The Loma Linda University School of Medicine MD program

In the first two years, each organ-system block brings the traditional science disciplines together in one course, so normal function, disease and treatment are learned side by side. The emphasis moves from basic science in the first half of the program to clinical science in the second.

The competency documents name three kinds of small group in Years 1 and 2: team-based learning, Patient Inquiry and LIFE Communities. The catalog adds computer-based instruction, lab work and simulation.

Two longitudinal courses run beside the blocks. Clinical Skills Development builds history taking, examination, communication and clinical reasoning, and the 2022 article adds ultrasound. Christian Physician Formation, co-taught by School of Religion and clinical faculty, covers spiritual formation, resilience, professionalism, social determinants of health and lifestyle medicine.

In Years 3 and 4, residents and faculty teach you on wards and in clinics, backed by self-directed study, standardized patients and simulation. Sessions on whole-person care, ethics, radiology, lifestyle and preventive medicine, social determinants of health and patient safety recur through the core clerkships.

In the Class of 2028 calendars for 2024-25 and 2025-26, most block weeks ended with a Friday quiz, the longer blocks had midterm exams, and every block closed with final exams. The 2022 article says faculty review each quiz, covering both content and how to approach questions.

Chapel meets in the University Church every Wednesday at 11 a.m. It is required if you have a class before 3 p.m. that day, though medical students are excused on midterm and final exam days. Three times a year, during a required Week of Renewal, the service meets every weekday morning at the chapel hour. No formal classes are held on the Sabbath, but clerkship students still care for patients then, with time off for worship when on weekend call.

Anatomy is taught inside the blocks. Foundations I introduces anatomy and embryology alongside biochemistry, genetics, pathology and physiology. Later block descriptions cover structure too, such as the anatomy of the genitourinary tract in Renal and Urinary and neuroanatomy in Neuroscience and Psychiatric Science.

The Division of Human Anatomy runs Bodies for Science, the university's body donation program, and its pages state that medical students must have the opportunity to dissect the human body. The Year 1 and 2 competencies ask you to treat donor bodies with respect, and a memorial service honors donors and their families each year around April. A 2017 university news article described the Swatek Anatomy Center as having five labs and 104 dissection stations.

In Year 4 you can take ANAT 891, a self-designed dissection elective on a region such as the head and neck, thorax, abdomen, pelvis, back or limbs, linking its anatomy to clinical practice.

The handbook dates patient contact to Year 1, and the catalog says you take part in inpatient and outpatient care in every year. Before clerkships, a resident or attending physician is always present or close by when you see patients.

In the Class of 2028 calendars, the first week of Foundations I included ward or clinical experience. Two-week Clinical Experience blocks followed in March of Year 1 and October of Year 2. The 2022 article describes a mid-year integration week when LIFE Community mentors take first-years onto the wards to interview a patient, asking what matters most to them, including worries about food or housing.

Service learning is required. The handbook builds it into Year 1 Christian Physician Formation, while the catalog table attaches it to the Year 4 preventive medicine rotation. The school says its students also give more than 3,000 hours a year in local schools, shelters and clinics through community programs.

Once clerkships start in Year 3, you take histories and examinations, place orders and take part in minor procedures such as IVs and blood draws. A supervisor is present the first time you do a procedure.

The pre-clerkship years use pass/fail grades. Your transcript records Satisfactory or Unsatisfactory, and for promotion decisions the school also uses Marginal Pass, for work that meets but does not exceed the minimum. Course directors set a minimum cumulative score across exams, quizzes and lab practicals.

Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCEs), timed stations with standardized patients, run through the program. The 2022 article described Year 1 and 2 OSCEs ending in a group debrief to build and defend a differential diagnosis. Clerkships add OSCEs and simulations, and a 2020 clinical skills center page describes the senior CCACC exam as eight stations written by California medical school faculty.

At the end of Year 1 you sit an NBME exam on the year's courses and must reach a minimum score to move up. The CBSE at the end of Year 2 is formative. If you score below the Step 1 passing equivalent, you may be offered one retake, and after two such attempts you build a study plan with the dean's office or academic support.

