The University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine MD program

New Horizons rests on what the school calls the three I's. Innovation organizes the science around six fundamental mechanisms of health. Integration ties early clinical experience to the science you are learning. In the school's own example, heart anatomy, cardiac exam practice and a simulated patient with chest pain can follow one another. Individualization leaves much of the last three semesters for you to plan.

MOHD I and III cover oxygenation (how oxygen reaches and is used by the tissues), metabolism, and genetics and development. MOHD II and IV cover immunology and inflammation, locomotion and integument (the musculoskeletal system and skin), and neuropsychiatry. The earlier course in each pair teaches normal function and the later one disease. A basic scientist and a clinician co-direct each course, and the MOHD Keystone reworks all six mechanisms as common clinic problems.

CAPS builds communication, examination, clinical reasoning and ethics in steps that get harder each year, while MAS covers prevention, nutrition, substance use, epidemiology and how health services are organized. Both continue inside the clerkships. CAPS also brings you together with students from other health sciences colleges, and first-year schedules are shared with physician assistant (PA) students.

On the fall 2026 first-year block schedule, every weekday opens at 8:00 to 9:50 with Foundations of Cellular Life for weeks 1 to 8, then MOHD I. The late-morning slot rotates: CAPS I on Monday, MAS I on Wednesday, small groups or clinic visits on Tuesday and Thursday, and anatomy and MOHD I on Friday.

Lunch is kept for student activities, with Tuesday noon reserved for events in your learning community, one of four student groups. Afternoons center on anatomy: your lab group meets on Monday or Tuesday, and Wednesday and Thursday bring an anatomy session at 1:00, then peer teaching. Communication, physical exam and MAS small groups fill other slots, and Friday afternoon varies or is free.

Exams come often: in fall 2026, Foundations exams in weeks 2, 4, 6 and 8, MOHD I exams in weeks 11, 13, 16 and 18, three anatomy exams and an OSCE in mid-November. MAS and CAPS written exams are taken in a flexible window. Scheduled activities average no more than 30 hours a week, with study time on top.

Medical Gross Anatomy (ACB:8101) is a five-semester-hour course through the fall of Year 1, alongside Foundations of Cellular Life. It includes a complete dissection of the human body, region by region, and focuses on how each part's form and position relate to its function in a living patient. The course also gives you the anatomical terms you will use on the wards. The fall 2026 schedule puts its three exams in weeks 5, 10 and 18, each with a lab exam and a computerized exam.

Neuroanatomy comes in the spring in MOHD II, with neuro labs on the central nervous system. For revision, the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology offers Cyber-Anatomy, 125 interactive 3D sessions that take you through the body one region or system at a time. Hardin Library for the Health Sciences also has an Anatomage virtual dissection table you can reserve.

Patient contact begins with Early Clinical Experiences (ECE), part of CAPS I. Experienced clinicians host you in outpatient clinics, at UI Health Care or in nearby communities. You start to see how doctors talk with patients, how specialties and patient groups differ, and who does what in a care team. The fall 2026 schedule gave each student three two-hour clinic visits, the first as early as week 2.

You also practice with simulated patients, in facilitator-led small groups on rapport, open-ended questions and empathy, in physical exam sessions, and one to one, with feedback from the patient's side. Your peers and the facilitators give feedback too. CAPS II continues the clinic visits. In the fall of Year 2 you shadow senior medical students on inpatient wards, and Transition to Clerkships, a required week of skills training, opens the core year.

In the summer after Year 1, you can apply for Medical Education Community Orientation (MECO), run by the Department of Family and Community Medicine. You spend part of the summer in an Iowa community hospital, working with teams across departments, from surgery to radiology. MECO is offered to about 30 students; in 2024, 21 took part at 14 hospitals, most of which provide housing and meals. The page for the college's rural track, the CCOM Rural Iowa Scholars Program (CRISP), describes the rural version of MECO as 4 to 12 weeks.

In Phase I, the science courses are graded Honors, Near Honors, Pass or Fail: Medical Gross Anatomy, Foundations of Cellular Life, MOHD I to IV and the MOHD Keystone. The CAPS and MAS courses are pass/fail, and most clerkships use the four tiers. The school's guideline is that about 30 to 40 percent of the class earn Honors or Near Honors in graded courses, with about 15 to 20 percent earning Honors. Grades feed your Medical Student Performance Evaluation (MSPE), the summary letter residency programs receive.

Professionalism is graded separately: Exceeds Expectations, Meets Expectations, Needs Improvement or Fail in preclinical courses, and Meets, Needs Improvement or Fail in clerkships. One Needs Improvement on a clerkship rules out Honors there, and more than one rules out Near Honors. Two or more anywhere mean a meeting with the Medical Student Promotions Committee, made up of seven faculty and two students.

