The New York Medical College MD program

Basic scientists and clinicians build each integrated Phase 1 course together. In Cardiorespiratory, for example, one course covers the normal anatomy and physiology of the heart and lungs, the diseases that threaten them, the imaging and drugs used, and how to examine both.

Themes run through all three phases rather than sitting in one course. The 2026-27 catalog lists communication skills, clinical reasoning, cultural humility, evidence-based medicine, genetics, health systems science, interprofessional collaboration, medical ethics, medical imaging, nutrition, professionalism, racism and bias in medicine, and women's health. Health systems science is about how care is delivered: patient safety, quality improvement, high-value care, leadership and teamwork.

Short intersessions between Phase 1 courses make room for topics outside the main courses. The M.D. program page calls them health system science intersessions, and the 2025-26 calendar gave one January week to career, wellness and remediation.

From April of year 2 you learn mostly on clinical teams of attending physicians, residents, nurses and other professionals, in inpatient and outpatient settings. Under supervision you take histories, examine patients, write notes and begin to take responsibility for patients' evaluation and treatment.

The Phase 1 scheduling policy, updated in October 2026, sets the limits of a pre-clerkship week. Scheduled hours, which include in-person sessions and set self-directed time, average no more than six a day and never exceed 28 a week. Scheduled hours plus required pre-work, such as videos, readings or quizzes before a session, should average no more than 40 a week, and your own study comes on top.

The school day generally runs from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. with an hour for lunch, and on average you get at least one free half day a week. At least half of scheduled hours use active learning, and no lecture lasts more than 90 minutes. Each major written exam follows a free study day with no new material, and mandatory in-person sessions generally start no earlier than 10 a.m. the day after an exam.

Attendance is required at small groups, labs, clinical skills and preceptor sessions, intersessions and any session marked mandatory, and the schedule flags which those are. The calendar gives no-class days for Jewish holidays such as Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot and Passover as well as federal holidays.

Gross anatomy starts in the first course, Fundamental Processes of Life, which covers the body's structure at the cellular and gross anatomic level. After that, anatomy is taught inside the organ-system courses, alongside the physiology, biochemistry and disease of each system, instead of as a separate subject.

You learn from donated bodies. The 2026-27 catalog lists cadaveric dissection among the program's teaching methods. Its technical standards, which every student must meet to progress and graduate, list performing anatomical dissections among the expected motor skills.

The Alumni Gross Anatomy Laboratory fills the top floor of the Medical Education Center: 8,500 square feet with 36 dissecting tables, network access at each table and a special ventilation system. Outside exam times it is open around the clock for study.

Each spring the first-year class holds the Convocation of Thanks for donors' families, with music, poetry and reflections. At the 2026 ceremony, first-year students spoke about the donors they had studied, and it ended with a tree planted on campus in the donors' honor. The 2026-27 calendar sets the next one for May 7, 2027. For extra study, the library offers Primal Pictures, a 3D anatomy program in which you can perform virtual dissections.

Your first patients are simulated. From the first week you practice interviewing, communication and physical examination with standardized patients in the Clinical Skills and Simulation Center. The organ-system courses then add the examination skills for their systems, such as the neurological exam in Brain and Behavior.

Real patients also appear in Phase 1. The M.D. program page describes required community service learning and a longitudinal clinical preceptorship, with faculty mentoring you directly. NYMC's 2024 report on its preceptors calls the preclinical preceptor program the step where second-year students carry their skills from the classroom into practice. Area physicians host them in practices, hospitals and clinics.

The Transition to Phase 2 course, a week long on the 2026-27 calendar, adds simulation-based procedural training, communication practice with standardized patients and sessions on professionalism, teamwork, clinical reasoning and health systems. Clerkships then start in mid-April of year 2, marked by a Student Clinician Ceremony sponsored by the school's Gold Humanism Honor Society chapter.

Phase 1 courses are graded pass/fail on your transcript, but passing has two parts. Medical knowledge needs an average of 70% across the course and at least 70% in each module. Patient care is judged with rubrics for history-taking, examination, communication, clinical reasoning, ethics and teamwork, through clinical skills exams, observed encounters, reflections, presentations and preceptor evaluations.

Written exams use questions in the style of the NBME, which co-sponsors the USMLE, plus short answers and short essays, delivered on exam software. Selected courses add laboratory practical exams, and the grading policy also lists a final community engagement presentation among the summative assessments. After major exams you get a Strengths and Opportunities report and the class average.

