The University of Miami Miller School of Medicine MD program

Phase 1's five Symptoms, Signs, and Disease (SSD) courses focus on diseases a generalist physician often sees. Each pairs normal physiology with disease and with the anatomy, radiology, pharmacology, diagnostic testing and pathology that go with it. You practice clinical reasoning: moving from a symptom and examination findings to the right tests and a first differential diagnosis, the list of conditions that could explain the problem.

Medicine as a Profession (MAP) runs through all four years around seven themes: clinical skills, professionalism, communication, population health, health systems science, nutrition and wellness, and personal development. Most MAP learning happens in your Learning Community.

Science continues once clerkships begin. In each clerkship block, online learning and interactive small groups cover anatomy and cell biology, biochemistry, microbiology and immunology, pharmacology and physiology. Oncology, genetics, radiology and pathology run through the blocks as longitudinal themes. Simulation and standardized patient work are built into every clerkship.

In Phase 1, MAP sets substantial independent work each week, alone or as a team, which you review with your Learning Community and LCE on your fixed afternoon. MD/MPH students give one more afternoon to public health coursework during the academic year.

In Phase 2 your days follow each clerkship's schedule. Every six weeks your Learning Community meets for two hours from 3 p.m., and clerkship directors keep the whole afternoon, 1 to 5 p.m., free so you can prepare. In Phase 3 an afternoon is set aside for scholarly concentration work.

Anatomy is built into the Symptoms, Signs, and Disease courses: each covers the anatomy of its organ systems alongside physiology, radiology and disease. During clerkships, anatomy and cell biology return as part of the science taught in every block. ER to OR also aims to reinforce anatomy in the context of surgical procedures. Faculty of the Department of Cell and Systems Biology teach gross anatomy, neuroanatomy, histology and embryology.

Donated bodies for teaching come through the Willed Body Program of the Anatomical Board of the State of Florida. Its South Florida office, managed by the school's Medical Education Office, serves the University of Miami and other South Florida schools. The program says its main purpose is teaching normal anatomy to first-year medical students, physical therapy students, residents and professionals in continuing medical education. Everyone using donated specimens signs a Pledge of Respect.

Phase 3 offers six four-week Clinical Anatomy and Surgery selectives, one way to meet the integrated science selective requirement. They cover the thorax, abdomen, extremities, urogenital and gynecologic anatomy, head and neck with brain and spinal cord, and brain and spinal cord. Each combines on-demand lectures, demonstrations by anatomy faculty, proctored dissection of human donors and time in the operating room.

Workshops in knot tying, instrument handling and suturing run twice in each selective and are tested at the end. In the abdomen selective, surgery faculty and residents also teach in the dissection sessions. A two-week Advanced Gross Anatomy elective covers advanced regional anatomy and builds teaching and presentation skills.

Clinical skills start in your first weeks: the two in-person weeks of Introduction to the Medical Profession cover communication, interviewing and physical examination. From the fall, some Learning Community afternoons take you into clinical and community settings with your LCE.

In the spring, MAP 102 teaches you to tailor an interview and examination to a patient's main concern. You also plan how to improve health in one of Miami's communities and learn to help someone navigate South Florida's health care system. At the end of the spring you begin EMT training, including ride-alongs with fire-rescue crews.

EMT training continues in MAP 103, during the two fall months before clerkships, when you also review key clinical skills and teach them. Clerkships open with a one-week Transition to Clerkships course on the student's role, basic procedures, documentation and patient safety.

Each clerkship lists Required Clinical Experiences and the level of responsibility expected of you. In ER to OR, for example, you place urinary catheters and IV lines, ventilate patients with a bag and mask and intubate them, all with help. You also observe trauma resuscitation. In obstetrics and gynecology you give contraceptive counseling and screen for intimate partner violence on your own.

Grading changes by phase. Phase 1 courses are pass/fail, and Phase 2 clerkships use four tiers: Honors, High Pass, Pass and Fail. In Phase 3 most courses are pass/fail, but sub-internships, Advanced Integrated Science Selectives and Advanced Clinical Experiences are graded Honors, Pass or Fail. Scholarly concentration courses are pass/fail, and a failed course passed after remediation shows on your transcript as R.

Phase 1's three Milepost weeks are used for meetings with your LCE, clinical skills assessments and customized or comprehensive NBME exams. The 2026-27 calendar then sets aside two weeks in June, after the last Milepost week, as a Phase 1 remediation period.

Clerkships assess areas such as medical knowledge, clinical performance, communication and professionalism, while the MAP 200 courses are pass/fail with no exams: you must attend every session, prepared. Clinical skills are also tested in Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCEs), where you rotate through timed stations with standardized patients. The nutrition curriculum plans a Phase 2 OSCE in which you take a diet history and give brief counseling.