Six core clerkships combine clinical evaluations, assignments, an OSCE and a National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) shelf exam, a national multiple-choice subject test. They are family medicine, internal medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, pediatrics, psychiatry and surgery. Neurology uses a final exam, assignments and clinical evaluations, while emergency medicine and selectives such as orthopedics and urology set their own exams. In surgery, the shelf counts for 40 percent, clinical evaluations 35, the OSCE 10, a case presentation 10 and assignments 5.

Those same six clerkships hold multi-station OSCEs near their end, which you must pass to pass the clerkship; a missed one is made up in a later block. You must also log your Required Clinical Experiences (RCEs), the patients, conditions and skills each clerkship requires, by its last Friday, or you fail the clerkship.

The USMLE is the exam series used for medical licensure in the United States. Step 1 has been reported pass/fail since January 26, 2022; Step 2 CK (Clinical Knowledge) is still scored. Under the Student Handbook revised in July 2026, you sit Step 1 or Step 2 CK before Phase III, by March 31 of Year 3, and both by July 15 of Year 4. 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. On the current schedule, a student entering in August 2027 would have the study block in January 2030, the first Step exam by March 31, 2030, and both exams by July 15, 2030. All of these fall after the switch.

• Preclinical exams are computerized except anatomy lab and clinical skills exams, and you cannot resit one to raise a grade. Scoring less than 2 percent above a pass mark is recorded as a Marginal Pass.
• Fail an end-of-clerkship exam and you have six months and one retake to pass it, without Honors or Near Honors for that clerkship. Fail your first Step exam and you drop upcoming clerkships until you retake it, within four months.
• Honors hours, semester hours counted in full for Honors and half for Near Honors, decide who may apply to Alpha Omega Alpha, the medical honor society: the top 25 percent of the class.
• The LCME's directory, updated October 14, 2026, lists Iowa as fully accredited, first accredited before the LCME's founding in 1942, with its next survey in 2033-34.
• For MD students, attending an LCME-accredited school is what makes you eligible for Step 1 and Step 2 CK. Students at osteopathic (DO) schools and eligible schools outside the United States qualify through other routes.

Most core and selective clerkships are in Iowa City, at the UI Health Care Medical Center (UIHC). Its campus also holds UI Stead Family Children's Hospital, where Iowa City students take pediatrics. In fiscal year 2025 the medical center recorded more than 40,000 inpatient admissions and 54,000 emergency visits. The Iowa City VA, a teaching hospital with 83 inpatient beds, hosts parts of internal medicine, surgery, psychiatry and several selectives.

The Des Moines Area Medical Education Consortium is the school's designated branch campus: 24 students can spend the whole core year there, and others take single clerkships as space allows. The school says smaller numbers mean more hands-on work, and Des Moines adds training in advanced cardiac life support, bedside ultrasound and EKGs. Housing is a free furnished apartment near Iowa Methodist Medical Center, with parking and meal support.

Family medicine is the one core clerkship that runs statewide, through five Regional Medical Education Centers (RMECs), a few places in Iowa City and preceptorships across Iowa. You give preferences in the fall of Year 2, but the clerkship team decides. You need a reliable car; housing is free at every RMEC and some preceptorship sites.

Clerkship schedules come from an online request system and lottery, because capacity is limited. The sub-internship must be in Iowa, from an approved list that includes Davenport, Sioux City and rural Algona as well as Iowa City and Des Moines. Advanced electives can be taken elsewhere in the US or abroad once approved.

CRISP, started in 2012, adds rural training without changing your clerkships or graduation requirements. You shadow a rural physician in Year 1, choose a physician mentor by spring of Year 2 and do MECO in a rural setting. You also attend monthly seminars and turn a community project into a Rural Capstone. Graduates are expected to practice for at least five years, starting right after residency, in an eligible Iowa community: one of under 26,000 people, at least 20 miles from a city of 50,000.

Selectives are two-week introductions to specialties. Pathology splits into a week of clinical pathology and a week of anatomic pathology that includes observing an autopsy. Anesthesia places you in the operating rooms with seven problem-based learning discussions, and dermatology rotates through UIHC, Iowa River Landing, pediatric and VA clinics.

Phase III's 32 weeks of advanced electives draw on more than 200 courses in the 2027-28 course book, from Wilderness Medicine and Medical Toxicology to Editorial Writing for Medical Students and Advanced Human Anatomy. No more than 16 weeks of specialty electives may come from one department; sub-internships, ICU, research and continuity clinics are exempt. The Guide to Specialty-based Pathways suggests electives for each specialty.

A Continuity of Care (COC) clerkship gives you a regular clinic from July to May of your final two semesters, alongside other rotations, so you build relationships with patients over time. You attend 34 sessions, 80 percent of 42 schedulable weeks. COC options cover family medicine, internal medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, pediatrics and psychiatry.

