The Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University MD program

The school's spiral model moves from structure, function, and disease and therapeutics in the foundational phase to core clerkships, then advanced clerkships and electives.

Year 1 combines related subjects into integrated courses. In the fall, System Structure and Function holds three threads, meaning subjects tracked separately inside the course: gross anatomy and embryology, histology and cell biology, and medical physiology. Molecular Basis of Medicine runs alongside it. In a course with threads, each exam covers them all, and failing one thread fails the course. Year 2 runs by organ system, each course with pharmacology, pathology and clinical application threads.

Foundations of Doctoring runs through both foundational years, combining preceptorships, problem-based learning and clinical skills. In problem-based learning (PBL), a small group works through a patient case, decides what it needs to learn, then researches those learning objectives. The course also carries career exploration, professional identity, wellness and reflection.

Health systems science runs through all four years, with emphasis on patient safety, population health and team-based care. School policy sets a minimum of a third of clinical-phase teaching time in outpatient settings and a third in inpatient settings. A radiology clerkship runs alongside the others, delivered online at your own pace.

In years 1 and 2, required scheduled activities may not exceed 25 hours a week, averaged over a block or term. That includes lectures, small groups, labs, simulations, assessments, required pre-work, clinical experiences and scheduled House Dean meetings, but not independent study, tutoring or voluntary extras such as Distinction Track work.

You must still be available from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on class days and until 8 p.m. on assessment days. Most weeks end with a quiz that opens after Friday's last class and closes at 6 p.m. on Sunday, taken remotely with 90 seconds per question.

The 2026-27 plan for the fall of year 1 sets 14 Friday quizzes and four exams of about 100 questions, each in a four-hour slot. Year 2's Term 3 sets 13 quizzes of 33 questions and six 100-question exams between August and late January.

Clerkships have different limits. You work no more than 80 hours a week averaged over four weeks, and duty periods last at most 24 hours plus up to four for handoffs or teaching. After 24 hours of in-house call you get 14 hours off, and one day in seven is free on average.

Anatomy comes in the fall of year 1. Since the 2025 reorganization, gross anatomy and embryology has been a thread inside System Structure and Function. In the 2026-27 blueprint, each of the term's four exams has an anatomy lab section of 25 to 50 items on top of about 100 written questions.

The lab descriptions below date from before that change. The 2020 bulletin said most of the anatomy course took place in the cadaver laboratory, because, the course description said, anatomy is best learned by dissecting the human body. A 2023 student poster on the fall 2022 course reported required lab dissection and timed exams at cadaver stations.

A health systems science page for year 1, unchanged since at least February 2024, describes groups of three or four students dissecting together under a team charter. In a June 2025 ECU News story, a student finishing her first year called the cadaver lab her favorite part of the year.

Bodies come through the school's Anatomical Gift Program, according to the 2023 poster. The new Brody Center for Medical Education adds a gross anatomy space with 28 beds.

Patient contact begins in year 1. Foundations of Doctoring I includes preceptorships, and the school's workload policy lists M1 Foundational Clinical Experiences among required activities. The M1 Capstone is a set of required clinical activities that are not assessed, and the school says many early experiences take place in rural and underserved communities in eastern North Carolina.

In 2022 the school described first-year interview practice with standardized patients whose stories are set in rural eastern North Carolina. In year 2, Foundations of Doctoring II continues and a full week in October is a clinical preceptorship. Outside the curriculum, students run two free clinics for uninsured people.

Full-time clinical work starts after Step 1. Since 2026, a white coat ceremony in late March or early April of year 2 marks the end of the foundational phase. For the class that entered in 2026, it falls on March 25, 2028, with clerkships from April 3.

Courses in years 1 and 2 appear on your transcript as pass or fail, but each also reports a numeric grade out of 100, with 70 to pass. Those numbers and your clerkship grades, weighted by credit hours, set your class rank. It is reported by quartile in your Medical Student Performance Evaluation (MSPE), the school's letter for residency applications, and is used to judge eligibility for Alpha Omega Alpha, the medical honor society.

