The FIU Wertheim College of Medicine MD program

StepUp is built to connect subjects. Its five strands are planned horizontally, linking courses that run at the same time, and vertically, building each theme year on year. Clinical Skills II, for example, teaches the heart examination during the cardiovascular block. You must show the competencies set out by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), plus one the college added: social accountability, working to meet community health needs and reduce disparities.

In Years 1 and 2, Foundations I is taught through lectures, small groups and whole-class discussion, and the Organ Systems courses through cases, group discussions, simulations and lectures. Sessions that cannot be repeated outside class are compulsory: anatomy labs, small-group case-based learning, Meet the Patient sessions, simulations and encounters with standardized patients, actors trained to play patients.

Year 1 and 2 workload is capped at 25 hours a week averaged over four weeks, and 35 in any single week, counting class, preparation and assessments. The guideline is about 16 hours a week for the Foundations or Organ Systems course, 3 for clinical skills, and 2 each for professional development, research and Medicine and Society.

In Year 3, learning moves to patient care, supported by simulation, case-based teaching sessions, virtual cases and problem-based learning. In Core Concepts in Medicine, small groups work through problems, then consult specialists in a large-group session. In Years 3 and 4, duty hours are capped at 80 a week averaged over four weeks.

The college publishes 2026-27 sample weeks. In the fall of Year 1, weekday mornings from 8am to noon are Foundations teaching, with research on some Wednesday mornings. Tuesday afternoon, 1pm to 5pm, is clinical skills, alternating on some Tuesdays with Foundations III anatomy. Wednesday afternoons hold research on set dates, and Medicine and Society from December.

Monday, Thursday and Friday afternoons are unscheduled, for self-directed study. Year 2 has the same shape, with clinical skills on Wednesday afternoons and Medicine and Society or research on some Tuesdays. Year 1 is taught in AHC2 room 170 and Year 2 in room 180.

Final exams fall on the last day of each course, and midterms on a Friday or Monday. Before a major Friday exam no new material is taught on Thursday, which the college suggests keeping as a study day.

Anatomy starts in Year 1 with Foundations III, a functional anatomy course on set Tuesday afternoons from August to early December. It is linked with Clinical Skills, so you learn structures alongside the physical examination. It also prepares you for Organ Systems, which teaches anatomy with physiology, pathology and pharmacology.

The technical standards list gross anatomy dissection as an integral part of the basic science curriculum. FIU News said in 2023 that students in the new lab would do hands-on dissection, exposing structures themselves. The 2024 college magazine added prosection, studying specimens already dissected by experts. A January 2025 report listed donor bodies, plastinated specimens (real tissue preserved with plastic), projected microscope slides, models and 3D-printed models of complex diseases.

According to the 2025 report, Year 2 lab sessions are mandatory, the new lab allows more time for each organ system, and third-year students use it to review clinically relevant anatomy. Those heading for surgery can do advanced dissection. The four-week Year 4 Anatomy Elective has you dissect every relevant body region in groups of four to six and help teach lab sessions.

Students held the college's first Ceremony of Gratitude for donors in 2024, and phones and cameras are banned near donors unless authorized.

In your first semester you join half-day primary care clinic visits through the Clinical Skills I preceptorship, alongside simulations and standardized patient sessions. Meet the Patient sessions also bring patients into class. In Years 1 and 2 a faculty supervisor is with you at all times, and you may take histories and do limited examinations, excluding breast, rectal and genital exams.

From January of Year 1, continued preceptorship visits build your examination skills, your use of lab and imaging results and your differential diagnosis, the list of possible causes of a patient's problem. In Year 2 your geriatrics primary care preceptorship is at Leon Medical Centers, which serves Medicare patients around Miami. In Years 1 and 2 you can also choose emergency medicine shifts at Baptist Hospital and South Miami Hospital, or an approved observership shadowing faculty.

NeighborhoodHELP adds another kind of contact. After the concepts are introduced in Year 1, you join an interprofessional team for your last three years and make regular household visits under faculty supervision. During clerkships, your clerkship director or coordinator approves any visit in clinical hours, and you give your preceptor 48 hours' notice.

