The Oregon Health & Science University School of Medicine MD program

Foundations teaching runs in seven blocks, each built around a body system or theme. Subjects such as anatomy, physiology, pharmacology and ethics are threads, running through the whole curriculum instead of ending with one course. In Cardiopulmonary & Renal, for example, you study how the heart, lungs and kidneys work together, then learn to read clinical data and use it to choose treatment.

The school picks the format to fit the goal. Its handbook says these may include presentations, team-based and problem-based learning (small groups working through problems together), case discussions, simulation, online modules and service learning. Traditional lectures are limited in favor of small groups and self-directed study. In-person attendance is expected, sessions marked as required are tracked, and time-off requests of more than a full week are routinely denied because the phase is lock-step.

Each block ends with an enrichment week after the final assessments, for firming up core concepts, retaking anything you did not pass and self-directed learning. If you have no retakes, you pick at least three sessions from a schedule, and you can propose your own.

In the clinical phase you learn mainly on clinical teams, with formal midpoint feedback on every core rotation. Intersessions pull you back for two weeks at a time to join basic, clinical and health systems science around one topic, through patient cases, group projects and reflective writing.

Required Foundations work, including set pre-reading, is held to 32 hours a week or less, averaged over a block, and every regular instructional week keeps at least 8 hours free for independent learning. The pattern below comes from the Foundations template in the September 2026 teachers handbook, stamped as updated in March 2021.

• Mornings, 8 to 12: large and small groups, Monday to Thursday in the first two blocks and Monday to Wednesday after that.
• Afternoons: one weekly Clinical Skill Lab from 1 to 4, on Monday or Tuesday in the first two blocks and on Tuesday after that.
• Preceptorship: from the winter of year 1, half the class goes on Monday afternoons and half on Thursday mornings.
• Wednesday afternoons: sessions from OASIS, OHSU's advising system.
• Fridays: assessments averaging two hours in the morning, then patient panels or active-learning sessions.

Foundations of Medical Anatomy (FOMA) runs inside the Foundations blocks. Sessions are in person, required and tracked, and are typically taught at the VirtuOHSU Simulation Center in Richard Jones Hall on Marquam Hill. The handbook names three settings: FOMA labs, prosections and human cadaver dissection in the second-floor anatomy lab.

The anatomy follows the blocks. Fundamentals covers terminology and the major organ systems, and Skin, Bones & Musculature covers the spine and limbs. Hormones & Digestion covers the digestive tract and endocrine system, and Developing Human covers the pelvis and reproductive anatomy. Missing more than one anatomy session in a block, or more than two overall, triggers a required check-in with an assistant dean.

Peer tutors run small-group sessions in the anatomy lab. Supporting anatomy teaching is the main purpose of OHSU's Body Donation Program. Later, a two-week Anatomy Teaching Elective lets advanced students teach classmates.

You get access to Epic, the electronic health record, in your first week. Introduction to Preceptorship follows in the fall of year 1. Before the winter term you state your preferences and OHSU assigns you a preceptor, a physician or advanced practice provider, for four hours, one half-day a week.

This is your first authentic clinical experience, where you interact with patients and learn to join a health care team. Preceptors work across specialties, and many are based away from OHSU, so you arrange your own transport. Preceptorship continues through Foundations, pausing for about six weeks each summer.

Full-time clinical work starts after Transition to Clinical Experiences in February of year 2. On rotations you take histories, examine patients, write notes and pend orders, meaning you draft them for a supervising physician to review and sign. An attending physician stays responsible for every patient. Each core keeps a log of required encounters and skills, such as a newborn exam in pediatrics.

Clinical weeks are longer. The AY2025-26 catalog counts a core rotation as 72 hours of work a week. Duty-hour rules limit you to 80 hours a week on site, averaged over four weeks, with at least one full day off a week, averaged over a month. A single shift should ideally stay within 24 hours, though a clerkship can extend it to 30.

You do not log your hours, but each clerkship evaluation asks whether the limits were broken. Thanksgiving Day is the only scheduled holiday in the clinical phase.

Every course in YourMD goes on your transcript as Pass or No Pass, so there are no class quartiles. The MSPE carries narrative comments from course directors, your course results and your progress on core tasks. It leaves out your Step scores.

