The University of Florida College of Medicine MD program

Phase 1 is integrated: science is taught in organ-system courses by teams from basic science and clinical departments. Courses such as Respiratory System and Cardiovascular System teach you to recognize the findings that point to disease and build a list of possible diagnoses. You also learn to choose tests and understand how the diseases develop and are treated.

The four Introduction to Clinical Medicine (ICM) courses run alongside the organ systems through Phase 1. ICM 1A, in your first semester, covers history taking, communication, the physical exam, anatomy, radiology, ethics and clinical empathy. In the spring of year 2, ICM 2B moves on to hypothesis-driven histories and exams, differential diagnosis, clinical reasoning, and oral and written presentations.

Some strands run through all four years. Health Systems Science (HSS) covers how care is delivered, paid for and improved, in four domains: working together effectively, using information effectively, understanding communities and improving patient care. Threads in ethics, integrative and lifestyle medicine, geriatrics, palliative care and research are woven in, and nutrition appears in every year.

In the clinical years, teaching moves to rounds, conferences, lectures, the bedside and the operating room. In year 4 you work as an advanced clerk with more responsibility than in year 3.

You are expected on campus Monday to Friday from 8 am to 5 pm, apart from holidays. In Phase 1, policy limits lectures and preparation time to 25 hours a week, plus 10 hours of scheduled group activity such as labs and CLGs.

The fall 2025 syllabus for ICM 1A lists the regular parts of a first-semester week, which run alongside whichever science course you are in. There are lectures in the South Learning Studio, a session in the Anaclerio Learning and Assessment Center practicing histories and exams with standardized patients, an anatomy lab and small-group sessions.

An online anatomy quiz opens after each lab and closes at 9 pm that day. A weekend quiz of 10 to 20 questions on the week's ICM material runs from Friday at 5 pm until 11:59 pm on Sunday.

Anatomy is taught within the ICM courses, and the fall 2025 syllabus for ICM 1A lists the first-semester topics. They run from the skeleton, heart, chest, lungs and abdomen to the neck, ear, mouth and throat, limbs, back, nervous system and breast. Surface and cross-sectional anatomy are covered too.

In the lab you work in a group with a cadaver. Anatomy faculty and staff work directly with you, helping you dissect and identify structures and teaching dissection techniques. Radiology is built into the labs, so you also see the structures on scans. Each lab comes with a summary of terms and structures, and you can return alone at set times.

Your group can write questions for the weekly anatomy and weekend quizzes, which together count for 10% of the ICM 1A grade. Later courses return to structure: Endocrinology and Reproduction in year 2, for example, starts with the gross and microscopic anatomy of those organs.

A July 2022 college news story described augmented reality headsets used in the lab to supplement dissection. They showed 3D images built from full-body CT scans.

Your first patient encounters are simulated. In the first semester you practice weekly in the Anaclerio Learning and Assessment Center with standardized patients, who give you feedback, and with physical exam teaching assistants. You learn vital signs, histories and the main body-system exams, and encounters are recorded so faculty and students can review them. In ICM 1A an invited patient also talks to the class about their illness and care.

Your first sustained time in practice comes in December. After a preparation week, you leave Gainesville for two weeks with a Florida primary care physician, practicing your interview and examination skills. The college recruits 175 physician preceptors, who teach students in the community and in the students' hometowns. In year 1 you also join Putting Families First, in which a team of four students from different health professions visits a volunteer family at home to assess their health and access to care.

ICM 1B, in the spring of year 1, adds practice taking histories and examining patients in the hospital. Near the end of year 1, ICP 1B gives you a week with a physician in a specialty you choose, where you begin oral presentations. ICP 2, a week in November of year 2, is your last preceptorship before clerkships. The ICP course dates from 1992, when the college added it after students asked for earlier clinical exposure.

For ICP 2, most students choose a preceptor within UF Health in Gainesville or Jacksonville or at the VA, picking in an order set by lottery. You can instead arrange your own site where you have housing, with approval. Outside the curriculum, you can volunteer at the Equal Access Clinic, a student-run free clinic, and the Mobile Outreach Clinic, which serves low-income and rural areas around Alachua County.

From May of year 2 you are on clerkships, a member of the medical team with direct, supervised responsibility for assigned patients. Clinical duty hours are capped at 80 a week, averaged over the rotation, with four 24-hour periods off every four weeks on average.

In the two 2025 Phase 1 syllabi the college has posted, for ICM 1A and ICP 2, grading is Satisfactory or Unsatisfactory, that is, pass/fail. ICM 1A needs at least 75% on every exam and overall, plus a pass in each competency it assesses. Its three written exams count 10% each, its three clinical skills practicals (each of at least three stations) 20% each, and the two sets of quizzes 5% each.

