The The Ohio State University College of Medicine MD program

LSI is competency-based: you move on by showing the skills and behaviors a doctor needs. Since 2018 its outcomes have been the eight areas of the Physician Competency Reference Set endorsed by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). They run from patient care and knowledge for practice to professionalism and interprofessional collaboration, and you must reach the expected level in all of them in each part.

The 2026-27 course catalog describes Part 1 as the study of human development, biology, disease and behavior, organized around patients and organ systems. In 2021, for example, the cardiopulmonary block combined histology, anatomy, physiology, pathophysiology and pharmacology. That year the faculty handbook listed recorded lectures, small-group cases, team-based learning and independent reading as the Part 1 methods. Part 1 also includes BuckIPE, Ohio State's program of team learning with students from other health professions.

Parts 2 and 3 are clinical. Each ring opens with ground school, a week of simulation, small groups and large-group teaching, before you join hospital and clinic teams.

The College's March 2021 faculty handbook capped Part 1 at an average of 20 hours of new content a week and 45 hours of total contact time. For clinical work it adapted the limits used for residents. These were no more than 80 hours a week averaged over four weeks, one day in seven free, and in-house call no more often than every third night.

The family medicine department's undated page, which still refers to 2021-22, says small groups led by family medicine and pediatric faculty meet every Tuesday afternoon during the patients within populations ring.

Ohio State teaches anatomy by dissection of donated bodies. The Anatomy Wing at Hamilton Hall covers about 43,500 square feet, with six dissection rooms and space for more than 300 donors. Each table has surgical lighting, and six smart TVs in each room can stream one donor's unusual variation or disease to everyone in the lab.

Anatomy is integrated throughout Part 1, so you learn the regional anatomy that goes with each block's science, and it is tested in practical exams. Lab sessions run within the system blocks, and the Division of Anatomy also runs required anatomy labs in the third-year surgical rotation. Dental students partner with medical students on the dissection. A link to the continuing medical education lab lets practicing physicians walk students through procedures such as a kidney transplant.

All medical students also have a virtual reality anatomy program on their iPads. More than 2,500 learners a year use the wing, from high school summer campers to practicing physicians.

Foundations 1, the opening block, teaches basic interviewing, physical examination and simple procedures, so that by early October you are ready to start Longitudinal Practice at an outpatient site.

Simulation starts early too. In a 2021 College video, faculty described first-years working with standardized patients early in year 1. They also described physiology labs in which first-years assess a simulated trauma patient and are walked through an intubation.

By the end of Part 1, the 2021 faculty handbook expected you to take a full history and examine the main body systems in adults. You should also be able to present a patient, write a progress note and read a basic electrocardiogram (ECG) and chest x-ray.

Primary Care Track students see patients with a family physician, at their assigned site, from their first week. Community Medicine Track students do Longitudinal Practice at sites linked to Mercy Health – Springfield. Outside the curriculum, medical students manage the Columbus Free Clinic under volunteer physicians, and you can volunteer at free clinics such as La Clinica Latina and the Noor Community Clinic.

Unless dated otherwise, the College rules in this section come from the 2025-26 student handbook, last updated June 18, 2025. Every course is officially graded Satisfactory or Unsatisfactory, and Part 1 has been pass/fail only since 2017, with no Honors. In Parts 2 and 3, programs may award two internal distinctions, Honors and a Letter of Commendation. These appear on your MSPE, sent in your final year, but not on your transcript.

The College does not report class ranks. The MSPE instead places you in one of five groups: Outstanding (roughly the top 10%), Excellent, Very Good, Good and Capable (roughly the bottom 10%). For students finishing Part 1 in 2025-26 or later, the group rests on Part 2 scores alone, with the three rings weighted equally. Within each ring, the NBME exam provides 30% of the score and clinical performance assessments 40 to 45%.

