The Harvard Medical School MD program

Pathways teaches through what HMS calls a flipped classroom. Before each session you work through preparatory material and check your own readiness. Class time then goes on case-based collaborative learning (CBCL): small groups reason through patient cases while faculty steer the discussion and later write a narrative assessment of you. The school caps class time plus required preparation at 68 hours a week in the preclerkship and post-PCE phases, and treats that as a ceiling rather than a target.

The science is organized by organ system rather than by discipline. After Foundations, three Integrated Human Pathophysiology courses take you through the body's systems, with anatomy, microbiology, nutrition and lifestyle medicine, pathology and pharmacology running as threads across them. Two Pillars of Practice, health equity and interprofessional collaborative care, run through courses and clerkships. So do five Frontiers of Health Care: aging and end-of-life care; climate, environment and health; sexual and gender minority health; substance use and pain; and trauma-informed care.

HST works differently. Its courses are semester-long and run at the same time, so a topic met in pathology one morning can be picked up in immunology or anatomy the same week. Teaching leans on quantitative problem-solving, labs, primary research papers and small groups of four to eight, in classes of 30 to 50 that include HST PhD students in medical engineering and medical physics.

Teaching shifts by phase. In the clerkship year you learn by working on hospital teams, while PCE Core Faculty observe you, give feedback and assess you over time. In the post-PCE phase you alternate four-week clinical rotations with month-long classroom courses such as the Advanced Integrated Science Courses, which mix discussion, clinical experiences and projects.

For Pathways, the calendar shows the shape of a week rather than an hour-by-hour schedule. Most preclerkship courses run one at a time as full-time blocks of four to 13 weeks. Wednesdays belong to the Practice of Medicine course at your hospital, and preparation for flipped-classroom sessions counts inside the 68-hour ceiling.

HST publishes weekly slots for every course. In the fall of year 1, for example, Human Pathology meets on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, Human Functional Anatomy on Monday and Wednesday afternoons and Biochemistry on Thursday afternoons, with research fitted around them.

On clerkships the week is set by the team. HMS applies the residency standard of no more than 80 hours a week, averaged over four weeks and including overnight in-house call, with at least 14 hours off after a 24-hour call. Some rotations expect overnight call or early rounds, for example to be present for deliveries in obstetrics. You confirm your hours in a checklist at the midpoint and end of each clerkship.

Anatomy at HMS is learned on donated human bodies. The Anatomical Gift Program accepts private donations for medical and dental education, and first-year medical and dental students learn anatomy by dissecting and examining these donors. Bodies stay at HMS for up to about two years, and students hold a private memorial service for the donors when their studies end.

In Pathways the lab work starts early. The 2026-27 calendar lists anatomy practical exams on September 18, October 9 and November 5, during the opening Foundations course, then an Anatomy I practical on December 11. Anatomy I runs as a longitudinal course from November 16 to May 14 alongside the organ-system courses. Anatomy practical exams continue in September and October of year 2, alongside Immunity in Defense and Disease and Mind, Brain and Behavior.

Mind, Brain and Behavior teaches brain anatomy through hands-on dissection of human brain specimens, anatomical models and clinical neurology exercises. In HST, anatomy is Human Functional Anatomy, a fall course in year 1 taught in parallel with Human Pathology. Outside class, the Countway Library's Makerspace has an Anatomage Table, a life-size touchscreen for exploring virtual bodies and scans.

Pathways students meet patients in the first weeks. Before the Practice of Medicine course begins you complete Basic Life Support training and N95 mask fitting, scheduled for August 17 and 18 in 2026. From September 2 you spend every Wednesday at your assigned hospital, learning to take a history and examine patients alongside your preceptor. A strand called the Developing Physician covers professional development and well-being.

In year 2, Mind, Brain and Behavior adds preceptor-led visits to mental health facilities. BRIDGES then closes the preclerkship phase with Wednesday sessions from August, four full-time weeks, an OSCE and an orientation to the clerkship year.

HST students meet patients in Introduction to the Care of Patients, which runs from January to May of year 1 with clinical preceptors. In February and March of year 2, Introduction to Clinical Medicine is a full-time eight-week course at Brigham and Women's Hospital. It runs four days a week from 8 to 5, with pediatrics at Boston Children's Hospital.

HMS assesses you against six core competencies: medical knowledge; critical thinking and inquiry; patient care; professionalism; interpersonal and communication skills; and organizational and social determinants of health care. Every course and clerkship must give you formal feedback that does not count toward a grade by its midpoint. The end-of-course judgment combines exam results with written narratives from small-group faculty and, on clerkships, from the faculty and residents you worked with.