Clinical Skills Exams (CSEs) are run through the Anaclerio Learning and Assessment Center, where you take histories from and examine standardized patients. Three carry consequences: CSE1, which you must pass to enter year 2; CSE 2B, a high-stakes exam before Step 1; and the spring CSE ending Phase 2, a graduation requirement. The rest are formative, for feedback only. The handbook says seven are required but itemizes six, and the calendars name CSE1, CSE2A, CSE2B and CSE3A to CSE3D.

Step 1 tests the science behind medicine and has been reported only as pass or fail since January 26, 2022. You take it in the capstone block after Phase 1, by the Sunday before clerkship orientation, once you have sat the CBSE, set by the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME). Step 2 CK must come after Phase 2 and before October 31 of year 4, following the NBME Comprehensive Clinical Science Self-Assessment (CCSSA) within a week of your last clerkship. You must pass both to graduate.

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, and it has encouraged schools to review rules on when students must test.

On the current schedule, a student entering in early August 2027 would sit Step 1 between about March and early May 2029, after designated testing dates begin. Clerkships would start in the second week of May 2029. Step 2 CK would fall between about May and October 2030, also under designated testing dates, with graduation in mid-May 2031. These dates are projected from the calendars for the classes of 2027 to 2029.

The seven third-year core clerkships use letter grades: A (exemplary), B+ or B (superior), C+ or C (competent), D (unsatisfactory, with remediation required) and E (failure). Each ends with an NBME subject exam, often called a shelf exam: a standardized national exam in that field. Not every clerkship carries letter grades: the Curriculum Committee moved fourth-year Anesthesiology and Critical Care to Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory from 2026-27, as it had earlier done for the geriatrics clerkship.

• In required clerkships a grading committee sets each final grade, and every final assessment includes a written narrative after formal feedback midway through.
• Competencies are judged separately from course grades, and classmates formally rate your professionalism after years 2 and 3.
• If a prediction model and your CBSE both suggest more than a 50% chance of passing, you may sit Step 1. If not, you retake the CBSE after up to five weeks of focused study, or four with a structured learning plan if judged at risk, and must reach a Step 1 passing-equivalent score.
• Miss that benchmark before clerkship orientation and you take academic leave for the rest of the year, with a monitored study plan, and must sit Step 1 by March 15 of the following year.
• Students in a group predicted to be at risk on Step 2 CK, based on clerkship shelf scores, must first reach a passing-equivalent score on the CCSSA.
• Foundations of Medicine or ICM 1A must be remediated by the first day of the second semester, or you withdraw and re-enroll the following year.

In Gainesville the main teaching hospital is UF Health Shands Hospital, a Level I trauma center providing tertiary and quaternary care for critically ill patients. UF Health also includes Shands Children's Hospital, Shands Cancer Hospital and Shands Critical Care Center, plus Shands Rehab and Shands Psychiatric hospitals. The Malcom Randall VA Medical Center, across the street, serves veterans from North Central Florida and South Georgia.

UF Health Jacksonville is a 715-bed hospital in the city's urban core with a Level I adult and pediatric trauma center. Clinical teaching also uses a facility in North Jacksonville and other UF Health sites, where students learn alongside more than 450 residents and fellows. On the 2026-27 directors list, the seven core clerkships each have a Jacksonville director as well as a Gainesville one.

On the regular track you spend part of your clinical years in Jacksonville. The Year 3 page gives 10 to 12 weeks of third-year clerkships there, with free housing, including three weeks of obstetrics and gynecology. The Jacksonville medicine page puts four of the eight inpatient medicine weeks there. Some required fourth-year rotations can also be done there: anesthesiology and critical care, emergency medicine and the medicine acting internship. The transportation policy puts the average at a third of all clinical rotations.

The Jacksonville Regional Medical Campus (RMC) track opened to applicants in the 2025-26 cycle and has 13 places. You spend years 1 and 2 in Gainesville on the standard curriculum, with mentoring and research contact with Jacksonville faculty. Years 3 and 4 are then all in Jacksonville, apart from electives you take in Gainesville or away. Selection looks for a demonstrated interest in health disparities and underserved patients, particularly in cities.

Required third- and fourth-year clerkships must be taken at UF, including Jacksonville, or at sites those clerkships use. You must own or have access to reliable transportation. Early clinical experiences can mean daily commutes of up to 45 miles, and clinical duties in years 3 and 4 can fall outside public transportation hours. The transportation policy also names Wolfson Children's Hospital among the clinical sites.

