The CU Anschutz Medical Campus MD program

Trek teaches three pillars together in every phase: medical sciences, clinical sciences, and health and society, which covers communication, health systems, equity and advocacy. The school designed it to move away from two years of basic science followed by two clinical years. Twelve science content areas, from gross anatomy to genetics, run through all four years.

In the Plains, each week is organized around a chief concern presentation that frames the week's teaching within a patient's experience. Case-based clinical reasoning sessions use diagnostic schemas, flowcharts of possible diagnoses for a chief concern, to link the science to skills taught in DOCS.

Attendance is required at small groups, group labs or dissections, clinical skills and interprofessional sessions; other events are optional but strongly encouraged. Selected lectures and large-group sessions are recorded. Two interprofessional courses put you in teams with other health professions students, on healthcare ethics and health equity and on collaborative practice.

From year 2, preceptors teach you one-on-one in the clinic, backed by a weekly small-group series on core clinical topics. Basecamps, courses of one to four weeks at each major transition, prepare you for clerkships, advanced rotations and residency. In years 3 and 4, an individualized learning plan built with a specialty advisor and your COMPASS Guide, the faculty coach assigned to you on entry, shapes your schedule.

In year 1, scheduled hours plus required work outside class, such as the DOCS preceptorship and COMPASS meetings, are capped at 32 a week, averaged across the year. At least two half-days a week stay unstructured for independent study.

The school's 2025 introduction for LIC preceptors shows a sample clerkship week: a half-day in each of the seven specialties, a half-day learning seminar and two half-days of extended learning time. Clinical hours are capped at 80 a week averaged over a course, with at least 10 hours off between shifts.

Anatomy is taught within the courses organized by body system, with gross anatomy, embryology, histology and radiology among the twelve science content areas. The handbook's Plains rules list group labs or dissections among the sessions all students must attend, and an Anatomy Practical among the Plains exams.

The Anatomy Dissection Laboratory in Education Building 1 has 38 dissection humidors, a skeletal collection and more than 50 plastinated organs. Donors give their bodies to the Colorado State Anatomical Board, which says most are used to teach medical, dental, physical therapy and physician assistant students. The school honors donors and their families each year at the Anatomical Donor Memorial.

In a 2022 school news story, a first-year student described gathering with classmates around their donor. Later options include Advanced Anatomy, a four-week dissection selective on anatomy key to surgical and interventional specialties, and an Advanced Dissection elective in Fort Collins.

The DOCS preceptorship brings your first clinical interactions: you apply classroom science with patients, grow comfortable with them and learn from a physician who can be a role model and mentor. A December 2022 Family Medicine document described one to three half-days a month with a Denver-metro preceptor, a primary care physician when possible. The year-long Traverse course, built around five assessment and coaching weeks, also counts direct patient care with preceptors among its activities.

By the end of the Plains you have learned a patient-centered interview, a physical examination of a healthy adult, including sensitive exams, and how to write up a full history and physical. Once you have passed the courses through Gastrointestinal System, you may arrange extra career exploration time with a physician, usually up to 16 hours, with Office of Student Life approval.

In the LIC you observe a few visits, then quickly take the lead. The Foothills guidebook expects that by mid-year you are seeing patients independently, pending orders, writing all your notes and calling patients with results. Each cohort patient, says the school's 2025 preceptor introduction, needs at least three encounters with you.

Every Plains course is pass/fail, with a grading committee deciding final grades. Exams include End of Course exams, Anatomy Practicals and the DOCS Clinical Skills Assessment. Clinical skills are also judged by preceptors and in Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCEs), timed stations where you interview or examine a standardized patient while observed.

The CBSE works as a progress test, but the end-of-year sitting has a cut-off. Score below 44 and you retake it before the Foothills Basecamp; falling short again sends you to the Student Promotions Committee.

