The Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine MD program

The school describes its curriculum as integrated and competency-based, with science presented in its clinical context. It is organized around 18 Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs), tasks you should be trusted to do when you start residency, such as taking a history, handing off a patient or obtaining informed consent. Thirteen come from the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) and five are the school's own.

Competency-based means progress depends more on mastering skills than on fixed time. School news from May 2024 and October 2025 says this gives students who need it extra time on core skills. Faster learners can take on intensive research or a master's degree such as an MBA.

Phase 1's seven Sciences/Skills/Reasoning (SSR) courses each mix biomedical, behavioral and health systems science; the first two lay foundations and the other five are systems courses. Health systems science covers three areas: how health systems are structured and paid for, how to use data and evidence, and systems-based practice such as quality improvement and population health. Some subjects are threads rather than courses. Pharmacology is taught across all 16 months of Phase 1, tied to the week's clinical presentation.

Nutrition also runs through Phase 1, concentrated in the digestion course. The school's 2025 Human Dimension annual report says second-year students that year joined a Teaching Kitchen immersion with the Culinary Institute of America (CIA), cooking plant-forward meals with chefs and CIA students. It adds that joint capstone projects with CIA master's students are planned.

The strands connect. In the school's own example, one week might cover the anatomy of the heart, the cardiac exam and the causes and treatment of heart disease. You might also map healthy food sources and safe places to exercise around your Human Dimension family's neighborhood.

Because you share a campus with Seton Hall University's nursing and health sciences students, some learning is interprofessional. In the clerkship year, which the school treats as one integrated whole, your competencies and goals carry from rotation to rotation, and residents count among your teachers. Your Individualized Learning Plan, kept with your advisor from year 1, then shapes your final rotations and Phase 3.

Phase 1 weeks follow a set pattern built around the case of the week. Expect at least 40 hours of academic work a week, counting class time and preparation; the school sets that expectation for every phase.

• Monday: the week's patient presentation, in the first session of the day.
• Large-group sessions for the current course, plus weekly practice multiple-choice questions that give feedback but do not count.
• Tuesday or Wednesday: a half-day Human Dimension small group roughly every other week, and clinical skills small groups two or three times a month, for about four to six hours each.
• Friday morning: your PPPC small group meets to discuss the week's case.

Anatomy is taught mainly in Structural Principles, the second course of year 1, an eight-week introduction to anatomy, histology (tissues under the microscope) and medical imaging. On the 2027 cohort calendar it runs from September 13 to November 7, 2027. Lab teaching is in small groups on the Nutley campus, in sessions that typically run from 8am to noon.

You learn by dissection. Faculty work with your group as you dissect, identify structures and discuss their clinical relevance, often by questioning you. The wet and dry gross anatomy lab can also be set up for prosections, which are specimens dissected in advance, and for computer-based imaging. It is used to teach imaging, histology and pathology too.

Donated bodies make this teaching possible. The school runs an Anatomical Donation Program, whose donations are used to educate medical and other health students. The student handbook asks everyone in the lab to treat donors, specimens and equipment with the utmost care.

Community contact starts in your first week with the Human Dimension Immersion Orientation, a service-learning experience. A March 2025 school article said it had recently offered 21 community experiences across eight cities for the whole entering class. The Human Dimension's home visits then put you alongside people as they manage their health and health care. The school's 2025 Human Dimension annual report counts 709 families who have worked directly with students since the program began.

Clinical skills teaching starts with Phase 1. The first 18 weeks focus on communication: building rapport, gathering information, reaching a shared plan of care with patients and families, and a basic physical examination. You learn with standardized patients and real patients, in workshops and in simulation. Over the next 12 months, sessions turn to more detailed examination and to common symptoms, matched to the systems course you are taking.

Your first official clinical experience is the Longitudinal Clinical Placement, from January to September. You are paired one-to-one with a physician preceptor, a doctor who teaches you in their own practice, in an outpatient primary care setting, ideally internal medicine, family medicine or pediatrics. Over ten visits you see at least two patients each time, taking histories and examining them yourself, and write one patient note per visit for your preceptor to review.

You can also arrange optional shadowing with faculty physicians once grades for Molecular and Cellular Principles, the first SSR course, are posted. It must never clash with scheduled teaching.

