The Charles R. Drew University College of Medicine MD program

The pre-clerkship phase starts with the core sciences taught one discipline at a time, in six Fundamentals of Medicine courses running from anatomy and embryology to histology and pathology. From the end of year 1, six Organ Systems courses take a group of body systems at a time. Each joins the science to clinical medicine, from normal and abnormal function to diagnosis and treatment. The current Fundamentals of Medicine sequence began with the class that entered in 2026; the 2026-27 catalog says earlier classes covered substantially the same content in a different order.

Required sessions mix lectures, laboratory work, small-group discussion and case-based learning. One-week intersessions fall between blocks and may hold assessments and remediation, simulation, wellness sessions, board preparation and community or health policy teaching. They can also hold objective structured clinical examinations (OSCEs), in which you move through timed stations, each testing a clinical task such as examining a patient.

The four longitudinal courses are Clinical Skills, Medicine and Society, Foundations of Research and Medical Problem Solving, which the catalog says was added in 2025. CDU's DREAM page, handbook and roadmaps describe four such courses, while the curriculum page lists three, without Medical Problem Solving.

In the clerkship phase, teaching moves to hospital and clinic teams. You are paired with preceptors, the practicing doctors who teach you on the job, matched to your subspecialty interests, and you are supervised directly or indirectly at all times. In the residency preparation phase your schedule varies by student, with most rotations in your intended specialty.

The 2026-27 catalog sets the workload for years 1 and 2 at an average of 26 hours a week of required activities, and no more than 40.

In the 2025-26 catalog, written for the earlier version of the curriculum, Clinical Skills I had two four-hour standardized patient sessions and two four-hour service-learning sessions a month. Medicine and Society met for four hours a week in small groups, and research took three to four hours a week.

Attendance at required sessions is expected. You may miss up to six sessions in each nine-month period at your own discretion, but no more than three from one longitudinal course. Arriving more than 15 minutes late counts as an unexcused absence.

Clerkship weeks are longer: the catalog averages 40 hours. The duty hours policy caps clinical and scheduled teaching time at 80 hours a week, averaged over a clerkship, with schedules planned for no more than 72. You get 24 hours off in every seven days on average and at least eight hours between shifts. The Thursday before each shelf exam, the national subject exam that ends a clerkship, is free of required duties.

In clerkships, planned absences must be requested six weeks before the clerkship starts, and you make up every absence with shifts set by the clerkship director. The only guaranteed holidays are the Thursday and Friday of Thanksgiving and the winter break.

Fundamentals of Medicine 1, Anatomy and Embryology, is the first science course of year 1, straight after the three-week Gateway course. It runs nine weeks: July 6 to September 4 in 2026. It covers the structure and development of the body, with an emphasis on clinically relevant anatomy, embryology and developmental abnormalities. The library gives College of Medicine students Complete Anatomy, a 3D anatomy app with models, microscopic anatomy and radiology images.

The 2025-26 catalog said the anatomy course of that time included a virtual anatomy lab in place of cadavers, and it listed a Director of Virtual Anatomy. CDU's Simulation Center page, last updated in February 2024, describes a Mini Anatomy Room in the Cobb building. It holds an Anatomage table, a life-size touchscreen that displays a 3D digital body. It also has plastinated human specimens, real tissue preserved so it stays dry and odor-free, and augmented reality headsets.

For the new Health Professions Education Building, the fundraising page planned virtual and standard anatomy laboratories, and the July 2026 opening news lists anatomy laboratories among its features.

Clinical Skills I begins in July of year 1 (July 14 in 2026), teaching history-taking, physical examination, communication and professionalism in small groups. Alongside it you take part in service learning in EMT work, community health work and patient navigation. In the 2025-26 catalog, students spent three months on each of the three.

In year 2, Clinical Skills II moves on to advanced interviewing, examination and clinical reasoning, with supervised patient care both with standardized patients and with preceptors in clinical settings. In 2023 and 2024, CDU's news described simulation days in which first-year medical students worked through procedural skills stations and a mock mass casualty incident with nursing or physician assistant students.