From Year 3, supervision can be indirect at your supervisor's discretion, with a physician immediately available. You can write progress notes and draft orders for co-signature and, under direct supervision, place IV lines and urinary catheters. In the operating room you may retract, hold instruments and close skin if your preceptor allows.

Year 1 and 2 courses are scored from 0 to 100, with 72 to pass, but your transcript shows only pass or fail. The scores feed a weighted GPA for class rank, excluding Medicine and Society. In each of Years 1 and 2, up to the top 10% of the class can be named Honors and the next 15% Near Honors, noted in your MSPE.

Apart from Medicine and Society and professional development courses, each Year 1 and 2 course ends with a cumulative final exam, worth at least 40% of the grade for courses over three weeks. Multiple-choice questions come from the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME), which writes national medical exams, or from faculty. Human Biology and Disease courses add a critical thinking or diagnostic reasoning exam, and clinical skills courses include an OSCE.

In Year 3, core clerkships are graded Honors, Near Honors, Pass or Fail and count toward class rank; radiology and electives are pass/fail. At least 35% of each clerkship grade is the Clinical Assessment of Student Performance (CASP), your supervisors' rating of your clinical work. Clerkships also use NBME subject exams, or shelf exams, national tests in each specialty, with the pass mark at the 5th percentile. Clerkships include OSCEs as well, according to the college's Strand Honors policy. A failed clerkship is repeated.

The End of Third Year promotional OSCE tests history taking, examination, communication and diagnostic reasoning and is required to move into Year 4. Every Year 4 rotation is pass/fail.

The USMLE is the exam series state medical boards use in licensing decisions. Step 1 has been reported only as pass or fail for exams taken since January 26, 2022. Step 2 CK tests how you apply clinical knowledge to patient care. FIU's policy, revised in August 2026, requires Step 1 before Year 3 orientation and Step 2 CK before Year 4 rotations.

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. On the current schedule, a student entering in August 2027 (the Class of 2031) would take Step 1 in spring 2029, after Year 2 classes end in March. Step 2 CK would follow in spring 2030, so both fall after the change. This follows the 2026-27 schedules, the latest posted.

• A unit scored below 72 is reassessed in the next break, then remediated if needed. A course failure, or several low units, sends you to the Medical Student Evaluation and Promotion Committee (MSEPC), which decides on promotion, remediation and dismissal.
• In Year 3, two first-time shelf exam failures in different clerkships also mean an MSEPC review.
• With approval you can delay Step 1 by one rotation. If it is still not taken by your second scheduled Year 3 rotation, you take leave until the next Year 3.
• Passing Step 1 is required for promotion to Year 3 and Step 2 CK for Year 4, with provisional promotion possible while a score is pending. Both must be passed before the deadline for ranking residency programs in the Match.
• All requirements, including both Step exams, must be finished within six years.
• Seven to 10 days before each Step exam you take a school-sponsored NBME self-assessment. If it predicts below a 97% chance of passing, you are offered targeted support.
• The USMLE program has encouraged schools to review rules restricting when students take Step exams.
• The Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) accredits MD programs in the United States. For MD students, LCME accreditation is what makes you eligible to sit the USMLE; DO (osteopathic) students and international graduates qualify through other routes.
• The LCME directory, updated October 14, 2026, lists the program as fully accredited, with initial accreditation in 2007 and the next survey due in 2033-34.

Clinical teaching takes place across affiliated health systems, hospitals, clinics and private practices, which the college says are spread across Miami-Dade and Broward counties. Each system teaches particular clerkships, listed below, and several also host Year 4 sub-internships and electives.

The Office of Medical Education builds Year 3 schedules in January of Year 2, and you then have a week to swap rotations one-for-one with a classmate. With a good reason, you can request a different site or sequence in an October to December window. Some clerkships also ask for site preferences several weeks ahead, first come, first served.

Year 4 schedules come from a computerized optimization, with a one-week add-drop window before sites are told. After that, changes are limited to a change of specialty or an accepted elective at another institution. Some sites need longer notice to drop a rotation: 8 weeks at Nicklaus and 12 at Cleveland Clinic.

A Year 4 policy caps the weeks you can spend in one field, counting the sub-internship, emergency medicine and electives: 20 for pediatrics, internal medicine or general surgery, and 16 for any other specialty. The 2026-27 catalog lists sub-internships from family medicine to intensive care, urology and trauma surgery, and four-week selectives such as gynecologic oncology.