Foundational exams and quizzes use single-best-answer questions in the NBME style, alongside lab practicals, projects and assignments. In year 1, failing one course means repeating the year, and failing two can lead to dismissal. In Term 3 you must reach at least the 6th percentile nationally on NBME subject exams to pass the systems capstone course, with up to three attempts.

Clinical skills are tested in Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCEs), timed stations where you take a history or examine a standardized patient while an examiner scores you. They appear in Foundations of Doctoring, core clerkships, Transitions to M4 and Transition to Residency.

Clerkships are graded Honors, A, B, C or Fail, and you must pass each part, including the OSCE and the NBME subject exam, called a shelf exam. A first shelf score below the 6th percentile for that quarter leaves the clerkship In Progress until you pass a retake, which caps your grade at B. Three failed attempts mean repeating the clerkship.

You must pass USMLE Step 1 before M3 and Step 2 CK before graduating, with at most three attempts at each. Since January 26, 2022, Step 1 has been reported only as pass or fail, while Step 2 CK still gets a three-digit score. 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, a student entering in July 2027, the Class of 2031, would study from early February 2029 and sit Step 1 by about mid-March 2029, shortly after that switch. Step 2 CK would follow early in M4, by about mid-May 2030. The school has not yet posted a calendar for the class entering in 2027, so these dates are projections from the Class of 2029 and 2030 calendars and its October 2026 USMLE procedure.

• Step 1 deadline: generally the first or second week of March of M2.
• Step 2 CK deadline: before Block 2b of M4, generally mid-May; it must be passed before any leave between M3 and M4.
• A first Step 1 failure means a six-week Clinical Correlations Seminar in place of your first clerkship. If you pass the retake before the seminar ends, you start clerkships in the second six-week period and stay with your class. The missed clerkship moves into your elective block, whose surgical skills and primary care skills electives move to M4.
• Electives and radiology are pass/fail; the acting internship and ICU rotation use the clerkship scale, but M4 grades do not count toward class rank.
• From 2027-28, falling three clerkships behind your class means restarting the clinical year with the next class, and the MD must be finished within six years.

ECU Health Medical Center in Greenville is the flagship teaching hospital for the Brody School of Medicine and a tertiary care referral center. It belongs to ECU Health, a system with an academic medical center on two campuses and eight community hospitals, serving more than 1.4 million people in 29 counties. In 2026 the school's dean was also ECU Health's chief executive.

The site descriptions below are dated. The 2020 bulletin placed obstetrics and gynecology and pediatrics teaching at Vidant Medical Center, now ECU Health Medical Center, and at the Brody School of Medicine Outpatient Center. It put surgery students on the medical center's general and specialty surgical services, at the SurgiCenter and in associated outpatient clinics. Some clerkships also used county health departments or approved pediatric practices in eastern North Carolina, and most family medicine clerkships were arranged with family physicians in the region.

The bulletin also placed four weeks of inpatient psychiatry at Cherry Hospital, the state psychiatric hospital in Goldsboro, or at the medical center's psychiatric unit. Cherry Hospital still lists itself as a teaching site for ECU's medical school. A 144-bed behavioral health hospital that ECU Health and Acadia Healthcare set to open in Greenville in fall 2025 is meant to train students and residents through partnerships with Brody.

A 2022 ECU News story said students spent up to half of their family medicine and pediatrics clerkships in rural, community settings. It also named a combined internal medicine and pediatrics acting internship at ECU Health Duplin Hospital in Kenansville or ECU Health Edgecombe Hospital in Tarboro. Both are still listed in an archived April 2026 copy of the M4 catalog, written for the older M4 layout.

Community physicians practicing in North Carolina can teach Brody students as ECU Health Affiliate Faculty in all four years, and you must have reliable transportation for clinical sites. For rotations around the region, the Eastern Area Health Education Center (Eastern AHEC) keeps furnished student apartments in eight eastern North Carolina towns, including Greenville. First priority goes to in-state students on primary care rotations, and ECU counts as an in-state affiliated school.

Electives start in M3. The six-week elective block holds three two-week electives: one surgical skills and one primary care skills elective, both clinical and chosen from Brody's predefined lists, and a third in any discipline. You can also propose an individually designed elective (IDE) with a preceptor, 60 days ahead. M3 electives are pass/fail and cannot be international.