Phase 1 courses are graded Pass or Fail. Each course and unit has several components, and on each you receive Meets Expectations, Meets Expectations with Recommendations or Does Not Meet Expectations. You pass only if every component reaches at least Meets Expectations with Recommendations. A shortfall shows as a temporary remediation grade until you make it up, or a Fail if you do not.

Summative assessments, the ones that count, include NBME-style written exams, lab practicals in some courses, TBL readiness-test scores and a clinical skills OSCE. Most fall in the Reflection and Assessment Week that ends each course. Phase 1 is also split into three units, and at the end of each your work in health systems science, professional behaviors, the Human Dimension and your Longitudinal Clinical Placement is assessed.

Four Block OSCEs test your clinical skills: at the end of year 1, at the end of Phase 1, midway through the clerkship year and at its end. They mix standardized patient encounters, simulation, electronic medical record use and tasks such as a patient hand-off, and you must reach at least Meets Expectations with Recommendations in every domain. Under the handbook's Block OSCE rules, failing the end-of-Phase-1 or end-of-clerkship exam means leaving the curriculum for focused remediation.

Clerkships and sub-internships are graded Honors, High Pass, Pass or Fail from a combined score drawing on the shelf exam where one exists, an OSCE, clinical evaluations, written work and your EPA performance. To pass you also need minimum performance on EPA 1 (history and physical examination) and EPA 17 (professionalism and growth), and a shelf score above a minimum set from recent national data. Electives, selectives and the Human Dimension are pass/fail.

The USMLE is the national exam series for a US medical license. Step 1 tests the sciences behind medicine and has been reported only as pass or fail since January 26, 2022; Step 2 CK (Clinical Knowledge) tests how you apply clinical knowledge to patient care. LCME accreditation is what makes students of an MD program like this one eligible to sit them. Here you must pass Step 1 to begin the Advanced Clinical Rotations, and Step 2 CK before Phase 3.

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 would study for Step 1 from November 12 to December 23, 2029, and sit it around the end of 2029. Step 2 CK would follow in the first half of 2030, during the Advanced Clinical Rotations that start on January 7. Both sittings would come well after the switch.

• These are projections. The calendar prints no exam days and is subject to change, and under designated testing dates your sitting day will depend on the dates the USMLE offers.
• You have three attempts at each Step exam, and failing either three times means dismissal. Every graduation requirement, including both exams, must be met within six years of starting.

Clinical training happens mainly in hospitals of Hackensack Meridian Health (HMH), which describes itself as New Jersey's largest health network, with 18 hospitals and more than 500 patient care locations. In a lottery you give your preferences for the order of your rotations and for the region and site where you do them.

The school's December 2025 Data Book lists 13 inpatient teaching sites, and every clerkship includes outpatient time at sites across the network. The school's clerkship-site map, with 2021 map data, puts ten of these hospitals into North, Central and South regions, some under older names. The map's JFK Medical Center is now JFK University Medical Center, Ocean Medical Center is Ocean University Medical Center, and Raritan Bay - Old Bridge is Old Bridge Medical Center. Englewood Health, on the North list, is a separate health system, not part of HMH.

You arrange your own travel to sites, some of which have no public transportation; most parking at HMH and affiliated sites is covered by student fees. Clerkship hours follow the duty-hour rules of HMH's residency programs. You work no more than 80 hours a week, averaged over four weeks, with at least one day off a week and in-house call no more often than every fourth night.

The school's community engagement began with the areas around its campus, Hackensack University Medical Center and Jersey Shore University Medical Center. Its Human Dimension communities of focus for 2025-26 are listed below.

Electives come in two stretches. During the Advanced Clinical Rotations in year 3 you take two four-week electives from the school's catalog. The rest come in Phase 3. Most electives can be taken in either stretch once you have the prerequisites, though some, such as the Phase 3 specialty immersions, are meant for the final year.

Phase 3 electives run for two or four weeks full time, or part time over a longer period, and clinical specialty immersions last 12 weeks. You can also take research or medical education research electives with a mentor. Your specialty mentor helps you schedule electives, including away electives at other institutions. The school lists global health electives among the fourth-year options, and it has run a Health Care Strategy elective created by an HMH strategy vice president.