Phase 1 ends with the 5.5-hour CBSE, and your score sets what happens next. Scoring 51 to 54, you must show the school you have met its practice benchmarks, such as 70% on practice exams, before it verifies you for Step 1. Below 51 you need a dean's meeting and a study plan and cannot start clerkships until you pass Step 1; below 40 also means administrative leave.

Core clerkships are graded Honors, High Pass, Pass or Fail, except the pass/fail PM&R clerkship. The grade combines clinical performance, rated across 12 domains, with your shelf exam score. Exam scores at the 60th national percentile count as Honors level and the 35th as High Pass. Passing clinically but failing the exam gives a Conditional Pass and a retake.

You must pass USMLE Step 1 and Step 2 CK to graduate, and LCME accreditation is what makes the program's students eligible to sit them. Step 1 covers the basic sciences and has been reported only as pass or fail 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 announcement had named 2028.

On the current schedule, a student entering in late July 2027 would finish Phase 1 in about mid-February 2029. Their Step 1 deadline would be about late March or early April 2029, within a few months after the switch, and their Step 2 CK deadline about late May 2030. These projections follow the 2025-26 and 2026-27 calendars, which give study periods and deadlines rather than test dates.

• Rated clerkship work includes an observed history and physical, a written one, a mid-clerkship feedback session, a patient encounter log and three workplace-based assessments you ask supervisors to complete.
• The Clinical Skills Competency Assessment scores data gathering, physical examination, communication, clinical reasoning, data interpretation and treatment planning. Missing a benchmark brings weekly sessions with a mentor in the first months of Phase 3.
• You can retake NBME subject exams in up to two clerkships during Phase 2, in a two-week independent study elective, a vacation block or at the end of Phase 2.
• The school verifies you to sit each USMLE exam no more than twice, and two failures on the same exam can lead to dismissal.
• Transition courses are graded Credit or No Credit; Phase 3 track rotations and patient-care electives are graded Honors, High Pass, Pass or Fail.

Phase 1 keeps you in Valhalla, on a campus shared with Westchester Medical Center and Maria Fareri Children's Hospital. Both belong to the Westchester Medical Center Health Network (WMCHealth), which describes itself as a 1,700-bed system of nine hospitals on seven campuses across the Hudson Valley.

For Phase 2, a sequence lottery and a site lottery in the fall of year 2 set the order of your clerkships and where you do each one. Phase 3 required rotations are also assigned by lottery. Afterward you can swap a whole sequence, or trade a clerkship site with a willing classmate before the add/drop deadline. Requests for a different site need a reason such as a medical condition; travel to and from sites does not count.

NYMC's site list names more than 30 affiliates in seven states. Westchester Medical Center, Maria Fareri and NYC Health + Hospitals/Metropolitan in East Harlem are the major sites, and Metropolitan has been affiliated with the school since 1875, according to the catalog. The pediatrics department teaches at its two major affiliates, Metropolitan and Maria Fareri.

Two affiliates added in 2024 are far from campus. When the affiliations were announced, Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach was set up for clerkships in internal medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, psychiatry and surgery. Yuma Regional Medical Center, in a mostly rural part of southwestern Arizona, was set up for internal medicine, pediatrics, family medicine and surgery. Wherever you are, you follow your team's schedule rather than campus closures, and duty hours are capped at 80 a week, with at least one day a week free.

When NYMC described its first LIC cohort in 2019, those students were based mainly at CareMount Medical, now listed by NYMC as Optum, and at Northern Westchester Hospital in Mount Kisco.

Phase 2 has three 2-week elective blocks, six weeks in all, for seeing specialties beyond the required clerkships, plus a 2-week Flex block for more career exploration or for well-being. These electives are graded Credit or No Credit. Department pages list third-year electives such as emergency medicine at Metropolitan, Good Samaritan or the James J. Peters VA, and emergency or addiction psychiatry.

Phase 3 is mostly electives. On the 2026-27 calendar it pairs two required track rotations with eight four-week electives, 40 weeks in all, though the catalog's copy of that calendar says seven. The electives can be clinical rotations across many specialties, online electives or research. Department lists for third- and fourth-year students run from cardiac electrophysiology and transplant surgery to child abuse pediatrics, neurocritical care and an epilepsy elective with EEG reading.

Away electives, taken at other schools' hospitals, are applied for in year 3. You use the Visiting Student Learning Opportunities (VSLO) service of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) or the host school's own application. Research electives need a request form approved by the associate dean for medical student research.