Away rotations at other schools are optional, usually in the fall of Year 4, often as auditions for residency programs. They normally last four weeks and need an Individually Arranged Elective form at least four weeks ahead; some go through the VSLO service of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). Flex time lets you take them out of step with the Iowa calendar.

The Office of Global Health Programs offers one-credit courses in Years 1 and 2 and an arranged summer elective at home or abroad. It also runs medical Spanish and French classes each fall and spring for students who already speak some of the language. In Phase III, its Global Health Clerkship runs at least four consecutive weeks at an approved site and must be registered six weeks ahead. International electives require an orientation session.

In the preclinical semesters you can add up to two one-semester-hour electives per term, held at noon or after 5 p.m. Options include Community Health Outreach, a two-year service-learning course led by second-year students, The Examined Life on writing and medicine, and Clinical Skills for Responding to Sexual Violence. Students also staff the Mobile Clinic, a student-run free clinic for underserved patients in and around Iowa City, offering screening, basic care, prevention and health education.

The Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP), the MD/PhD route, normally takes seven to eight years. You take the first three semesters with the MD class, plus summer laboratory rotations and physician-scientist seminars, then the core clerkships in semesters four and five. After the Step exams, you choose a thesis mentor in the spring of Year 3 and join a graduate program in the fall of Year 4.

During the PhD, the Clinical Connections course keeps you in touch with patients, and since 2014 trainees have needed a peer-reviewed first-author paper before returning for the final clinical years. The program lists more than 60 current students, and 11 joined in 2026. Trainees receive a stipend from a National Institutes of Health (NIH) training grant.

The MD/MBA, with the Tippie College of Business, and the MD/MPH, with the College of Public Health, follow five-year plans with the extra year after Year 3. The MD/JD, with the College of Law, takes six years and opens with a year of law school. You must be admitted to both programs, and 12 semester hours from each degree count toward the other.

Summer Research Fellowships, for admitted students before Year 1 and students after Year 1, generally last 12 weeks with a faculty mentor, on a proposal reviewed by a panel of scientists. The 2027 stipend is $6,000, and that summer NIH grants fund 16 places in heart, lung, blood and sleep research and 12 in diabetes, digestive and kidney disorders. Students present at the Medical Student Research Conference each September.

The Research Distinction Track needs at least 16 weeks of full-time research with one mentor, two presentations, a research CV and a first-author manuscript; you apply by May 28 of Year 2. Other tracks cover global health; healthcare delivery science, management and policy; humanities; service; and teaching, which asks for 60 hours of teaching. Tracks appear in your MSPE and on your transcript, and you may earn two at most.

A few students take a year out for research, through options such as the Sarnoff cardiovascular fellowship, the NIH Medical Research Scholars Program and year-long fellowships in pathology, otolaryngology and muscular dystrophy research.

The Medical Education and Research Facility (MERF), dating from 2002, holds lecture halls, the clinical skills suites, the learning community spaces, the Office of Student Affairs and Curriculum and the MSTP. Each community space has small-group rooms, study areas, computers and a kitchen, and first-floor study rooms can be booked by tutor groups.

The basic science departments, including anatomy and cell biology, are in the Bowen Science Building, opened in 1972. For overnight call in Phase III, two student call rooms each have four beds, a private bathroom with shower and a computer.

You join one of four learning communities for all four years. They are Bean, Boulware, Flocks and McCowen, named for figures from the college's past. Jennie McCowen was one of the first women to graduate from the university's Medical Department, in 1876. Each community mixes medical and PA students from every year, has two faculty directors and runs social, wellness and charity events. Within it, your NEST group, a small group from your class, meets each semester with a faculty director to talk about transitions, wellness and careers.

A second-year peer mentor is matched to you from the summer before Year 1. Tutor groups of 6 to 20, led by students who have passed the course, meet weekly or every other week for the anatomy, Foundations and MOHD courses. The school recommends one for every first-year student.

A Learning Specialist offers free one-to-one help with study methods, test anxiety, time management and Step preparation. The Medical Student Counseling Center gives free, confidential therapy to MD, PA and MSTP students, in person or online, and handles disability services.

Career advising includes a preclinical specialty fair where 18 clinical departments present, spring Specialty Choice Conversations, online requests for a career mentor and mock residency interviews in Year 4. The Writing and Humanities Program helps with personal statements and CVs.

Before Year 1, admitted students can apply for Introduction to Medical Education at Iowa (IMEI), a six-week summer program, June 14 to July 23 in 2027, with a $4,000 stipend. It previews anatomy, biochemistry, genetics, metabolism, oxygenation, CAPS and MAS through lectures, case-based groups, anatomy labs and weekly exams, and teaches study skills.

You have up to six years to finish the MD, and flex weeks can in some cases absorb up to six weeks of parental leave without delaying graduation.