The USMLE is run by the Federation of State Medical Boards and the NBME. Step 1 has been reported only as pass or fail since January 26, 2022. Step 2 CK keeps a three-digit score, and its minimum passing score has been 218 since July 1, 2025.

The 2026-27 Bulletin gives students dedicated time at the end of Phase 2 to prepare for and take both exams. The calendar calls it the USMLE Step 1 and 2 Study Period and places it after the last clerkship block and a Milepost week. It runs from September 26 to December 18, 2026, for the Class of 2028, and Phase 3 begins in January.

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 set the start for 2028. On the current schedule, a student entering in 2027 (the Class of 2031) would reach this study period in about fall 2029, after the change. This projection uses the 2026-27 calendar, the latest the school has posted.

• The USMLE says each year's testing dates will be published more than a year ahead. It has also urged schools to review rules on when students must take the Step exams.
• The Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) accredits MD programs in the United States. Its accreditation is what makes students in an MD program like this one eligible to sit the USMLE.
• The LCME directory, updated October 14, 2026, lists the school's accreditation as full, first granted in 1955, with the next survey due in 2032-33.

Clinical training is centered on Miami. Course descriptions place students in three systems: Jackson Health System, UHealth and the Miami VA. Most clinical sites are on the health system campus, but rotations at Jackson North, Jackson South, the Miami Beach Community Health Center and preceptor offices may need transportation.

Jackson Memorial Hospital has about 1,500 licensed beds and houses the Ryder Trauma Center, the Miami Burn Center and the Miami Transplant Institute. It is the centerpiece of Jackson Health System, and the Public Health Trust, which governs the system, has had an affiliation agreement with the school since 1952.

UHealth includes the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute and the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, plus nearly 40 outpatient sites in four South Florida counties. One UHealth hospital, UHealth Tower, was called University of Miami Hospital until 2017, and course descriptions still use both names. The Miami VA's Bruce W. Carter VA Medical Center, in downtown Miami, has 367 operating beds and names the Miller School as its primary affiliation.

Sites vary within each clerkship. Obstetrics and gynecology students are assigned to Jackson Memorial, community hospital and private practice sites. Psychiatry students work in two settings, such as Jackson Behavioral Health Hospital, VA inpatient units or the consultation service at UHealth Tower.

Most of your choice comes in Phase 3. Electives are two-week courses chosen for your career interests. Advanced Clinical Experiences (ACEs) last four weeks and add responsibility: you work up and manage selected patients under residents and attending physicians, the senior doctors in charge. Selectives are required categories with a choice of topic: the sub-internship, critical care and integrated science.

Away rotations at other medical schools, called externships, earn credit when arranged through the Visiting Student Learning Opportunities (VSLO) service of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). Externships outside VSLO carry extra requirements. You must be in good standing and have completed Phase 2, including its clerkships and Step 1 and Step 2 requirements. Seniors can also earn elective credit abroad with advance approval from the Senior Associate Dean for Undergraduate Medical Education.

The 2026-27 Bulletin requires 18 weeks, about four months, of ACEs or electives, while the course text for outside externships refers to 14 required weeks of electives. That text caps elective time away from Miami at 12 weeks, so at least two weeks must be at the home school. It also rules out externships with physicians in private practice.

Options include a Street Classroom ACE caring for unhoused patients with Dade County Street Response and the Pediatric Mobile Clinic, which serves uninsured children across Miami-Dade. You can also study toxicology at the Florida Poison Information Center or join a two-week cardiology teaching lab built around Harvey, the Gordon Center's heart and lung simulator. A pilot culinary medicine elective runs as four two-hour sessions. One elective spans Phases 2 and 3: two weeks of credit for at least 18 sessions at student-run free clinics and health fairs.

• Sub-internships listed in the 2026-27 Bulletin include internal medicine, pediatrics, family medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, neurology, otolaryngology, PM&R, trauma surgery, acute care surgery, the burn unit and general surgery at the Miami VA.
• Critical care selectives cover the medical, pediatric, surgical, trauma and neuroscience intensive care units.
• Integrated science selectives range from clinical anatomy and surgery to immunology and transplant, neuroscience, pharmacology, oncology, cardiac and pulmonary physiology, and dermatology.

Every student completes a Scholarly Concentration, through either a Pathway of Emphasis or a dual degree. In a pathway you pursue a research question with a faculty mentor, starting with an introductory course of at least 15 hours in the spring of year 1. The work continues through Phase 3 and ends in a written Capstone report and a poster at the Spring Symposium in your final spring.

