The Northeast Ohio Medical University (NEOMED) College of Medicine MD program

M1 and M2 run two strands side by side: organ-system science courses and a parallel Practice of Medicine sequence. The catalog says the design rests on active learning with frequent assessment and feedback.

Most M1 courses use peer instruction, along with lectures, workshops, small-group sessions and labs. Its questions are clinical vignettes written in the style of the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME), which co-sponsors the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE). You must pass USMLE Step 1 and Step 2 Clinical Knowledge (CK) to graduate.

M2 goes back through the body system by system: the Diagnosis and Treatment courses teach disease, pathology, pharmacology and the mechanisms behind clinical signs.

From M3 most learning is built around your own patients. Teaching rounds, morning reports, small-group discussions, conferences and case studies support the ward and clinic work, and cases from Aquifer, an online case library, feature in several clerkships. Each clerkship that ends in an NBME subject exam, a national specialty test often called a shelf exam, also has a required practice exam partway through.

In M1 and M2, scheduled class time is capped at 24 contact hours a week, a contact hour being 50 minutes, unless the Curriculum Committee grants an exception. NEOMED assumes you will spend about as long again preparing outside class.

NEOMED's clinical-faculty page lists clinical-skills small groups on Thursday mornings in M1 and periodic Tuesday afternoons in M2, and case-based clinical-reasoning sessions on Friday mornings in M1 and Wednesday and Thursday afternoons in M2. You have four personal days in M1 and two in M2, which cannot be used for exams or for sessions with patient panelists or simulated patients.

On clerkships, clinical and educational work is capped at 80 hours a week averaged over four weeks, with one day in seven free on average and eight hours off between work periods. Continuous assignments stop at 24 hours, plus up to four for handing over. Emergency medicine averages 45 hours a week across day, afternoon and evening shifts, including weekends.

Most clerkships assign call or night float, evening or overnight duty. Obstetrics and gynecology, for example, can assign at least four nights, and you stay with patients in labor. Clerkships with a subject exam schedule independent study time in the last week: a full day in internal medicine and a half day in the five-week clerkships.

Anatomy is taught inside the M1 organ-system courses. Body and Brain covers the gross anatomy of the musculoskeletal system and the anatomy and physiology of the central and peripheral nervous systems. It also includes the histology of basic tissues, with some embryology and radiology.

Gross anatomy lab dissection takes place in the next course, Cardiovascular, Pulmonary, Renal, which is required for every M1 student. It combines anatomy with the physiology and biochemistry of the heart, lungs and kidneys and how the three systems regulate one another. In spring, Gastrointestinal, Reproductive and Endocrine Systems covers the anatomy and physiology of those organs.

The bodies used in teaching come through NEOMED's Body Donation Program, which says most donated bodies teach anatomy to medical students. NEOMED counts this as service learning for all students: alongside dissection you take part in the cremation and the body donation service and family reception, then write a reflective essay in Practice of Medicine. Under the 2026-27 exam rules, lab exams may be graded with AI software as well as by faculty.

You can return to anatomy in M4: the 2026-27 rotation list includes Anatomy, Surgical Anatomy, Advanced Anatomy Dissection and Modern Anatomical Sciences.

Clinical training starts in your first summer with Practice of Medicine I. The required curriculum includes team training and a series of Clinical Skills Assessments with simulated patients at the Wasson Center, NEOMED's simulation center, through your first three years. These give you feedback and evaluate communication, history taking, physical examination, differential diagnosis and basic management plans. The center runs these assessments and objective structured clinical exams (OSCEs), timed encounters with simulated patients, with end-of-year assessments listed for M2 and M3.

NEOMED's clinical-faculty page lists the Primary Ambulatory Care Experience (PACE), a continuity-of-care experience with a physician preceptor, or supervising doctor, at the doctor's own practice. It takes two half days in the spring of M1 and two in the fall of M2. A 2019 NEOMED article says preceptors work in pediatrics, family medicine, internal medicine, obstetrics or geriatrics, and that students practice basic interviewing and examination skills with them.

M2 brings more patient contact. Practice of Medicine V and VI take you into clinical settings with real and simulated patients, and the catalog describes more hands-on time in labs, hospitals, community settings and the simulation center. You attend classes at Rootstown and at community-based clinical teaching sites, where small-group teaching takes place.

M3 starts in June with Prerequisite to the Clinical Curriculum, a preparatory course, and clerkships follow at partner community teaching hospitals; in 2026 NEOMED put the first Christ Hospital rotations in July. Before clerkships, a one-day Technical Skills Day has you practice common procedures with simulation. You become a junior member of clinical teams in hospitals, private offices and clinics, gradually taking on active roles. In internal medicine, for example, you are assigned an average of three new inpatients a week, with a complete history, physical examination and written report on each patient you follow.

You can also volunteer at the NEOMED Free Clinic, started by medical and pharmacy students in 2016 and run by students with board advice. It offers no-cost care to underserved residents, centered on Portage County, with a team of students supporting the provider at each appointment. After online training, volunteers choose their own shifts, mostly on Saturdays.

