who test by late April. Either way, it would fall in 2029, after designated testing dates begin, and your Step 2 CK attempt deadline would be November 1, 2030.

• The USMLE has urged schools to review rules on when students must test. The school's policy, effective March 2025, still sets fixed deadlines, and its curriculum page still lists Step 2 Clinical Skills, which the USMLE discontinued in January 2021.
• Fail Step 1 at the first attempt and you may finish the clerkship in progress, but not start another until you retake it. Three failed attempts at a Step can lead to dismissal.
• OSCE results count: an average below 70 at the end of year 2 means remediation before your first clerkship, and a failed clerkship-year OSCE must be remediated before acting internships.
• The LCME accredits MD programs in the United States, and its accreditation makes students in this program eligible for the USMLE. Its directory, updated October 14, 2026, lists the program as fully accredited, first in 1946, with the next survey in 2029-30.
• In July 2025 the Medical Education Committee approved a Clinical Commendation designation to recognize outstanding clinical performance in years 1 to 3.

After the pre-clerkship years you start clerkships on your assigned campus; students assigned to Huntsville, Montgomery or Tuscaloosa move there. Applicants rank Birmingham, Huntsville and Montgomery by March 2, and campuses are assigned by preference and capacity in early April. Tuscaloosa cannot be ranked; it takes Primary Care Track and Rural Medical Scholars students. Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP) students, on the MD/PhD track, are placed in Birmingham and Rural Medicine Program students in Huntsville.

Assignments are final and binding. In year 2 you may request a switch if your assigned campus would cause substantial personal or educational hardship and another has room. A Campus Change Committee takes requests each fall and interviews applicants. Regional campus staff meet you early, with lunch-and-learns at orientation, then immersion camps and campus visits in year 1.

The catalog caps each medicine clerkship block at 20 students in Birmingham, 6 in Huntsville and Tuscaloosa and 4 in Montgomery. Birmingham, Huntsville and Montgomery students take the medicine (or pediatrics) and ambulatory acting internships on their own campus, plus 8 weeks of clinical electives or acting internships there. Surgery and critical care acting internships can be on any campus with room, and Tuscaloosa students take all three through Tuscaloosa.

Community physicians serve as clinical faculty on the regional campuses, and Montgomery's campus page counts more than 150 community-based preceptors. The school reviews each clerkship every four years. Its July 2026 internal medicine review found the clerkship comparable across campuses, with feedback, learning environment and shelf preparation to strengthen in Tuscaloosa and Montgomery.

Your first elective can come in the clerkship year, chosen by lottery for a 4-week slot; the catalog lists 26 courses designed as third-year electives. Year 4 then requires 22 weeks of electives, mostly in 2- to 4-week rotations, from a catalog listing 198 electives across the four campuses. A career advisor in your chosen field helps you build a schedule aimed at residency.

Away rotations, called away or visiting electives, are short courses at other teaching hospitals, often booked through the Association of American Medical Colleges' (AAMC) Visiting Student Learning Opportunities (VSLO) service. You can take them only in year 4, after all clerkships. Each earns up to 4 weeks of credit, is graded pass or fail and is optional. International electives, such as the International Clinical Elective, need school approval.

Special Topics are one-week mini-courses, and you need four, taken in set weeks such as mid-October or in the summer after year 1. The catalog lists 105, from Wilderness Medicine and Introduction to Narrative Medicine to an agromedicine field experience in Tuscaloosa and clinical medicine in the Dominican Republic from Huntsville. You can also propose your own course for approval.

Co-enrolled electives are optional semester-long courses taken alongside other classes from the second term of year 1, such as Spanish for Healthcare Professionals or emergency medical technician training. Each is worth 2 weeks of credit, and two count at most. In year 4, teaching associate courses let you teach anatomy labs, simulation sessions or clinical skills small groups for elective credit.

Scholarly Activity is required of everyone except MSTP students and those on a research year. In the summer before year 2 you complete online research ethics and human-subjects training, then choose a project and faculty mentor, ideally on your own campus. Three benchmarks follow: a proposal with a question or hypothesis, a progress report, and a final report written as a manuscript, due in February of year 4.

Further research is optional. Many students do summer research after year 1, mostly through the Physician-Scientist Development Office. After the preclinical years you can take a research year at UAB or elsewhere, often on a competitive fellowship. Two Areas of Distinction recognize focused work. Global Health graduated its first two students in 2026 and took 23 first-year students; Health Equity combines coursework, clinical work with underserved patients, teaching, scholarship and community service.

The MSTP, founded in 1987 and a National Institutes of Health (NIH) training program since 1991, normally takes about eight years and covers tuition, a stipend and health insurance. After a summer lab rotation, you take graduate courses alongside medicine, then spend several years on PhD research while a continuing clinical education course keeps your skills current. Clinical training, 14 to 18 months, is in Birmingham.

The MD/MPH with the School of Public Health needs 42 credit hours, 12 credited from the MD. You can finish in four years, starting the summer before medical school, or in five with a year's leave, and its community internship can count as your ambulatory acting internship. The MD/MSPH in Outcomes Research shares 12 of its 43 hours, and one scholarly project, with the MD.

The four-year MD/MBA with the Collat School of Business adds 10 business courses, four in the summer before medical school and the rest after year 2 and Step 1. The MD/MSHA with the School of Health Professions adds health administration training.

Two five-year programs for future rural primary care doctors in Alabama add a year before medical school. Rural Medical Scholars earn a master's in Rural Community Health at The University of Alabama, then train in Tuscaloosa; about 11 enter a year. The school counts about 200 participants since 1996, and the College of Community Health Sciences more than 270. Rural Medicine Program students spend their year at Auburn University and train in Huntsville.

Volker Hall is the pre-clerkship base. Its Lecture Tower, with five lecture rooms, reopened in March 2026 after more than a year of renovation. The building also holds the Gross Anatomy Lab, the Volker Hall Simulation Center and the second-floor clinic practice rooms used for CRISP.

UAB's Center for Interprofessional Education and Simulation runs simulation and standardized patient sessions; its simulation and standardized patient offices were both re-accredited by the Society for Simulation in Healthcare in 2021. Huntsville's 93,000-square-foot Regional Medical Center, opened in 2003, holds clinics, student lounges, a 128-seat auditorium for weekly grand rounds and the J. Ellis Sparks Medical Library, open around the clock. Montgomery has the Institute for Patient Safety and Medical Simulation.

Learning communities anchor support. There are 12, each named for a figure from the school's history: Barfield-Carter, Elopre, Finley, Hamilton, Harrison, Hill, Hirschowitz, Kirklin, Lyons, McCallum, Oparil and Pittman. The twelfth, Elopre, was added in fall 2025. You are placed by clinical campus and stay in the same community for four years.

Each community has a faculty mentor and meets monthly in small groups on wellness, professional development, health disparities, ethics, teamwork and community engagement. The course is pass/fail and needs 80 percent attendance. It runs Careers in Medicine in year 3 and a residency interview workshop in year 4.

Medical Student Services keeps a dean or director on call around the clock and runs ReportIt, for raising concerns or commendations, anonymously if you choose. Each regional campus has its own dean and student affairs office and holds regular dean's conferences, where students hear updates and give feedback. The UAB Medicine Office of Wellness offers confidential consultations, with no referral needed.

Academic Success learning specialists help with study skills and Step preparation, and trained peer educators run tutoring, reviews, mock anatomy practicals and question-based small groups. Career advising starts in year 1; staff meet every third-year student about Step 2 CK and offer two 30-minute mock residency interviews with faculty.