Clerkship grades work differently. Six specialties are graded Honors, High Pass, Pass or Fail, while emergency medicine and the LIC course are pass/fail. Grades rest mainly on supervisors' assessments, judged by de-identified grading committees against set criteria, so honors are not capped and you do not compete with classmates. Shelf exams carry only a pass mark, but failing one at the first attempt rules out honors.

In years 3 and 4, most two-week courses, all away electives and research electives are pass/fail, while other courses can award Honors or High Pass. The Medical Student Performance Evaluation (MSPE), the dean's letter sent with residency applications, does not rank students or use quartiles.

Step 1 of the USMLE tests the science behind medicine and has been pass/fail only since January 26, 2022; Step 2 CK keeps a numeric score. You must pass both to graduate. You book Step 1 only after passing all Plains and Foothills coursework. Step 2 CK is due within 12 months of Step 1, by the last Friday of the second summer block, typically July 15 to 25.

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 named 2028. No calendar is posted yet for the class entering in July 2027. On the current schedule, four-year entrants would sit Step 1 by early January 2030 and Step 2 CK by late July 2030, and Peak-to-Peak students both around December 2029.

• The Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) accredits MD programs in the United States, and its accreditation is what makes students here eligible for the USMLE. Students of osteopathic (DO) schools and international graduates qualify by other routes.
• The LCME directory, updated October 14, 2026, lists the program's status as Full, its initial accreditation as on or before 1942, the year the LCME was founded, and its next survey as 2032-33. The school dates its first accreditation to 1938 and its latest review to March 2025.
• Fail Step 1 and you take at least four weeks of study leave before the retake, and you cannot start new Alpine courses until you pass.
• Graduation also requires a service-learning milestone, which you can start from the spring of year 1: a non-clinical service experience with a community organization. It focuses on communication, the social factors that shape health, allyship and reflecting on your values and biases. You have at most six years of enrollment to finish unless the Student Promotions Committee approves more.

Year 1 is on the Anschutz Medical Campus, or in Fort Collins for regional campus students. Midway through the Plains you meet the LICs at an LIC Fair and rank them in a survey; a match algorithm assigns places, which are final with rare exceptions. Fort Collins, Colorado Springs LIC Program and Rural Program students have their LIC set by their program.

Every student is told at acceptance that the clerkship year may be outside the Denver/Aurora area. All LICs involve travel between sites, so you need reliable transportation and may relocate in year 2. Close-to-Home status, which keeps your clerkship sites within 30 miles of campus, is usually granted for significant caregiving responsibilities in Denver/Aurora.

The 2026-27 Foothills guidebook lists 16 LICs: three at University of Colorado Hospital, Children's Hospital Colorado (Advocacy), the Veterans Affairs LIC (Arts and Humanities), two at Denver Health and Kaiser Permanente (Inquiry). The rest are Community Health (Advocacy), Highlands Ranch (Longevity and Wellness), three in Colorado Springs, Longmont/Boulder, Northern Colorado and the Rural LIC.

The handbook names the primary clinical affiliates as the UCHealth system, Denver Health Medical Center, Children's Hospital Colorado and the Rocky Mountain Regional VA Medical Center. In the Plains and Alpine phases preceptors can be up to 40 miles from your campus, and LIC sites up to 40 miles from the LIC's primary site. The Colorado Area Health Education Center (AHEC) program houses students placed farther away.

Year 1 electives are optional and do not count toward graduation. They run every semester, including the summer Discovery period, from introductions to surgery, urology and orthopedics to Clinical Medical Spanish, Food Systems and Health and track electives.

The required acting internship is a four-week hospital rotation in which you take primary responsibility for patients and take call, as interns do. The Class of 2028 guidebook's options run from medicine at Denver Health, University of Colorado Hospital, the VA or St. Joseph's to family medicine in Greeley, Grand Junction, Pueblo, Wray and Sterling.