M4 holds 28 weeks of electives of two to four weeks each, at least 24 of them clinical. You schedule them in the fall and winter of M3, and without special permission may spend at most 16 weeks in one specialty and 16 weeks on away rotations at other schools. Away rotations need approval from the Associate Dean for Student Affairs, Clinical Sciences, and good academic standing.

The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) runs Visiting Student Learning Opportunities (VSLO), the standard application for away electives. In M4 you can also go abroad: the April 2026 catalog listed a global health elective in Eswatini, a cultural immersion elective in Zambia and primary care and cardiology in Nicaragua. Family Medicine's 2026 selectives add women's health in rural Guatemala.

Other April 2026 electives, written for the older M4 layout, included Medicine and the Holocaust, Canopy Medical Spanish, forensic pathology and a pediatric diabetes camp, Camp Needle in the Pines. The school now posts elective information in a separate system called Quarterdeck.

You can take up to eight weeks of flex time, and four must fall in Blocks 8, 9 or 10 for residency interviews.

The Summer Scholars Research Program (SSRP) is an eight-week research experience between years 1 and 2 with a faculty mentor, in clinical or basic science. From 2027 it has an Immersive Pathway of about 40 hours a week in person with a full stipend, and an Independent Pathway for mainly remote projects with a reduced stipend. Both end with a poster.

The Distinction Tracks are para-curricular, meaning they run alongside the required curriculum. You apply during or just after year 1 and are chosen by application and interview. Two of the five tracks are health system transformation and leadership, whose students are LINC Scholars (Leaders in Innovative Care), and medical education and teaching. The other three are medical humanities and ethics, added in 2025, service-learning with underserved and rural populations, and research.

The Research track requires SSRP first and ends with a manuscript of publishable quality, though publication is not required. Medical Humanities and Ethics students complete an eight-week, 40-hour-a-week summer immersion and earn a Certificate of Clinical Ethics. Every track ends with capstone elective time in M4, including a mandatory two-week block in Greenville, a poster and Distinction Day.

You can also add an MBA or an MPH. The 2026 promotion rules, which replace the timing on the school's older dual-degree page, expect the second degree between M3 and M4, on a leave of absence and in good academic standing. The MD/MBA with ECU's College of Business needs 14 classes instead of 18, usually with a GMAT waiver, and the MPH runs through the school's Department of Public Health.

Classes currently meet in the existing Brody building on ECU's Health Sciences Campus, a locked building you enter with your ECU 1Card. The $265 million, state-funded Brody Center for Medical Education, joined to the Brody Medical Sciences Building, is due to be completed by August 2027 and to open ahead of the 2027-28 academic year.

The seven-story, 195,000-square-foot building adds two learning studios that seat up to 500 or convert to classrooms of up to 136 each, plus huddle rooms and small-group spaces. It also has a 144-seat lab classroom for neurology, pathology and immunology, a new gross anatomy space, a new home for simulation and standardized patients, and house areas with lockers and study carrels.

The Simulation Center offers on-demand skills practice and a self-directed ultrasound program for students in all four years, alongside its scheduled sessions. You also have the Laupus Health Sciences Library and the Health Sciences Campus Student Center, with study rooms and a fitness center.

Support runs partly through the four houses introduced in 2026: the Bertie Buccaneers, Roanoke Raiders, Pamlico Privateers and Cape Fear Corsairs. You meet your House Dean one to one for career advising in years 1 and 2, then also work with a clinical course advisor and a specialty advisor. Advising follows the AAMC's Careers in Medicine program, with mock residency interviews and application help.

The Office of Student Success and Wellness (OSSaW) offers academic coaching, USMLE study planning, peer tutoring, near-peer study groups and help with clerkship transitions and shelf exams. Two counselors from ECU's counseling center work full time inside the medical school, and Brody personnel cannot see their records.

Academic difficulty, such as failing the first exam of a term in year 1, a shelf exam or an OSCE, brings in the Academic Achievement Program. In years 1 and 2 your course director sends a notice within a week of a failed exam. For a failed clerkship OSCE or shelf exam, the clerkship director meets you within two weeks, and either director can refer you to OSSaW. Faculty or residents who treat you as patients may not assess you or take part in promotion decisions about you.