The 2025-26 grading document for third-years, the Class of 2027, gave clinical performance 60% of a clerkship grade: clinical evaluations 25%, OSCE 20% and other clinical work 15%. Medical knowledge made up 40%: quizzes 15% and the NBME subject exam, or shelf exam, a national multiple-choice test per specialty, 25%. A Satisfactory needs a first-attempt shelf pass, which that document sets at the 7th percentile nationally, plus full passes on clinical evaluations, logs, OSCEs and simulations. Passing every part first time makes you eligible for Honors or High Pass.

Documents differ slightly on reporting. The 2026-27 handbook says a Marginal Pass appears as Satisfactory on the transcript and the Medical Student Performance Evaluation (MSPE), the dean's letter residency programs read. The 2025-26 grading document lists transcript grades as In Progress, Marginal Pass or Unsatisfactory and puts Honors, High Pass, the senior clinical exam and Step 2 results on the MSPE.

The USMLE is the licensing exam series for MD graduates. Step 1 covers the sciences behind medicine and has been pass/fail since January 26, 2022; Step 2 Clinical Knowledge (CK) covers clinical medicine. For MD students, attending a program accredited by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME), which accredits MD programs in the United States, is what makes you eligible for the USMLE. DO students and international graduates qualify through other routes.

• The LCME directory, updated October 14, 2026, lists the school as fully accredited, with its next survey in 2031-32. Its initial accreditation is marked on or before 1942, the year the LCME was founded.
• The Step 1 rule is worded three ways. The curriculum page says you must pass Step 1 to be promoted to the junior year. The 2026-27 handbook says you must complete it within three attempts and within one academic year of finishing Year 2. The regional-campus page makes a regional place conditional on being on target to pass it.
• Before Step 2 you take the CCSE, with one retake if you score below the Step 2 CK passing equivalent. You must pass Step 2 within three attempts 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 July 2027 entrant would finish the Year 2 blocks in late February 2029. Eight weeks of Step 1 study would follow in March and April, before clerkships begin around May. Step 2 CK would come in Year 4, from about May 2030, and both fall after the change to designated testing dates.

Everyone spends Years 1 and 2 on the main campus in Loma Linda. The curriculum page says clinical teaching in Years 3 and 4 takes place mainly at Loma Linda University Medical Center, the Jerry L. Pettis Memorial VA Medical Center, Riverside County Regional Medical Center and White Memorial Medical Center in Los Angeles. It names Arrowhead Regional Medical Center, Kaiser Permanente and Glendale Adventist Medical Center as other affiliated hospitals.

The medical center and the 364-bed Loma Linda University Children's Hospital belong to Loma Linda University Health, and the VA hospital serves veterans in San Bernardino and Riverside counties. White Memorial has a long link to the school: from 1913 to the mid-1960s, students trained partly in Loma Linda and partly there.

The 2023-24 syllabi and the 2025 visiting-student packet also name Riverside University Health System (RUHS), whose own site places its 439-bed Medical Center in Moreno Valley. In 2023-24, internal medicine inpatient blocks ran at the Loma Linda VA, RUHS, the medical center, White Memorial, Kettering and AdventHealth Orlando. Pediatrics paired four weeks in clinics, including Loma Linda University clinics, RUHS, Kaiser Permanente and SAC Health, with four inpatient weeks at the Children's Hospital, RUHS or White Memorial.

A select group completes Years 3 and 4 at a regional campus. You indicate interest on the secondary application, and a place is binding if you are accepted, on condition of good standing and being on target to pass Step 1. The 2026-27 handbook says regional graduates receive a combined degree from the school and the regional campus.

You are responsible for having transportation to off-campus assignments. Work hours follow resident limits: at most 80 hours a week averaged over four weeks, one day off in seven, and shifts of up to 24 hours plus 4 for handoffs.

Choice starts early. Years 1 and 2 each include a two-week selective, from the art of health and the business of medicine to leadership, simulation and ultrasound. The 2022 article listed past selectives such as palliative care, spiritual care and international missions.