Every M1 and M2 course is graded pass/fail. Behind that, each biomedical science course longer than five weeks computes a score. Weekly quizzes count 5%, midcourse exams 35 to 45% and the final, built as an NBME Customized Assessment of up to 150 items, typically 40 to 60%. Other pieces, such as evidence-based medicine work or reflective essays, are separate pass/fail requirements. Those years still count later: your MSPE includes comparative performance charts for M1 and M2 as well as M3.

You normally get at most one attempt to remediate a failed course, if the course director offers it, and remediation earns at most the lowest passing grade. To move up a year you must pass every course. Failing two courses in one M1 or M2 year, or failing a remediation, leads to review by the Committee on Academic and Professional Progress (CAPP). That committee can require a repeated course or year, or dismissal. The MD must be finished within six years.

The CBSE controls when you can sit Step 1. Under the 2026-27 flowchart, M2 students take a Pre-CBSE on February 19 and a final CBSE on March 24. A final score of 59 or more clears them for Step 1, which they can sit during AIMS. Lower scorers retake the CBSE on April 22 needing 64, with a CAPP referral below that. A Diagnosis and Treatment III failure, or two or more M1 or M2 course failures, means a later route with an M3 clinical study elective in the first block.

Step 1 has been reported only as pass or fail since January 26, 2022. NEOMED's deadline is the second Friday in May of M2, May 14 in 2027, and you must pass to be promoted to M3, though you may start M3 while awaiting your result. If you do not pass, CAPP reviews your record and decides whether you may retake it, and an approved retake must be done by the third Tuesday of December or a date CAPP sets.

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 announcement had named 2028. On the current policy, a student entering in 2027 would have a Step 1 deadline of May 11, 2029, a few months after the switch. The Step 2 CK deadline would be September 1, 2030, also after it. These are deadlines, not test dates, and the USMLE has encouraged schools to review rules that restrict when students test.

Six of the seven clerkships are graded Honors, High Pass, Pass or Fail, combining clinical performance with the subject exam on the last day. Clinical performance is rated on 15 objectives: 8 or more rated Exceeds Expectations earns Pass with Commendation, and 4 or more rated Below Expectations is a Fail. Honors needs Pass with Commendation on both, with no objective rated below expectations. Emergency medicine has no subject exam and is graded pass/fail. M4 rotations are graded Honors, Pass or Fail.

• A first-attempt subject exam fail leaves the clerkship as Extended Time, a temporary grade until the retake. Passing the retake caps the grade at Pass, failing it makes the clerkship a Fail, and retakes must be done by September 15 after M3.
• Failing a retake, or any three subject exams counting retakes, goes to CAPP, and two first-attempt failures in different clerkships require a meeting with the Learning Center, NEOMED's academic support service.
• A clinical Fail means repeating the whole clerkship, with Pass as the highest grade.
• Each clerkship with a subject exam also requires a Clinical Skills Experience Portfolio, a checklist of activities reviewed with your site director midway and at the end, and a Practice-Based Learning and Improvement project.
• Missing required items on time, such as UWorld question-bank work, Aquifer cases or attendance, earns a Below Expectations rating.
• Your site director's summary comment for each clerkship is used verbatim in your MSPE. Class rank appears there only for the top quartile at the end of M3, identified from performance through that year, with an exact rank for the top 10%.
• Step 2 CK has had a passing score of 218 since July 1, 2025. You can take it once you have passed all M3 subject exams, and you must take it by September 1 of M4. A first failure brings a CAPP file review.

The clinical years run through partner hospitals: NEOMED's hospital-partner page lists 40, 36 of them marked as clerkship teaching sites, with teaching resources of about 7,000 beds and more than 3,500 clinical faculty. NEOMED also recruits simulated patients for teaching at major hospitals in Akron, Canton, Cleveland and Youngstown.

In the spring of M2 you typically go through a lottery, naming your preferred sites for each core clerkship, with details by email and at class meetings one to two months beforehand. The catalog makes you responsible for clinical education costs such as transportation, housing and meals, and for the means and cost of most travel.

A 2017 policy ranks site preference: approved hardship or disability accommodations first, then designated tracks, then scholarship holders such as Mercy Health Scholars. Accelerated Family Medicine students come first at their partner residency hospitals. Health Professions Scholarship Program students and National Health Service Corps scholars get first preference for clerkship order, because of their early residency match.

The Christ Hospital Health Network's acute care hospital is in Mt. Auburn, Cincinnati. The 2026-27 syllabi list it as a site for internal medicine, surgery, emergency medicine, family medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, and psychiatry. Five of the syllabi call it the Southwest Regional Campus in their exam rules. NEOMED's hospital-partner page says the university does not have regional campuses, but in August 2026 it appointed a vice president for academic expansion and regional campus development.