Grading is deliberately low-key for the first two phases. Every preclerkship course and every core clerkship is graded Satisfactory or Unsatisfactory, which the school says supports a focus on growth over performance. In the post-PCE phase, subinternships and clinical electives are graded Honors with Distinction, Honors, Pass or Unsatisfactory, while AISCs, Essentials II and non-clinical electives stay Satisfactory or Unsatisfactory. Clinical assessment uses Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs), which rate how far you can be trusted with core clinical tasks. Clerkship narratives go into your MSPE; preclerkship narratives do not.

Preclerkship exams fall on published dates and must be taken in person. Clerkship shelf exams fall on set Fridays or Mondays through the year. Fail one and the clerkship shows Unsatisfactory until you pass a retake. Retakes usually fall in a vacation period or within a month of the end of the PCE, and the year can stretch to 13 months to allow it.

Clinical skills are tested in OSCEs with standardized patients in the TMEC Clinical Skills Center. Pathways students sit BRIDGES, Winter and Spring Preclerkship OSCEs, HST students sit their own preclerkship OSCE, and everyone sits a Clinical Capstone OSCE. The Comprehensive Clinical Skills Exam runs in half-day sittings between May and November of the year after your clerkship year, which the handbook calls the summer following the PCE.

The licensing exams are built in. Step 1 has been reported nationally as pass or fail since January 2022, and HMS requires it before the clerkship year. Pathways students take it after the Step Prep block, by January 3 in the 2026-27 calendar, and HST students before Introduction to Clinical Medicine begins in February. Step 2 CK must be completed by December 31 of your final year. You get three attempts at each, and a third failure normally means withdrawal from the school.

• A review system called PROGRESS, whose committee looks at every student's trajectory at each transition point, aims to catch those who need extra support before problems become failures.
• A failed course or clerkship means re-examination or remedial work; a second failure on repetition goes to the Promotion and Review Board, which decides your future in the program.
• Grades can be appealed, first to the course or clerkship director within six weeks, then to a curriculum subcommittee that includes voting student members.
• Honors in a Special Field (cum laude, magna cum laude or summa cum laude) rewards an original thesis plus an oral exam. The statement of intent is due in the first week of October of your final year.

HMS teaches on its own Quad but trains you clinically in 15 independent affiliated hospitals and institutes, plus two psychiatry teaching sites, all listed by area below. Each affiliate keeps its own governance, and its physicians hold HMS faculty appointments and teach you alongside residents and fellows. Four of them host the clerkship year: Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital and Cambridge Health Alliance.

Pathways students learn their site before they arrive. In mid-June before you start, you can enter a lottery for the 12 places at Cambridge Health Alliance, and everyone else is randomized to Beth Israel Deaconess, Brigham and Women's or Massachusetts General. You hear in early July, and that site hosts both the year 1 Practice of Medicine course and the whole clerkship year.

Changing site takes a written appeal to the Dean for Students and a compelling reason, such as a mobility need or a conflict of interest with a site director. Commuting, scheduling and employment reasons are not accepted. HST students are randomized among the three Boston sites in November of year 2, for a PCE starting in April.

There are no regional or rural campuses: core clerkships, the subinternship and the 12 weeks of clinical electives must all be done at HMS affiliates. Within a site, clerkships fan out to partner hospitals. Psychiatry, for example, runs at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center for Beth Israel Deaconess students and at Brigham and Women's Faulkner Hospital and McLean Hospital for Brigham students. Massachusetts General students stay on the MGH campus or go to Cambridge Health Alliance.

Electives live in the post-PCE phase. You need 12 weeks of clinical electives at HMS affiliates, chosen through study-card stages and add/drop windows. You cannot drop a clinical elective within 45 days of its start without the backing of your Academic Society, your advising group. The hospital has already committed faculty and patients to you by then. The Capstone month adds non-clinical options such as Training the Eye, Spirituality and Healing in Medicine, and We All Have Our Stories: Literature and Medicine.

Once the PCE is complete, up to five months of electives can be away rotations at other US medical schools accredited by the LCME. More than three months needs your Society Advisory Dean's approval. You apply through the host school, usually via the Association of American Medical Colleges' Visiting Student Learning Opportunities system, and the Registrar certifies your standing. An away rotation earns credit rather than a grade.