Before clerkships, the one-week Clerkship Foundations course prepares you with simulation, clinical documentation, oral case presentations, clinical reasoning, professionalism and patient safety. From May of year 2 you care for patients full time. Each clerkship lists the patients and skills you must encounter, at levels from observing to assisting to performing, and you log each one, with its setting, in the One45 system.

The 2026-27 catalog describes the MD as pass/fail, with no grade point average. The sources differ on Honors. The catalog limits Honors to fourth-year clinical courses and electives, while the Clerkship Grading and Remediation Policy, in effect since May 2025, grades required clerkships Honors, Pass or Fail. Under that policy, Honors criteria are set in each clerkship syllabus, and every student who meets them receives Honors.

Each pre-clerkship course ends with a final exam of 100 questions from the question bank of the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME), which writes standardized medical exams and co-sponsors the USMLE. It lasts two and a half hours and falls on the Monday after the course. You need 70% on the exam and 70% in the course to pass, marks of 70% to 75% count as marginal passes, and a failed final can be retaken twice.

Clerkship grades combine clinical evaluations, the NBME subject exam, an OSCE or oral exam where the clerkship uses one, and other assignments. The subject exam usually lasts two hours 45 minutes, falls on the last day of the clerkship, and needs a score at or above the 5th percentile to pass. Each clerkship also gives you a mid-point feedback meeting, at least one observed history and examination, and a written narrative.

To graduate you must also complete the Comprehensive Basic Science Subject Exam (CBSE), a broad test of the basic sciences, and the Clinical Skills Exam (CPX), which closes the clerkship phase on the roadmap. The 2025-26 catalog described the CPX as recorded encounters with standardized patients, in which you take a focused history and examination, form a differential diagnosis and write up your assessment.

The USMLE has three Steps, and you take the first two in medical school. Step 1 tests the sciences behind medicine and has been reported only as pass or fail since January 26, 2022. Step 2 CK tests how you apply clinical knowledge and gets a three-digit score. You must pass both to graduate. CDU's newest USMLE policy, for the Classes of 2028 and 2029, says you take Step 1 before the core clerkship year, by May 1, and Step 2 CK before year 4, by July 1.

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 announcement had named 2028. On the current schedule, if you enter in 2027 you would sit Step 1 in spring 2029, by May 1 if the current deadline carries over, and start clerkships in May 2029. Step 2 CK would come in about May or June 2030, before year 4 begins. Both exams would fall under designated testing dates.

• Under the policy for the Classes of 2028 and 2029, every student gets counseling on when to sit Step 1, diagnostic tests help judge readiness, and some students start clerkships while waiting for results.
• If you have not passed Step 1 by the end of the Introduction to the Fourth Year course, you cannot start sub-internships.
• Not passing Step 1 or Step 2 CK within three attempts, or by December 1 of your graduation year, makes you eligible for dismissal.
• Three marginal passes or one failed exam in a year can put you on At Risk status, with a success plan and a possible pause in extracurricular and leadership activities.
• The USMLE has urged schools to review rules on when students must test, so CDU's deadlines could change before you sit.

Among its sites for required clinical experiences, CDU names Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital, the Martin Luther King Jr. Outpatient Center, Dignity Health – St. Mary Medical Center in Long Beach, Children's Hospital Los Angeles, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center and Sutter Health. In a memo to faculty dated May 1, 2025, the dean wrote that the first class would begin clerkships on May 5 in 20 hospitals and clinics. Sutter Health's own news says some CDU students did clerkships at its Sacramento and Roseville hospitals in the summers of 2025 and 2026.

Clerkships follow a standard rotation schedule that sets when you take each one. The schedule selection process runs in January of year 2, and CDU's One45 page says the scheduling software can set your course order from the preferences you submit. Once the schedule is released, you have 48 hours to request a different site, with a reason, or to swap with a classmate who agrees, and all assignments can still change.

