The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai MD program

Phase 1 opens with BaseCamp, a one-week orientation, then the five-month Foundations block. Ten organ-system modules follow, each with its anatomy, physiology, embryology and tissue pathology built in. In Cardiology, for example, you study the heart's structure, electrical system and blood flow alongside heart failure and arrhythmias.

Two threads run through the phase. Practice of Medicine teaches history taking, examination, communication and clinical reasoning through weekly workshops and simulated encounters. THINQ, the inquiry curriculum, adds three hours a month on research methods and evidence-based medicine. It is built around four areas of concentration: Scientific and Scholarly Discovery, Patient-Centered Advocacy, Health Care Delivery Science, and Leadership and Professional Identity Formation.

Teaching moves onto the wards in Phase 2. In Inpatient Medicine, for example, you meet an attending preceptor weekly and manage two deteriorating patients in a half-day simulation. In Phase 3 you give semi-independent care in an acting internship and choose much of your schedule.

Because ASCEND is new, some school pages lag behind or disagree; the smaller differences are listed below.

• Clerkship Phase: 13 months on the ASCEND page, which also describes 12 months of acute and emergency clerkships.
• Transition to Residency: two weeks on the ASCEND page and in the catalog text; four in the catalog heading and both phase graphics.
• Module lengths: Neuroscience 6.5 weeks and Behavioral Science 1.5 in the February 2026 handbook; 6 and 3, with Renal in semester 2, on the August 2026 calendar.
• Accreditation: first accredited in 1968, next survey 2027-28 (LCME directory, July 2026); full accreditation in 2019 and an October 2027 site visit (school page).
• MD-PhD order: three clerkship blocks before the PhD, then a Clinical Refresher Course (curriculum page); a summer lab rotation first and two final clinical years (home page).
• Dual degrees: besides the MD options, the dual-degree page lists a podiatry DPM/MPH (Doctor of Podiatric Medicine and Master of Public Health). Policies from 2024 and 2025 and a May 2025 story name an MD/MHA (Master of Health Administration), which that page and the July 2025 brochure omit.
• Electives: 20 weeks under the July 2026 policy (28 for the classes of 2026 and 2027). Two-week clinical electives are Honors, Pass or Fail under the July 2026 grading policy but pass/fail for the Class of 2029 in the handbook.
• Older wording still online: flex-time half-days in all four years and a Longitudinal Clinical Experience Program (undated clinical-training page). A July 2026 handbook page uses legacy clerkship names, and the 2024 graphic and April 2025 catalog use Advocacy, Social Justice and Anti-Oppression for Patient-Centered Advocacy.

A sample week comes from the school's mock Phase 1 schedule, made in April 2024, shortly before ASCEND began. Its grid runs from 9am to 4pm with lunch at noon. On Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays, lectures fill most late-morning and early-afternoon slots, and some blocks hold a two-hour small group, a lab, a patient presentation or a THINQ session.

Thursday is different: Practice of Medicine in the morning, then an Independent Learning block for review, preparation, shadowing or research. Some weeks add an hour of student life sessions on careers, wellness and study skills. The fourth sample week ends on Friday morning with an in-person module exam built through the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME). The schedule says lectures are livestreamed and recorded, so in-person attendance is encouraged but not required.

School policy caps scheduled teaching at 27 hours a week, averaged over the course, and assigned preparation at 40. You scan a QR code at mandatory sessions and get five personal days a semester, though not on assessment days.

Anatomy is one of the four Foundations modules in your first semester: six weeks and three credits. On the 2026-27 calendar it runs from September 14 to October 23 for the class that started in 2026, with a mid-module exam on October 2 and a final exam on October 23.

The handbook (updated February 2026) and the course catalog describe a module covering the body's regions, organ systems and development, combining hands-on dissection with microscopic study and clinical case studies. The school's Body Donation Program, run by its Center for Anatomy and Functional Morphology, says donated bodies give its medical students their fundamental knowledge of anatomy.

Anatomy then returns in every organ-system module. A 2009 school publication described cadaver dissection, a CT scan library of every cadaver and team-based anatomy assessment. It predates ASCEND by 15 years, so treat it as history rather than a description of today's module.

Your first patient contact comes through APEX, the Clinical Apprenticeship Experience. In the first week you rank your preferred clinical fields and are assigned three preceptors to shadow during the first semester: one in a field you chose and two in related fields. A fourth assignment is a three-hour emergency department shift in the fall. You mostly observe, and you write a structured reflection after each visit.