Year 3 has elective time to explore a specialty and build skills for Year 4. In Year 4 you choose 30 units, or 20 weeks, from 25 listed electives, from anesthesiology and dermatology to radiation medicine and urology. One must be a two-week elective in a basic science.

Options include a Whole Person Care elective on film and medicine, law and medicine, tropical medicine and patient safety, and a reading course in religion and psychiatry. In a Christian Physician Formation senior elective, you coach and lead younger students' small groups.

Seniors must pass on-campus and off-campus electives. The 2022 article notes that alumni help with housing for away rotations, electives at other institutions. Students for International Mission Service (SIMS), part of the university's Global Health Institute, runs I-Serve and Student Mission Elective programs at international partner sites; its page still lists 2022 and 2023 forms. You observe or rotate with local physicians and join outreach, rather than practice skills you are not yet qualified to use in the United States.

Between Years 1 and 2 you can spend eight weeks, or 320 hours, on a project with an approved faculty investigator to earn a stipend. The Center for Health Disparities and Molecular Medicine also runs a paid summer Medical Training Program, June 15 to July 30 in 2026. More than 100 medical students have taken part since 2001.

The Walter E. Macpherson Society offers summer research scholarships and poster help, and Student Affairs can partly fund conference travel. A 2024 alumni association article says the Lifestyle Medicine Certificate Track adds a capstone research project, quarterly meetings, workshops and elective rotations. The 2022 article also named tracks in academic medicine; policy, advocacy, leadership and service; ultrasound; and spiritual care.

The Medical Scientist Program is the school's MD/PhD for future physician-scientists. You usually finish Years 1 and 2 and Step 1, then complete the PhD before registering for the final MD year; the sequence typically takes about eight years. PhD areas are anatomy; cancer, developmental and regenerative biology; infection, immunity and inflammation; and neuroscience, systems biology and bioengineering.

Separate MD/MS and MD/PhD combined degrees follow the same pattern, with three or more graduate years for a PhD or at least one for an MS. Four master's combinations put a year of coursework after Year 3: an MA in Bioethics, MPHs in Global Health and Population Medicine, and an MA in Religion and Society. The MPH and Religion and Society plans then place the standard MD fourth year in a fifth year.

At the Tom and Vi Zapara Clinical Skills Education Center you work with standardized patients and simulators, then review recordings of your encounters with faculty feedback. A 2020 page lists 18 examination rooms, 12 for standardized-patient encounters, and two cardiac teaching labs with Harvey manikins.

The Medical Simulation Center is an 8,000-square-foot mock hospital on the fourth floor of the Centennial Complex. Its rooms include a pre-hospital room, emergency room, two operating rooms, an intensive care unit, a neonatal intensive care unit and a hospital room. Up to five simulations can run at once, each watched through one-way glass.

The Centennial Complex also houses the Swatek Anatomy Center and the Alfred Q. Shryock Museum of Embryology, a teaching collection of specimens and wax models. Since October 2023 the LIFE Communities house, at University Avenue and Campus Street, has given students a place to study and meet in their groups.

Your LIFE Community mentor meets you one-on-one at least twice a year about academics, balance, career plans and spiritual direction, and Christian Physician Formation coaches give ongoing written feedback. A voluntary Physician-Student Christian Mentoring Program in Year 1 pairs you with a physician of the same gender, with an emphasis on prayer and Bible study.

A learning specialist builds individual plans for study strategies, test-taking and Step 1, Step 2 and shelf exam preparation. Peer academic coaches, second- to fourth-year students, are free and usually matched within 24 hours, and group coaching meets weekly.

The Student Assistance Program offers counseling with no preset limit on sessions, and the Office of Physician Vitality's licensed therapists see medical students free of charge. A psychiatrist designated for medical students has no role in their teaching or evaluation, and handbook rules keep anyone who treats you out of your grading. Confidential Advisors for Medical Students are faculty you can consult privately about the learning environment.