You need reliable transportation to campus and to off-campus sites in all four years, because CDU does not provide it. Absences caused by transportation problems are not excused, a parking fee may apply at some sites with no reimbursement, and you must insure your own vehicle. Clinical partners also require background checks, which are done before you start and again before clinical rotations.

The summer selective is a required eight weeks between years 1 and 2. It can be research, a clinical preceptorship, community engagement, health policy, global health or another approved activity. Up to four weeks can count toward your year 4 electives if the Office of Medical Education approves. In 2024, six CDU students took Sutter Health's first summer research elective. Sutter's news describes research electives for seven first-year CDU students in 2025 and eight-week research projects for eight in 2026.

The library posts posters from students' 2024 and 2025 summers. Topics range from disparities in breast cancer treatment to equity gaps in curing hepatitis C and the health of patients without housing who needed hip fracture surgery.

In year 4 you need at least 16 weeks of electives, 12 of them clinical. Electives can be in clinical subspecialties, research, health policy, community health or global health. The catalog's course codes run from general surgery, neurosurgery and orthopedics to dermatology, radiology, pathology, anesthesiology and medical genetics. Offerings vary by year and depend on approval, site availability and prerequisites.

For away rotations, short clinical rotations at other institutions, the library's year 4 guide points you to the AAMC's Visiting Student Learning Opportunities (VSLO) application system.

CDU's admissions FAQ says it has no joint baccalaureate-MD or dual-degree program, such as an MD-PhD, at present. Research is built into the MD instead, as a required four-part course and a final project.

Foundations of Research I introduces clinical and translational research, scientific method and literature review, and connects you with faculty research mentors. Part II covers research design, data analysis and scientific communication as you develop your project and proposal. Part III, in the clerkship phase, carries the project through implementation and analysis, and Part IV ends with its completion, presentation or defense.

CDU's program objectives ask you to design, carry out and complete a clinical research project that meets the standard of a thesis. The 2026-27 handbook lists completion of the senior scholarship project as a graduation requirement. You present your findings in year 4 at the research symposium and capstone.

The College of Medicine's home is the four-story Health Professions Education Building, opened with a ribbon-cutting on July 11, 2026 and funded in part by $50 million from the State of California. It has adaptive, technology-equipped classrooms, anatomy laboratories, simulation spaces and collaborative learning areas, and it also serves students from CDU's other colleges.

The CDU Simulation Center, granted provisional accreditation by the Society for Simulation in Healthcare in 2023, has sites in three buildings. Its page, last updated in February 2024, says the site in the Cobb building mainly serves the College of Medicine. It has three outpatient exam rooms used for OSCEs, a surgical suite with an anesthesia machine, and high-fidelity manikins of different ages and ethnicities.

The Health Sciences Library's guides give College of Medicine students study tools that are only available to them, including ClinicalKey Student, Osmosis, Sketchy and board-preparation platforms such as AMBOSS, UWorld and Pathoma.

Every student belongs to one of four Learning Communities, named after physician-advocates. They provide academic coaching, mentorship, professional development, peer support and social connection throughout the program.

You are assigned a Career Advisor in year 1 and meet at least twice a year. Advising covers test-taking for courses, shelf exams and the USMLE, choosing a specialty, building your CV and preparing applications, and every student joins the AAMC's Careers in Medicine program.

The Learning Skills office is led by a Senior Director who runs the clinical reasoning courses and oversees Step 1 and Step 2 CK preparation for every student. Its staff offer one-to-one sessions on time management, study skills and test-taking, oversee tutors and supplemental instructors, and help with CVs. You can book tutors through the Penji app, and the office puts approved disability accommodations into practice.

Student Health and Wellness Services offers medical students confidential counseling, group therapy, crisis support and wellness workshops, plus a 24-hour counseling line. Using it is not recorded in your academic file or your Medical Student Performance Evaluation (MSPE), the dean's letter sent with residency applications. The clinicians who treat you do not teach or assess you.

The 2024-25 student organization guide lists specialty interest groups, the Student National Medical Association, the Latino Medical Student Association, a student-run free clinic and the Harbor-UCLA Acute Inpatient Mentorship.