Practice of Medicine adds standardized-patient encounters and early clinical exposures in outpatient clinics, inpatient wards and emergency rooms, with your Clinical Competency Mentor observing and giving feedback.

You can also volunteer. Students run the East Harlem Health Outreach Partnership (EHHOP), a free, physician-supervised primary care clinic for uninsured adults, founded in 2004 and serving more than 300 patients a year. The Mount Sinai Human Rights Program, student-run since 2015, provides forensic medical and psychological evaluations for asylum seekers.

Full-time clinical work starts with the Clerkship Phase, in late February 2029 for a 2027 entrant on the current schedule.

Phase 1 modules are strictly pass/fail, with a 65% passing mark for every assessment and module. Weekly quizzes count toward your grade; faculty write them in the first semester, and most later ones come from the AMBOSS question bank. Under a July 2026 policy for students entering from 2026, you can retake one assessment in up to two first-semester Foundations modules or in Practice of Medicine I. Later Phase 1 modules have no retake, so a failed module is remediated, and the original Fail stays on your transcript.

End-of-module exams are built by module faculty with NBME Customized Assessment Services. You sit them in person on Friday mornings, and three of the 14 modules add a mid-module exam. Each Practice of Medicine module has two exams with standardized patients and a written note, scored on a checklist, which the calendar calls OSCEs (objective structured clinical assessments).

From Phase 2, required clerkships and acting internships are graded Honors, Pass or Fail, as are some clinical electives. Narrative comments go into your Medical Student Performance Evaluation (MSPE), the school's letter for residency applications. A clerkship grade draws on workplace observations, Morchand stations, case presentations, clinical evaluations and an end-of-clerkship NBME exam, usually the subject or shelf exam: a national multiple-choice test in the specialty, taken online. Surgery-Anesthesiology grades an NBME customized exam instead, and Palliative Medicine uses the school's own knowledge exam.

The USMLE is the three-step exam series state medical boards use in licensure decisions in the United States. Icahn requires you to pass Step 1, on the sciences behind medicine, and Step 2 CK, on clinical knowledge, to graduate, with at most four attempts at each. Step 1 has been pass/fail only since January 26, 2022.

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 first named 2028. On the current schedule, a 2027 entrant's six-week dedicated period would run from early January to mid-February 2029, so Step 1 would most likely fall under the new model. USMLE will publish each year's dates more than a year ahead and has urged schools to review testing rules, so Icahn's timing may change.

Step 2 CK has deadlines, not a set month. You must pass one Step by August 1 of year 4, sitting it by July 1, and the other by December 1 of your final year, sitting it by November 1. Sitting Step 2 CK before Phase 2 ends needs an exception form, and Phase 3 has blocks for a dedicated study period. On the current schedule, that points a 2027 entrant to Step 2 CK between about March and November 1, 2030; USMLE says it may not be offered in some months.

• If you have not sat Step 1 by the start of Phase 2, you meet a learning specialist; a support plan can defer your first clerkship or move Step 1 into Phase 3.
• Failing any Phase 1 module refers you automatically to the Promotions Committee, which can require extra support, a repeated module or academic probation (July 2026 policies).
• Missing a required observation can mean an incomplete or failed clerkship, whatever your other results.
• In Inpatient Medicine, Honors needs honors-level work in 6 of 11 graded objectives and no more than one behavioral mark.
• PEAKS 3 is the one-week graduation capstone, covering basic science, clinical knowledge and a practical demonstration of clinical skills.

The school's transport guide says required clerkships and acting internships are spread across New York City's five boroughs. Its undated clinical-training page names ten sites: The Mount Sinai Hospital; Mount Sinai Queens, West and Morningside; and New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai. The others are BronxCare Health System, The Brooklyn Hospital Center, Elmhurst Hospital Center, the James J. Peters VA Medical Center and The New Jewish Home.

The 2026 clerkship pages add Queens Hospital Center and the Mount Sinai Behavioral Health Center, and Pediatrics uses Valley Hospital in Paramus, New Jersey. The Facts page, updated each October, lists 14 teaching hospitals under residents and fellows, including Mount Sinai Brooklyn and the Institute for Family Health.

A handbook policy filed under both curricula, though written for classes graduating in 2025 to 2027 (all on the older curriculum), assigns clerkships and sites by lottery. That policy also allows a special schedule request for a major life event such as a wedding or a new child. After the lottery, changes are first come, first served up to four weeks before the start. Inpatient Medicine splits its six weeks between two sites, one of them The Mount Sinai Hospital.