International electives go through the Office of Scholarly Engagement (OSE). It runs one- to two-month clinical exchanges in primary care, medicine, pediatrics, emergency medicine and specialty fields with partner schools in Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Brazil, Taiwan, Spain and Israel. Most sites require the local language, and some OSE travel funding is available.

HMS's Medical Language Program runs credit-bearing weekly courses in medical Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, French and Arabic, plus a four-week intensive medical Spanish elective. Pass its oral assessment, a score of 9 or above on the ALTA medical listening and speaking test, and you may see patients in that language without an interpreter.

Every Pathways student completes a scholarly project: a mentored piece of original work on a medical or health question, anywhere from bench science and clinical research to health policy, ethics, history or the arts. You submit a proposal and a mentor agreement at least a month before starting, by September 1 at the latest, and a mentor-approved report by March 1 of your graduating year. Scholars in Medicine Fellows in each Society help you find a mentor, and you can request up to four months of optional course credit for the work.

HST students write a thesis instead, based on laboratory or clinical research with a Harvard or MIT faculty supervisor: at least four months of full-time research plus a month of writing. The HST MD Thesis Committee approves your proposal. The handbook's HST plan of instruction, last updated in 2018, set the proposal deadline at October 31 of year 2. The current thesis page gives only the final deadline, the first Monday in February of your last year.

A handbook page last updated in 2018 encourages HST students to take five or more years, for example by spreading the preclerkship courses over three years or spending whole years on research. Under handbook rules last updated in 2021, Pathways students can add a fifth year without a second degree after the PCE, once the Council of Academic Societies approves the plan. On both tracks you must show how you will support yourself that year, and HMS normally charges reduced tuition for it. You can compete for funding such as a research assistantship or traveling fellowship.

The Harvard/MIT MD-PhD Program takes 7 to 9 years and has been supported in part by the National Institutes of Health's Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP) since 1974. You can apply on entry or affiliate later, from November 1 of year 1. On the map for Pathways students entering from 2023, you do the first six months of the clerkship year in year 2 and spend years 3 to 6 in graduate school. You re-enter the clerkship year in July of year 7 and take Step 2 CK by December 31 of year 8.

Master's degrees fit between years 3 and 4, only after the full clerkship year, and must be finished before your final year. You can take an MPH at the Harvard Chan School of Public Health or, through HMS, an SM in Bioethics, Clinical Research, or Media, Medicine and Health. HMS also offers an MMSc in Clinical Investigation, Global Health Delivery, Immunology, Medical Education or Therapeutic Sciences. For the MPH and the SM, you tell your Society and the Registrar by May 31 for a fall start or October 31 for a spring start.

The five-year MD-MBA with Harvard Business School (HBS) has run since 2004. Years 1 to 3 are at HMS, with a Medicine and Management block taught by HMS and HBS faculty in February of year 3. Year 4 is the HBS required curriculum, and year 5 mixes HBS electives with HMS courses. Most students apply in their second year. A handbook page last updated in 2016 also describes a five-year MD-MPP with a year at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Most of your classroom time is in the Tosteson Medical Education Center (TMEC) at 260 Longwood Avenue. It holds the four learning studios where small-group sessions run, each with a simulation manikin, and small tutorial rooms you can book on the day for group study. The TMEC Clinical Skills Center, where every OSCE takes place, is here too.

TMEC's second floor has a 4,700-square-foot Student Study and Collaboration Center and the Computer Resource Center. Nearby, the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine has study rooms, the Russell Reading Room for quiet study and a Makerspace with a 3D printer.

Vanderbilt Hall, the on-campus residence across the street from TMEC, has private rooms for about 320 residents, shared kitchens, study lounges and a gym. Incoming students get priority, and you may be asked to move out after your first year.

Your first support structure is your Academic Society, a learning community you belong to from year 1 to the residency application. Pathways students are placed in Cannon, Castle, Hinton or Peabody on arrival, and HST students join the London Society. Each is led by an Advisory Dean with a small group of physician Society Advisors. They are your first stop for course planning, specialty choice, schedule changes, approvals and personal issues.

The Office of Learning Resources and Support offers learning specialists, tutors drawn from senior students, residents, fellows and faculty, and Step 1 and Step 2 coaching with diagnostic tests. You can go directly or be referred by a course director or your Society. A Clinical Learning Coaching Program supports students in the clinical phases.

Well-being sessions are built into orientation, the Professional Development Weeks, the PCE and the Clinical Capstone, with flex days at each PCE site. If you are drawn to primary care, the Primary Care Leadership Scholars Program takes applications before you start and offers mentorship and longitudinal clinical experiences.