NYMC offers three degree tracks: the M.D., the M.D./M.P.H. and the M.D.-Ph.D. You apply to either dual degree after you enroll.

The M.D./M.P.H. Generalist, with NYMC's School of Health Sciences and Practice, can be finished within the four years. The M.P.H. is 42 credits, but 12 transfer from your medical courses, leaving 24 required and 6 elective credits. Courses are online and asynchronous, so they do not clash with M.D. classes. Starting in the spring of year 1 is encouraged, and the program includes an applied practice experience tied to a clinical rotation and ends with a comprehensive exam.

The M.D.-Ph.D., with the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, is open only to current NYMC medical students who want a physician-scientist career. You apply by October 1 of year 2, and admission is confirmed once you complete Phase 1 and pass Step 1. Full-time graduate work in one of six disciplines, from biochemistry and molecular biology to physiology, usually takes three years, with a tuition scholarship and stipend. You return to clerkships only after defending your thesis, and both degrees are awarded together.

The Extended Study-Advanced Research (ESAR) path adds a year of mentored research, or in unusual cases two, taken between years 3 and 4 or after the Match. It is meant for students in good standing who want more research experience, for example for a competitive specialty, and the research can be at NYMC or another LCME-accredited school. Neurology also runs a one-year Clinical Neuroscience Research Fellowship after year 3 or 4.

Shorter research options sit alongside these. The summer research fellowship funds about 120 first-year students for at least four weeks of mentored research. Research electives run in Phases 2 and 3, and students present their work at the student-planned Medical Student Research Forum each December.

An Area of Concentration takes you deeper into one field, beyond the standard curriculum, and earns a certificate. It adds a foundational elective in the summer after year 1, seminars during the pre-clerkship phase and an advanced elective in year 4. A scholarly capstone, a paper ready to submit to a journal, is due in March of year 4. You can choose from 11 areas:

• Biomedical research
• Biomedical ethics
• Children's environmental health
• Drug development
• Global and population health
• Health equity leadership
• Health policy
• Health systems management
• Medical education
• Nutrition and culinary medicine
• Quality improvement

The Clinical Skills and Simulation Center at 7 Dana Road finished an expansion in 2026 that added about 5,000 square feet, bringing it to 27,000. It has 22 standardized patient exam rooms with LearningSpace recording, six of them accessible for patients with disabilities. Suites are set up as a three-bed ward, labor and delivery beside a pediatric suite, critical care, an operating room and orthopedics, with surgical skills and ultrasound rooms.

Manikins range from premature infants to adults, including SimMan 3G Plus and Harvey cardiopulmonary simulators, with task trainers for central lines, lumbar punctures, airways and IV lines. After a standardized patient exam you log in to LearningSpace to complete a clinical reasoning exercise. In 2026 the center added advanced cardiac and pediatric life support courses, which were offered to the graduating Class of 2026.

Teaching rooms are in the Medical Education Center, opened in 2001, which has the 250-seat Nevins auditorium. Its nine module classrooms, divided into small-group rooms, hold up to 216 students. The Phillip Capozzi, M.D., Library has a main branch in the Basic Sciences Building, open 24/7 with your ID, and a Skyline branch, both with group study rooms. On-campus suite-style apartments house 310 single students.

Every student joins one of 11 houses in the House Advisory Dean Program, launched in 2014. A house has about 80 students, drawn equally from the four years, and an advisory dean you must meet at least once a semester for academic and career advice. You also get a peer mentor from the class above, and each house holds a social event each semester and an annual fundraiser.

Houses are named for people and landmarks in NYMC history, such as founder William Cullen Bryant and Susan Smith McKinney Steward, who graduated from New York Medical College for Women in 1870. Career advising follows the AAMC's Careers in Medicine framework across all four years, and in year 3 you must choose a career specialty advisor in your intended field.

The Office of Academic Excellence offers one-on-one coaching for coursework, Step 1, Step 2 CK and shelf exams, Step 1 and Step 2 CK Jumpstart programs, peer tutoring and writing help. A Student Academic Success Team tracks grades and professionalism concerns and asks your house dean or a support office to contact you if you seem to be struggling.

Counseling and psychiatric care from the Office of Student Mental Health and Wellness are free and confidential, and its clinicians play no part in grading you. Virtual care through TimelyCare runs from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. every day, with on-demand support around the clock. Before orientation, a two-week, student-led Pre-Matriculation Program offers incoming students early academic sessions. In 2025 it added a clinical skills day in the simulation center and held a campus-wide wellness fair near the end.