The College's 2016-17 manual for the reproductive and surgical ring gives an older picture of one ring. It said most students would earn Satisfactory and 25 to 30% Honors or a Letter of Commendation. You had to pass each NBME subject exam. A student who failed a written exam could retake it but could then earn only Satisfactory, and failing the clinical rotations meant repeating the course. These rules may have changed; the student handbook says current standards are in each academic program's own annual handbook.

To graduate you must pass Parts 1, 2 and 3, pass USMLE Step 1 and Step 2 CK and meet the College's professional standards. You must finish within six years, a limit that can be waived for dual degrees and approved research. Step 1 tests the foundational sciences and has been reported only as pass or fail since January 26, 2022. You must pass it by March 31 of the year after you finish Part 1, within three attempts.

Step 2 CK, which the handbook calls an intern-readiness assessment, still gets a three-digit score. It must be taken by the November 30 after you finish Part 2, and passed by the Match certification date in mid- to late February. Step 2 CK has the same limit of three attempts. A failed Step 2 CK not retaken by December 31 takes you out of the following Match, and without a pass by April 1 you are not certified for spring graduation.

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 four-year schedule, a student entering in August 2027 would finish Part 1 in early 2029 and sit Step 1 that spring, by about early May, a few months after the switch. Step 2 CK would follow around mid-2030, with a November 30, 2030 deadline, also after the switch.

• The 2025-26 handbook lists quizzes, team-based learning, anatomy practical exams, midterms, final exams and OSCEs among Part 1's graded work.
• Part 1 is still scored internally. The College averages your Part 1 scores into an academic standing used for some scholarships and University Honors at graduation, and the medical honor society Alpha Omega Alpha may consider it.

The College says students train in eight hospitals in central Columbus, from the Ohio State Wexner Medical Center hospitals to Nationwide Children's Hospital, and some required rotations run at affiliates. LCME guidelines require every required clerkship to be supervised by College faculty, so all required rotations are at Ohio State's hospitals and affiliates.

You need your own transportation throughout. Longitudinal Practice sites are often off campus, and in Part 2 students are routinely assigned to clinics away from the main campus.

The family medicine department's undated page says its practices for the four-week rotation in year 3 include its two residency practices and rural, urban, suburban and inner-city sites.

Community Medicine Track students choose Lima when they apply and cannot transfer to the standard track. After two years in Columbus they move to The Ohio State University at Lima, completing all required clinical work at Mercy Health – St. Rita's Medical Center and other hospitals in the region. The track is run with Bon Secours Mercy Health.

A 48,000-square-foot medical education center opened on the St. Rita's campus in summer 2021, with simulation and clinical skills labs, classrooms and a 240-seat lecture hall. Lima students have the same level of resources and support services as in Columbus, and are encouraged to take electives in Columbus.

Electives are concentrated in Part 3, which includes 16 weeks of Advanced Competencies and Electives in four blocks. Four of those weeks must be an Advanced Competency and twelve are other electives. A longitudinal Advanced Competency begun earlier can count for at most four weeks, and each needs advance approval.

The College lists about two dozen Advanced Competencies, including biomedical informatics, critical care and procedures, global health, Latino health, LGBTQ+ health, medical toxicology, research and teaching in medicine. Honors Ultrasound is a 10-month final-year course, and a four-year ultrasound Advanced Competency begins in year 1.

Departments add their own options. The Surgery Honors Program is open, by application, to fourth-years with overall honors or honors in surgery in year 3, and requires a mentored, publishable research project. Family medicine's page lists advanced clinical skills, research and sports medicine electives.

Under the 2025-26 handbook, you may also take up to three month-long electives away from Ohio State and its affiliates in Part 3, if you have no remediation requirements. Each needs a signed request at least 30 days ahead, and none counts for credit in April, since evaluations would arrive too late for May graduation.

The Office of Global Health funds a Global Health Elective in the final year. Its undated requirements page, which still mentions the discontinued Step 2 CS exam, sets a minimum of four weeks and 150 clinical hours. The host site must be in a low- or middle-income country, and the elective is graded Satisfactory or Unsatisfactory. You must have completed Part 2, and rotation 11 is not available. Planning should start at least eight months ahead, and you submit a travel summary and reflective essay afterwards.