Every student completes the Human Dimension Scholarly Capstone, a required project that pulls the three-year course together. Starting from a clinical experience in your clerkship year, you pick a health-equity challenge tied to one determinant of health, research it with a faculty or community mentor, and propose a systems-level solution.

Two dual degrees fit into Phase 3. Through Thomas Jefferson University's College of Population Health you can earn a Master of Public Health (MPH), starting in its pre-fall semester and finishing in spring, with the degree conferred that May.

With Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken you can earn a 30-credit MS in Biomedical Engineering, designed to take HMSOM students 12 months. Up to nine credits transfer from your medical courses, and you take seven in-person courses at Stevens over the summer, fall and spring. Concentrations range from medical devices and biomaterials to medical imaging and artificial intelligence. The first HMSOM students started in summer 2025.

Seton Hall University's Stillman School of Business offers a joint M.B.A./M.D. to third-year HMSOM students. You complete 30 credits at Stillman and receive 10 credits for your medical courses toward the 40-credit MBA, and the GMAT is not required.

The school's own Master of Medical Sciences, listed by the state as an M.S. in Medical Sciences, adds a year in a research lab of your choice. Coursework in translational science, biomedical methods and grant writing leads to an original research thesis, and the first cohort was set to begin in summer 2026.

Research is extracurricular in Phases 1 and 2 and earns academic credit only in Phase 3. The Office of Research and Graduate Studies keeps a list of researchers and projects, and a mentoring program writes a research plan into your Individualized Learning Plan. Dean's Award grants offer up to $5,000 for student groups in the second half of Phase 1 and up to $10,000 for Phase 3 research. Travel funds of up to $2,000 help once with presenting your work.

• Each spring, Medical Student Research Day shows more than 200 student research posters; the sixth is on May 7, 2027.

The school is based on the Interprofessional Health Sciences (IHS) Campus, the renovated former headquarters of Hoffmann-La Roche on Route 3, on the Nutley-Clifton border. It shares the campus with Seton Hall University's College of Nursing and School of Health and Medical Sciences, and with Hackensack Meridian Health's Center for Discovery and Innovation, a research center. Hackensack University Medical Center is about 15 minutes away.

About 30,000 square feet are set aside for teaching and assessing clinical skills. The Clinical Skills Center has 16 exam rooms built to look and work like outpatient offices, all recorded so faculty can observe from a control room. The Medical Simulation Center recreates inpatient units, intensive care units, a post-anesthesia care unit, an operating room and a labor and delivery room that can simulate newborn care, with mannequins run from control rooms.

Large-group sessions use an amphitheater and learning studios. The IHS Library on the first floor is open to students around the clock and has 20 individual and group study rooms. Its four health sciences librarians help teach information mastery and evidence-based medicine within the curriculum. An annex next to the parking structure adds six more study rooms.

A Senior Advisor is assigned to you when you arrive and stays with you through the program. You have at least 12 required meetings over the first three years, roughly one a quarter, plus more in Phase 3, and your advisor also holds weekly drop-in hours. The meetings build your Individualized Learning Plan, which tracks your learning goals, specialty thoughts, wellbeing and, in year 3, your Phase 3 Plan.

In year 3 you also get a Residency Advisor matched to your specialty interest. The Road to Residency program starts with Residency 101 in year 1, and each class's application cycle launches in April of year 3.

Every student is paired with a specialty mentor, a practicing physician on the faculty in their chosen specialty. Under the 2026-2027 handbook you can choose one from the fall of year 2, and one is assigned if you have not chosen by the third quarter of Phase 2. P3R students get one during Phase 1, by the spring of year 1 according to the school's mentoring page. You meet at least every three months, and your mentor reviews your Phase 3 Plan.

Academic Coaching and Enrichment (ACE) learning specialists meet you one-to-one and build study plans for shelf exams, Step 1 and Step 2 CK. Upper-year students run weekly small-group peer tutoring for Phase 1, with individual tutoring available in Phases 1 and 2.

For wellbeing, a Student Assistance Program gives you and your dependents free counseling. It includes a 24/7 crisis line and licensed clinicians in a private office on campus, and TimelyCare offers free virtual health and mental health care. Clinicians who treat you play no part in assessing or promoting you.