Critical care means two weeks in an adult medical, adult surgical or pediatric ICU with teaching sessions, or a four-week ICU rotation. Integrated Science Selectives are four-week courses combining basic, clinical and health systems science. The 2027 list of ten includes Nutrition and Culinary Medicine, Climate Change and Environment, The Frontier of AI and Medicine, Cancer Biology and Advanced Anatomy.

You schedule through lotteries after building your individualized learning plan. Away rotations, usually booked through the Association of American Medical Colleges' Visiting Student Learning Opportunities (VSLO) service, are capped at 16 weeks. Outside the Global Health Track, international electives go through one course, applied for at least 90 days ahead.

Fort Collins adds One Health options, such as a One Health in Communities elective with CSU students and the City of Fort Collins. You can also shadow at CSU's Animal Teaching Hospital and take a comparative oncology elective with veterinary oncologists.

Every student completes the Mentored Scholarly Activity (MSA), a four-year project with a University of Colorado faculty mentor, unless the Research Track or the MD/PhD program covers it. Topics range from laboratory and clinical research to bioethics, humanities, global health, public health and health policy. You finish with a 10- to 25-page paper, or a published paper, and a capstone poster presented during the Transition to Residency Basecamp.

The competitive Research Track, applied for in year 1, adds half a day a week of research that year, four full-time summer weeks and two four-week research electives. You present at the Western Student Medical Research Forum in Carmel, California, and submit a first-author manuscript by February 1 of year 4. The Global Health Track takes 20 first-year students a year, and only its students can do MSA or research projects abroad.

The Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP) has run the MD/PhD route since 1983, with National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding since 1993. Its undated home page says it takes about 10 students a year. You take MSTP courses and lab rotations alongside the Plains, the LIC and the Advanced Science Courses. Step 1 comes in the fall of year 3 and Step 2 by the end of January. About four years of PhD research follow.

The 2026-27 handbook lists five other formal dual degrees: an MPH, an MS in Bioengineering, an MBA in one calendar year, an MD/JD and an MD/MS in Aerospace Engineering Sciences. The MPH is with the Colorado School of Public Health, and the five-year aerospace degree includes a year at CU Boulder studying bioastronautics. Counting the MSTP, the catalog lists four such programs and the school's joint-degree page five.

The handbook's approved exit point for an extra degree comes after the year 3 Step exams and spring coursework, delaying year 4; the aerospace degree starts a semester earlier. A Scholar's Year gives up to six students a year one academic year of research while staying enrolled. You need a defined project and mentor and must have passed the LIC year, the Advanced Science Courses and Step 1; you start in the summer of year 3 and graduate a year later.

CAPE fills 30,000 square feet of the Anschutz Health Sciences Building. Its 30 patient examination rooms and five simulation rooms, which can become an operating room, emergency room, hospital room, ICU or labor and delivery suite, all record video and audio. The simulation rooms have two-way mirrors into control rooms, and there are eight debriefing rooms.

The campus also has the Strauss Health Sciences Library and the Health and Wellness Center. In Fort Collins the medical campus occupies the fourth floor of the CSU Health and Medical Center, opened in 2017.

Your COMPASS Guide, a clinician-educator, coaches the same group from orientation to graduation. In year 1 the group meets weekly on health and society, professional identity formation and career navigation, with one-on-one coaching at set intervals. You also join one of six advisory colleges spanning all four years, named after Colorado 14ers, peaks of 14,000 feet or more, such as Pikes Peak and Quandary Peak.

Senior students called Navigators welcome you on the first day of orientation and offer near-peer mentoring. The Trek Progress Committee reviews every student twice a year and meets monthly about anyone struggling. Its discussions stay off your permanent record, and you can request a Success Team meeting yourself.

In the Office of Student Life, two assistant deans work as learning coaches, one for study skills and Step and shelf preparation and one directing clinical remediation. Career advising starts at orientation, with specialty advisors in each department. A confidential Associate Dean for Student Advocacy can act as your advocate, and campus mental health services often see new students within the same week.