Besides the MSTP, Ohio State offers four combined degrees with the MD: MD/MPH (public health), MD/MBA (business), MD/MHA (health administration) and MD/JD (law). All four follow one pattern. You finish years 1 and 2 and pass Step 1, spend year 3 full time in the other program, then return for the clerkships and final-year rotations. You apply to the second program during year 2.

The MD/MPH takes five years and adds supervised field practice and a culminating exam or project. The MD/MBA with the Fisher College of Business takes five years, and students often intern with a Wexner Medical Center administrator the summer after year 2. The MD/MHA typically takes five years, and the MD/JD with the Moritz College of Law takes six.

The MSTP leads to both the MD and a PhD in an average of eight years. You take 15 months of preclinical coursework, then three to four years of research and research training, then the clinical rotations. Core PhD programs are biomedical sciences, neuroscience and biomedical engineering, and a pediatric research fellowship is offered with Nationwide Children's. The program says about 9 to 12 students join each year, and 11 joined in 2026.

Research is common outside the dual degrees too: the College says about 92% of its students take part in faculty-mentored research. You can do it full time in the summer after year 1, part time with approval, or for a year through a leave of absence. STRIVE, a program funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that began in 2025, offers 12 weeks of immunology and virology research, mainly in that first summer.

The LSI Research Advanced Competency builds a hypothesis-driven project with an Ohio State faculty mentor, growing out of earlier summer or part-time research. College scholarships fund student research.

Hamilton Hall, the College's home, houses the Interdisciplinary Health Sciences Center (IHSC), where you learn alongside students from other health science disciplines. It has three stories of anatomy and surgical labs and classrooms with virtual reality simulators. There is also a 6,000-square-foot student forum, a 125-seat reading room and an electronic health record learning environment, steps from University Hospital and The James.

The Clinical Skills Education and Assessment Center (CSEAC) fills 18,000 square feet on the sixth floor of Prior Hall, the Health Sciences Library building. It has simulation bays set up as an operating room, an obstetric unit and critical care settings, plus procedure labs and ultrasound and surgical skills rooms. Procedures taught there include intubation, lumbar puncture, central line placement and wound suturing.

Standardized patient sessions run in the Ann Crowe Essig Patient Simulation Learning Laboratory on Prior Hall's lower level. The center uses LearningSpace, which records simulations and drafts evaluations against faculty rubrics for faculty review. In fall 2025, third-years piloted an ungraded practice OSCE with an AI-generated standardized patient that gave instant feedback.

Faculty portfolio coaches mentor you across medical school, reviewing your ePortfolio reflections, giving feedback and helping you set goals. You also join a learning community, introduced at orientation. The 2021 faculty handbook described 78 small groups, each with at least one faculty leader, meeting across all four years since 2007 to build academic and social support. A 2024 College brochure for MSTP students described groups of about 12 meeting once each block, with a new coach and a new group in the clinical years.

Learning specialists in the Office of Student Life help with study skills, time management and test-taking, at no cost and without a referral. They run Supplemental Instruction and Group Anatomy Tutoring for all Part 1 students and arrange peer and faculty tutoring. USMLE preparation sessions start in year 1, and students run board review sessions.

Student Life has an embedded licensed counselor, and the College contracts with Harding Hospital for psychological and psychiatric care at no cost to students. These providers play no part in evaluating students. Wellness events include weekly Time Out Tuesdays during Step 1 study and Rings & Things for third-years on rotations.

Career advising starts in Part 1 with the AAMC's Careers in Medicine program, with your coach and learning community leader as your first advisers. Later you work with specialty advisers and clinical track directors. The Residency Match Series begins early in year 3, and before your MSPE goes out in September a member of the dean's staff reviews it with you.