Clinical electives start in year 3, which has two two-week blocks for a clinical elective or vacation. Up to 2 credits from them can count toward the clinical elective credits required in year 4. Pediatric electives, for example, are open to third- and fourth-year students.

Year 4 needs at least 16 weeks of electives, chosen with your faculty advisor or career coach, and at least 14 credits must be clinical electives. A clinical elective means 40 hours a week in a clinical setting for two to four weeks, with at least two formal evaluations and an assessment of your clinical skills. Basic science, research, independent study you design and international medicine electives are also possible.

Away rotations, electives at other institutions, are called external electives here: any elective outside UF Health facilities or the Malcom Randall VA counts. Most students can take up to three, and students in the lower quarter of the class usually one. Each needs approval from your advisor and the Assistant Dean of Clinical Medical Education.

The 2026-27 catalog for visiting students lists 68 Gainesville electives, from the Burn Unit and Transplantation Surgery to Emergency Medicine Ultrasonography and Introduction to Integrative Medicine. In Pediatric Diabetes Camp you live in cabins with campers who have type 1 diabetes. Jacksonville departments offer electives too, such as the coronary care unit and the infectious disease consult service.

Research is optional beyond the first-year course Discovery, Research and Health. The Discovery Pathways Program offers 11 tracks, including artificial intelligence in medicine, business and innovation, lifestyle medicine, local and global health, medical ethics and law, medical humanities, and patient safety and quality. Each requires at least 10 weeks of mentored research plus track workshops, courses or field experience, and fourth-years who complete one can apply for an Award of Distinction.

The research comes through the Medical Student Research Program (MSRP) in the summer after year 1. You spend 10 weeks with a UF Health Science Center faculty mentor, working 40 hours a week for at least 8 of them. It carries 2 elective credits and a scholarship typically around $2,000. You must pass all first-year courses first and present a poster at the spring Medical Student Research Day. Fourth-year research runs through independent study electives, and outstanding researchers can be nominated for Graduation with Honors in Research.

The MD-PhD, through the Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP), usually takes eight years, though seven to nine is possible. You complete the 21-month pre-clinical phase with a group Clinical Research Practicum and summer lab rotations, then one third-year clerkship. About four years of PhD research in one of 10 PhD programs follow, then the last two years of medical school.

The MD/MPH, with a Master of Public Health, adds about a year: most students finish three years of the MD, spend a year on MPH courses, then return for mostly fourth-year electives. The MD/MBA and MD/MSM, with a Master of Science in Management, each add one year, and the business courses count for three medical electives. The MD/JD, with a law degree, takes about six years instead of seven.

The Harrell Medical Education Building, opened in July 2015 and named for the college's founding dean, George T. Harrell, is the home base for medical and physician assistant students. Its 95,000 square feet include two circular learning studios, each seating about 160 students and designed for team-based work, plus small-group rooms, study rooms and 17 personal learning spaces.

On its third floor, the Anaclerio Learning and Assessment Center has 18 standardized patient exam rooms with video cameras and microphones. With the UF Simulation Center, which runs task training and mannequin-based simulation, it makes up the Center for Experiential Learning and Simulation (CELS), accredited by the Society for Simulation in Healthcare.

The building's Louis H. Oberndorf Experiential Learning Theater lets students train on up to eight human patient simulators at once. The college's Testing Center, on the ground floor of the Communicore building, has 164 seats across two rooms for computer-based exams, including NBME exams.

CLG leaders meet weekly for faculty development, curriculum integration and student coaching. A 2015 college magazine feature described 17 groups of eight students meeting weekly to discuss cases and ethics, with one group interviewing patients in the emergency department.

Since 1994, the Advisor/Mentor Program has paired each first-year student with a faculty member in one of three specialties they name at orientation. Career advising follows the Careers in Medicine framework of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). It runs from a career fair at orientation to faculty career coaches, dean's letter meetings and interview practice in years 3 and 4.

For academics, the Learning Specialist offers sessions on study strategies, time management, test-taking and board preparation, and arranges accommodations. If you score 79% or below in a course, the college can assign a tutor at no cost, and upper-year students run review sessions. A Student Success Coach offers three to six coaching sessions.

Student Counseling gives confidential, short-term personal counseling, and its assistant dean plays no part in grading or promotion decisions. On Jacksonville rotations you can use UF Health's Center for Healthy Minds and Practice (CHaMP), where counseling for medical students is free and confidential.