Travel is your responsibility, though the cost-of-attendance budget includes it. Free shuttles run from the Icahn campus to the Bronx VA, to Elmhurst and Mount Sinai Queens, to Morningside and to Mount Sinai West. If you leave a required clerkship or acting internship between 11pm and 5am, the school's ride-share account covers a shared ride from the site within the five boroughs.

Electives are rotations you choose. ASCEND requires 20 weeks across Phases 2 and 3, under a policy approved July 10, 2026. At least 14 must be clinical, ideally four of them in a medicine subspecialty or critical care, and the rest can be clinical, research, non-clinical or up to four longitudinal weeks. A week of credit means at least 40 hours, and Phase 1 earns none.

Electives first appear in the rotation that pairs Emergency Medicine with two elective weeks, and Phase 3 adds four-week blocks. You choose from Empower, the school's mostly clinical elective catalog, or design a tailor-made clinical, research or non-clinical elective with a faculty mentor. Longitudinal options such as the EHHOP clinic electives run over a semester or year, and a Riker's Island health care elective reimburses travel.

Away electives, or away rotations, are taken at other institutions, usually through the Visiting Student Learning Opportunities (VSLO) service of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). Access opens in November of year 3, most catalogs open in March or April, and there is no formal limit; for competitive specialties the handbook suggests six or seven applications. Register each with Icahn two weeks ahead. International electives must be Global Health Electives listed in Empower, requested 60 days ahead.

Every student must complete a mentored scholarly project and present it at Medical Student Research Day in Phase 2 or 3. Areas range from basic, clinical or translational research and artificial intelligence to quality improvement, community or global health, medical humanities, medical education and anti-racism work. Case reports, literature reviews and reflections do not count, and finishing an Icahn dual degree exempts you.

You meet the Medical Student Research Office in your first semester and draft a proposal in THINQ. Many students use the summer after year 1, with eight weeks in the Summer Research Scholars Program. Selected students instead spend six to eight weeks at a global health partner site in New York City or abroad, with a stipend.

The optional scholarly year is a full-time, mentored year from July 1 to June 30, taken by nearly a third of each class. A March 2025 policy places it after the Clerkship Phase and requires a mentor, a proposal, proof of at least $40,000 in living support and a request by May 15. You work 40 to 50 hours a week and take no MD coursework. The research page still says after year 2 or 3, and the scholarly-year page after year 3.

The MD-PhD, a Medical Scientist Training Program funded by a National Institutes of Health (NIH) training grant since 1977, takes about eight years. Its curriculum page describes a summer TREK Academy before medical school, then Phase 1 with graduate coursework, Step 1 and three clerkship blocks before PhD research in one of eight training areas. A Clinical Refresher Course leads back to the remaining clerkships.

The MD/MPH adds a 45-credit Master of Public Health, with 12 MD credits counting toward it, in four years with evening classes or five with a scholarly year. PORTAL, the five-year MD/MSCR (Master of Science in Clinical Research), takes applications in year 1, starts with light coursework in year 2 and puts its scholarly year between years 3 and 4.

Proctored Phase 1 exams are held on the 12th and 13th floors of the Annenberg Building, which also houses the Levy Library and, on the 13th floor, the Morchand Center for Clinical Competence.

Simulation facilities across the Mount Sinai Health System recreate realistic clinical situations for practice. The school offers housing to every student, the campus is close to Central Park, and each clinical site provides study space and lockers.

Before you arrive you join one of 10 learning communities, which mix classmates with students from other years. Your Advisor Group has a physician Career Advisor, who has no role in grading and meets you at least twice a year. It also has a clinical social worker as Wellness Advisor, at least one senior-student Peer Advisor and 12 to 15 students per class year.

Academic counseling includes a learning specialist and trained peer educators. For Step 1, second-year students get two years of the AMBOSS question bank, the Osmosis high-yield video series and a free NBME self-assessment. Third-year students get 12 months of AMBOSS and another self-assessment for Step 2 CK. Career advising follows the AAMC's Careers in Medicine program, with a specialty advisor in every clinical department.

Well-being support includes unlimited visits to the Student and Trainee Mental Health Program, a 24/7 counseling and crisis line, CIRCLES group sessions in year 3, the PEERS curriculum and free 92nd Street Y membership.