Students rotating in the Cincinnati area sit subject exams at an identified location there. Other subject exams are held on the Rootstown campus or at a center in the Columbus area run by Prometric, a commercial test-center network, and retakes are normally at Rootstown.

University Hospitals, a partner since 2012, added more clerkships from July 2021. In July 2026 NEOMED announced a strategic partnership with Cincinnati-based Mercy Health, which gives students more access to Mercy sites in the Youngstown, Lorain and Cincinnati regions. Aultman Health System formalized a partnership in August 2026.

Elective time starts in M3, in a period whose timing varies with your schedule. You can schedule a clinical elective at an affiliated hospital through NEOMED's coordinator team, or choose global health, research, a virtual elective or Step 2 preparation. The clerkship page suggests using the time on a surgical specialty if you want more surgery.

The 2026-27 catalog lists more than 100 four-week M4 rotations, more than two dozen of them in pediatrics. They run from Neurology, Diagnostic Radiology and Anesthesiology to Wilderness Medicine, Culinary Medicine, MEDCAMP, Autism Education, Global Health, Medical Simulation and a Narrative Medicine independent study.

Away rotations, meaning rotations outside NEOMED's catalog, need an application and acceptance. Applications go through Visiting Student Learning Opportunities (VSLO), a common portal reached through your Association of American Medical Colleges account, or directly to hospitals that do not use it. Career Development presentations in M3 cover VSLO.

The M.D. & Ph.D. is a nested degree: the Ph.D. in Basic and Translational Biomedicine comes from NEOMED's College of Graduate Studies. You complete M1 and M2, take a leave of at least three years from the MD to earn the Ph.D., then return to finish the MD. You need acceptance from both the M.D. and Ph.D. admission committees, and both degrees must be completed within eight years of first enrolling unless both deans approve otherwise.

The catalog also lets you add a degree or certificate from the College of Graduate Studies while enrolled in the MD. Examples are the Medical Ethics and Humanities master's and certificate, which NEOMED tailors for medical students and professionals, and a Master of Public Health run with three other Ohio universities.

For time away, an Enrichment Leave of Absence can fall between M2 and M3 or between M3 and M4, for research, another NEOMED program or other structured professional growth. NEOMED does not recommend one between M1 and M2. You petition by February 1 of the year before, and you are expected to take any Step exam due before the leave begins.

The Student Research Fellowship Program offers mentored projects with training in research methods, presentation and writing. Areas include biomedical sciences, family and community medicine and psychiatry, and NEOMED's summer research guide describes the fellowship as paid. Projects can be on campus, at clinical affiliates or at institutions across the country. The summer after M1 gives you about nine weeks; in 2027 that gap runs from May 22 to July 26.

Within the curriculum, Mentored Research and Scholarship is a repeatable M3 and M4 elective. With a designated mentor you develop a scholarly question, complete any required approvals and produce a deliverable such as an abstract, poster or manuscript draft. The M4 list also has a Research Elective, and the Research and Scholarship badge awards points for presentations, peer review and papers. The Journal of Medical Sciences at NEOMED is an online, student-led, peer-reviewed journal.

The Wasson Center for Clinical Skills Training, Assessment, and Scholarship is on the NEOMED campus. It has eight fully equipped patient exam rooms with remote and on-site viewing, a simulation lab and three orientation and debrief rooms. Teaching rooms have dual cameras and video recording for on-site and telehealth teaching and assessment, and recordings can be streamed securely.

Besides a pool of over 400 trained simulated patients, the center keeps a library of task trainers, models for practicing procedures, and supports simulation-enhanced interprofessional education. It also trains pharmacy students and other health professionals, with simulated patients who can play people seeking medication counseling.

The catalog names the Yassine Gross Anatomy Lab and the multidisciplinary labs among the rooms used for exams. The library, which offers research services and guides to medical students, is in the Aneal Mohan Kohli Academic and Information Technology Center.

From matriculation you belong to a Professional Development Advising Team (PDAT): a clinical advisor, a peer advisor and a small group of classmates. You are also assigned an Academic and Career Advisor (ACA) from Student Affairs, who meets you before you start and routinely after that. Your ACA monitors your progress and helps you identify and plan for a specialty, using a Career Preparation Road Map of checklists and deadlines for each meeting.

Student Affairs can also refer you to a course director, the Learning Center or the College of Medicine Academic Success Team, faculty who give longitudinal content integration support. The Learning Center's learning specialists help with study strategies, time management, exam and board preparation and executive functioning, and it also offers tutoring and accessibility services.

NEOMED's learning communities award the badges. The Health, Education, Advocacy and Leadership (HEAL) community builds competency in serving rural, urban and underserved populations, and the Research and Scholarship community focuses on critical thinking and the pathophysiological basis of disease. Badges are digital and managed through CampusGroups.

Student Affairs oversees career development and the residency Match, and advises NEOMED's chapter of Alpha Omega Alpha, the medical honor society, and the Virtuous Healer Honor Society. If you are called before CAPP, a Student Affairs support person helps you prepare and attends the meeting with you.