In Foundations, each block's assessment components must be passed separately, at 70 percent for graded work. For students entering from Summer 2026 on, weekly computer-based quizzes of about 25 to 35 questions count toward passing, with your lowest score dropped. About one to three skills assessments a week cover clinical, health systems and basic science. Midway through a block, a formative exam, for feedback only, replaces that week's quiz.

On core rotations you are assessed on clinical performance, skills and knowledge, self-directed learning and professionalism. Each part must be passed, so failing one means a No Pass. Testing intersessions add the seven NBME shelf exams, taken remotely in terms you register for and finished by week 6 of summer term in your final year. Each is graded Pass/No Pass against a set threshold, a fail must be remediated to a passing score, and the results are listed on your MSPE.

USMLE Step 1 has been reported as pass/fail only since January 2022. You sit it during the five-week study course at the start of winter term in year 2. You must post a pass to continue in the clinical phase, and within a year of finishing Foundations.

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 2027 entrant would sit Step 1 in late January or early February 2029, shortly after the switch.

Step 2 Clinical Knowledge (CK), the next exam in the series, has a school deadline: a pass by December 31 before a June graduation, so December 31, 2030 for a 2031 graduate. On the current schedule, the curriculum template shows the exam near the end of the third 12 months, about summer 2030. OHSU strongly encourages a posted score before residency applications; results can take up to eight weeks. An optional 1-credit course adds study time in your test term, and you can request up to two days off.

• Block exams: each block ends with an OHSU exam of about 50 questions and a final skills exam, which typically includes one OSCE. A formative NBME exam of about 100 questions guides your Step 1 preparation.
• Retests: these nearly always happen in the enrichment week, and a passed retest leaves only a Pass on your transcript. Needing retests in two or more Foundations components brings a referral that can lead to an Academic Warning. Failing a retest means a No Pass and repeating the block the next year.
• A failed Step 1 means Academic Probation and usually a leave of absence while you study for the retake. A third failed attempt, or no pass by the start of winter term a year after your study period began, brings you before the Medical Student Progress Board for a possible dismissal hearing. The board reviews academic progress and professional behavior.
• A failed Step 2 CK also means Academic Probation. Three failed attempts, or no pass by your graduation term, bring the same review.
• A No Pass on a core rotation goes to the Progress Board, which approves an individual remediation plan.
• Core intersessions have four separate parts: attendance, written reflection, a quiz of about 50 questions with a 70 percent pass mark, and presentations or group projects.
• The Clinical Performance Examination is required to graduate and tests history taking, physical exam, communication and clinical reasoning.

Rotations run at OHSU and the Portland Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Center, and at community and regional sites. A lottery sets your schedule, and you can swap a core with a classmate up to 12 weeks ahead. Some core places at residency partners are arranged with OHSU's Office of Curriculum and Student Affairs before the lottery.

Before each rotation you submit site preferences, and the clinical coordinator makes the final assignment, balancing schedules and site availability. You can ask to change for hardship, such as caring for a family member, but lack of transportation and pet care do not qualify. The September 2026 teachers handbook gives you two business days from your assignment to ask. A refusal can be appealed within two business days to the Associate Dean for Undergraduate Medical Education, whose decision is final.

Expect some weeks away from Portland. A rural site must be at least 10 miles from the center of a population center of 40,000 or more, the Oregon Office of Rural Health definition. Assigned housing comes at no extra cost for sites 40 miles or more, or a one-hour drive, from the Portland area. The Office of Undergraduate Medical Education does not pay travel or mileage, though the AY2025-26 catalog says rural family medicine rotations may offer reimbursement, depending on availability.

At the Campus for Rural Health, in Klamath Falls, Northeast Oregon or the South Coast, you live and work alongside students from other OHSU programs. On your first rotation there you also take a 1-credit interprofessional course of about 36 hours, helping develop and evaluate a project the community has identified, such as a Union County warming station.

You need at least 34 elective credits, and at least 22 must be clinical. The rest can be clinical, non-clinical, research or extra scholarly project work. Up to 4 credits of non-clinical electives from Foundations count, with options in the 2025-26 Program Requirements Guide such as street medicine, medical Spanish and labor and delivery skills.

The AY2025-26 elective catalog, the copy linked from the MD curriculum page, has 368 elective listings, most lasting two or four weeks, including 51 sub-internships. You can also design a special elective with a faculty sponsor, at OHSU or the VA.