The 14 pathways are Advancing Mind-Body Medicine; Biomedical Engineering; Business of Medicine, Quality Improvement and Patient Safety; Diagnostic Pathology and Laboratory Medicine; and Doctor of the Future, on AI and health informatics. They continue with Ethics, Humanities, and Health Law; Global Health and Surgery; the Jay Weiss Pathway in Community Health Empowerment; Maternal and Child Health; and Neuroscience and Behavioral Science. The last four are Oncology and Related Health Disparities, Regenerative Medicine, Translational and Molecular Medicine, and Vision Science.

Some pathways add structure. Maternal and Child Health draws on the federally funded Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental Disabilities (LEND) program at the Mailman Center for Child Development. Biomedical Engineering students may join an engineering capstone design team, and Doctor of the Future includes an industry apprenticeship program.

The three-year Accelerated Pathway is for students committed to one of 18 participating University of Miami and Jackson Health System residency programs, such as anesthesiology, neurosurgery or urology. Alongside the standard Phase 1 and 2 courses, you spend a weekly afternoon in your specialty from the spring of year 1. An eight-week immersion course follows that summer, and Phase 3 then lasts five months.

Program directors intend to rank Accelerated Pathway students highly, but you must still enter the Match. If you do not secure a residency position, change specialty or ask for a research year, you move to the four-year curriculum. Failing a course or Step 1 may lead there too. The pathway cannot be combined with a dual degree.

A dual degree replaces the pathway, and dual-degree students take 136 MD credits instead of 142. University of Miami undergraduates have one more route, the Medical Scholars Program. Its Early Matriculation track starts medical school after junior year and awards the bachelor's degree after the first year of medical school.

• MD/MPH (four years): three public health courses in the summer before medical school, then an extra afternoon of coursework. It adds a capstone, a rotation in health department clinics and the Certified in Public Health exam.
• MD/MBA (four years), with the Patti and Allan Herbert Business School: 44 MBA credits, including a Health Management and Policy concentration.
• MD/PhD, the Medical Scientist Training Program: PhD research in fields such as neuroscience, cancer biology, biomedical engineering or epidemiology, which replaces the scholarly concentration. Its curriculum page puts Step 1 after two 12-week clerkship blocks, one of them Practice of Medicine, before three to four PhD years, and Step 2 CK after the last two.
• MD/JD (six years), with the School of Law: two years of medicine, two of law, then two years completing both degrees. The Bulletin's sample plan puts Step 1 between June and August, just before law school starts in year 3, and Step 2 CK after you return and finish the clerkships.
• MD/MS in Genomic Medicine (four years), with the John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics: online study plus a weekly small-group block, ending in a capstone.
• MD/MS in Global Medical Sciences: a one-year, 30-credit hybrid program with a faculty-led study abroad opportunity.
• MD/MAIA, a Master of Arts in International Administration that includes a Certificate in Security Management, or the 12-credit certificate alone, which fits in one summer.
• Research year: after Phase 2, including the USMLE exams, you may take a year off for research. One route is the one-year Dean's Research Excellence Award in Medicine (DREAM) scholarship, which starts in January.

The Gordon Center is a 34,000-square-foot simulation facility. Its ten fully equipped patient exam rooms support the school's clinical skills and standardized patient program, and standardized patient encounters are recorded for quality assurance and training. It also has high-fidelity patient simulators, a mock emergency department, a full-scale emergency rescue vehicle and a disaster response training zone. The center is home to Harvey, the cardiopulmonary simulator Dr. Michael S. Gordon developed in 1968, which reproduces heart and lung sounds, pulses, blood pressure and breathing movements.

Surgical skills have their own space. The Surgical Skills Elective runs in the Minimally Invasive Surgical Training and Education (MISTE) Center, using high-fidelity simulation for open surgery and emergency procedures.

In your first week you are assigned to one of 12 Academic Societies, which mix students from every class year. You stay in yours for all four years. Each has two LCEs as faculty mentors and runs small-group teaching, clinical skills practice, exam preparation, service, wellness and social events. The societies began in 2001, after a group of students saw the need for stronger connections among classmates.

Your LCE is also a mentor. Conversations stay confidential unless someone's health or safety is at risk, and LCEs give candid feedback and point you to remediation resources when needed. Every new student also gets a second-year peer mentor, matched on shared interests, and an advising dean for one-on-one meetings.

Academic Enrichment Services assigns a learning specialist for each phase, with one-on-one coaching on topics such as time management, study strategies and test anxiety. Peer programs add workshops, biweekly small-group content reviews for Phase 1 and one-on-one tutoring. Before the Step study period, Phase 2 students are matched by intended specialty with Phase 3 peer coaches who have passed both exams.

For health and well-being, the Office of Student Services points you to Student Health, the Counseling Center, a Peer Support Network, the Physician Support Line, and disability services and accommodations.

Students also run the Mitchell Wolfson Sr. Department of Community Service (DOCS), which holds 10 health fairs a year across Miami-Dade, Monroe and Broward counties, plus four free weekly clinics.