Away rotations, or extramural electives, are electives at other institutions. You can apply through the AAMC's Visiting Student Learning Opportunities (VSLO) system or propose an elective at another accredited medical school in the United States or Canada. Abroad, FIU has vetted host schools, mostly in Central and South America, and other sites need advance approval.

For-credit international applications are due 9 months ahead, and non-credit trips 6 months. FIU does not allow travel to countries under a Level 4 State Department advisory. Past students have gone to countries including Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, India, Japan, Kenya, Peru and Uganda.

Focus Track capstone electives in the 2026-27 catalog include Medical Spanish, with a practice OSCE and a project, and Policy and Advocacy. The catalog also lists an Evidence-Based Lifestyle Medicine elective. Other electives range from Narrative Medicine, a two-week writing rotation, to Teaching Skills, Medical Ethics and Humanism, Fundamentals of Population Health and a Community Medicine Elective in a public health clinic.

Research is required. The Research Scholarship Course starts in the fall of Year 1 and, on the Class of 2030's schedule, runs into Year 3. You lead a mentored project much as a principal investigator would, from research question and proposal to data collection, analysis and a short write-up, aiming for presentation or publication before residency.

Year 1 and 2 students can also apply for the competitive five-week Summer Research Fellowship, working 30 hours a week in person with a faculty mentor. In 2026 it ran from June 15 to July 17.

Three combined degrees add a master's. The MD/MPH (Master of Public Health) is run with the Robert Stempel College of Public Health and Social Work. The MD/MSHIA (Master of Science in Health Informatics and Analytics) and MD/Healthcare MBA are run with the FIU College of Business. You apply in Year 3, and each college admits you separately. You need good academic standing and approval from the MSEPC, the Office of Student Affairs and the Office of Academic Affairs.

After Year 3 you pause the MD for a year of master's study, then return for Year 4 and graduate with both degrees after five years. Some MD credits count toward the master's: in the catalog, 9 of the MPH's 45 credits, 10 of the MSHIA's 37 and 9 of the MBA's 42.

AHC2's fourth and fifth floors hold the Albert and Debbie Taño Medical Simulation Center. It has 20 clinical skills and assessment rooms with cameras and recording, including two high-fidelity simulation suites, plus two large procedural skills suites. Simulators include SimMan 3G, the Harvey cardiopulmonary simulator, childbirth and pediatric manikins and portable ultrasound, and you can book equipment to practice skills already taught.

In the anatomy suite, the 3D printing lab led by Dr. Tracy Cassagnol has made practice bones for surgical drilling and a bronchial tree model for second-year teaching.

The college's medical library is for medical students only. It covers about 5,500 square feet on the third floor of the Steven and Dorothea Green Library, with three group study rooms and a resting and meditation room. AHC2 has a student lounge, the Panther Commons, and lockers on its third floor.

The Helen and Jacob Shaham Academic Medical Center, built with Baptist Health, is due to open on the main campus in 2028. The seven-story, 163,000-square-foot center will combine learning spaces for medical students and residents with outpatient care such as diagnostic imaging and same-day surgery.

Your Panther Community runs three signature programs. MedLEAD builds leadership skills, with peer mentoring from older students from day one. Community Service Learning works in NeighborhoodHELP partner communities, and Culinary Medicine teaches nutrition as a way to tackle the social determinants of health.

From Year 1 you meet an assigned academic advisor at least twice a year about your progress, residency plans, electives, research and combined degrees. Academic Counseling and Enrichment Services (ACES) counselors help with study skills and test-taking, and free peer tutoring comes from trained, paid students in Years 2 to 4. ACES also runs Step exam preparation sessions, practice exams and study plans.

Student Well-being and Mental Health Services offers free, confidential counseling from licensed professionals who play no part in grading. The college also runs more than 40 wellness events a year.

Career advising runs through the four-year Road to Residency (R2R) program of advising, specialty workshops, mentoring and reflective writing, plus specialty mentors and a career specialist. The college says on-campus housing is not available for medical students, but admissions staff can put incoming students in touch with current students.