Away rotations, typically at institutions outside Oregon, are electives too. Up to three count, at 1 credit a week, but they cannot replace a core and they do not appear on your MSPE. Submit the request form at least six months ahead.

International electives for credit come after Foundations and Step 1, and usually after all seven cores. They need multiple approvals and an OHSU faculty sponsor, and locations under State Department travel advisories are excluded. Up to 9 clinical elective credits can count, and you buy your own malpractice insurance. OHSU's global health programs include a four-week clinical rotation in Bangkok, Thailand.

• Oregon FIRST: applications typically open in the summer of year 3, with selection in December and a start around late August of your final year.
• AHEC Scholars: a two-year Area Health Education Center certificate program for future work in rural and urban underserved communities, with 40 hours of teaching and 40 hours of community-based learning a year.
• Native Health Experience: for selected students, this runs from the spring of year 1 to graduation. It includes a 2-credit American Indian and Alaska Native health course and at least four weeks at tribal health sites.
• Bridges Collaborative Care Clinic: a student-run interprofessional clinic for underserved people in the Portland area, open since 2017. The 2025-26 Program Requirements Guide lists a pre-clinical elective based there.

Every standard MD student completes a scholarly project. You work with a lead from one of five areas: basic research and biomedical engineering; clinical research; epidemiology, community and global health; ethics, quality improvement and education; or health law, business and health policy.

The MD/PhD is a fully funded Medical Scientist Training Program of seven to eight years. You complete Foundations, pass Step 1 and take Transition to Clinical Experiences, then join a graduate program in Behavioral Systems Neuroscience, Biomedical Engineering, Biomedical Informatics, Neuroscience or Biomedical Sciences. After your dissertation you return for clinical training, including an eight-week Clinical and Translational Research Experience.

The five-year MD-MPH runs with the OHSU-PSU School of Public Health, with a concentration in Epidemiology or Health Management and Policy. You can only join at first admission to the MD, and you begin with an epidemiology course the summer before medical school. After passing Step 1 you spend a concentrated MPH year, typically from September of your third academic year, then finish your clinical work and a practice project.

The six-year MD-OMS program admits two to three students a year and combines the MD with oral and maxillofacial surgery residency training through the School of Dentistry, with its own modified MD requirements.

The Physician-Scientist Experience offers extended research time, with applications opening each November. The five-month option fits inside four years and earns 18 credits, 6 of them toward the scholarly project. The one-year option is a leave of absence to earn a Master of Clinical Research, so you graduate five years after entry. Both follow Step 1.

The Pathology Year Experience is a one-year leave of absence, typically starting in the spring of your second or third year, once you have passed Step 1. You work at the level of a first-year resident in anatomic pathology, studying surgical pathology and autopsy cases with pathologists. Three students take part each year, with a salary stipend, and the year earns no credit toward the MD.

Foundations classes meet in the Robertson Life Sciences Building on the South Waterfront, which OHSU shares with Oregon State University and Portland State University. The MD program's main office is there too. The Portland Aerial Tram, a six-minute walk away, connects the waterfront to Marquam Hill.

The Mark Richardson Interprofessional Simulation Center on the Portland waterfront covers 20,000 square feet, with eight simulation suites and 20 clinical exam rooms. On Marquam Hill, the 7,500-square-foot VirtuOHSU center in Richard Jones Hall has a 16-table anatomy dissection lab, a microsurgery suite, laparoscopy stations and virtual reality simulators.

In Portland you arrange your own off-campus housing, with OHSU classifieds to help you search. For rotations, the Office of Learner Placement and Housing coordinates furnished accommodation.

OASIS, short for Outreach, Advising, Support, and Identity formation for Students, was set up in January 2021. Faculty advisors cover academics, careers, life and wellness, and diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging. You must meet an academic advisor at least twice each academic year, and a career advisor at least twice a year from July of year 2. Before the end of the Fundamentals enrichment week, you also meet a wellness or diversity advisor.

Life and wellness conversations stay out of your academic record and are confidential, unless they raise a reportable issue such as harassment or a risk of harm. Academic advisors never grade you. If your Foundations scores slip, they email you with an offer of help, and you decide what to use.

Career advising runs through six pods grouped by specialty, and your career advisor helps you find a residency specialty advisor in the relevant department. Formal peer tutoring runs across the program, with block previews, exam reviews, Step 1 and Step 2 CK sessions and anatomy lab tutoring. More than 40 student interest groups are open to medical students.