The University of Oklahoma College of Medicine MD program

Phase 1 is built from 12 courses, which the college calls bricks: short segments that build on each other, each followed by an exam. Many follow body systems, such as Cardiovascular, Respiratory, and Renal. The college calls this preclinical curriculum integrated. The MD page says basic science, clinical skills and patient-centered experiences are combined from day one, and lists lecture, lab, small-group learning and early clinical exposure for these 18 months.

Case-based learning (CBL) is a major format. Each case gives you patient information in stages, so your group has to suggest possible diagnoses, interpret test results and make management decisions as the picture changes. Science such as physiology, pharmacology and immunology is built into the case, which ties the course you are studying to the way a physician thinks about a patient.

Clerkships change how you learn, because you work on clinical teams with faculty and residents. Some structured teaching stays: the psychiatry clerkship, for example, adds case-based learning and simulation exercises.

Tulsa adds its own layer, and SCM students must complete the SCM-specific coursework to be promoted. Alongside lifestyle medicine, an SCM page last updated in March 2021 describes a monthly Student Academy where medical and physician assistant students work through topics such as diabetes and mental health. The week-long SCM Institute, held August 12-15 in 2025, puts students from different health professions in teams with local providers, service organizations and patients.

In Phase 1, scheduled time averages fewer than 28 hours a week across a semester, under college rules. That count includes required preparation shown on your schedule, such as assigned reading. Classes generally fall between 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m., Monday to Friday, with rare evening or weekend sessions.

A January 2026 sheet for faculty places CBL on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10:00 a.m. to noon in semesters 1 and 2. In semester 3 it moves to Wednesdays and Fridays at the same time. Clinical Medicine, PPD and teaching for your current course sit around those sessions.

Attendance is expected at all teaching and is mandatory at sessions your course directors mark as required. In Phase 1 you can take up to five discretionary days off a semester for personal reasons, under a college rule revised in October 2026. These stop in the clinical phase, where absences need approval, although time off to access health care is always excused.

An undated Oklahoma City MD program Events page describes first-year dissection teams of eight students. Each team meets its donor's family at the Anatomical Donor Memorial Lunch, which the college began in 2001. Students are prepared for the conversation and encouraged to learn the donor's life story. A memorial Service of Remembrance follows later.

The college's technical standards, revised March 2, 2026, say students must be able to observe demonstrations and take part in scientific experiments, including cadaver dissections. Donated bodies reach the college through its Willed Body Program.

You also meet anatomy on living people in the ultrasound labs. A September 2026 college article describes first-years scanning standardized patients and learning to tell muscles, nerves, arteries and vessels apart.

Patient contact starts in year 1 with standardized patients. At Oklahoma City's CSETC they are community members trained to play patients with different symptoms and personalities. There you practice taking a history, examining and communicating, including hard conversations such as delivering bad news. They give you feedback, and each encounter is recorded so you can review it with faculty.

An undated college page says preclinical students are formally scheduled for clinical experiences at various points. You can also sign up for extra student-led shadowing within OU Health, the college's academic health system. Shadowing means following a physician through a working day.

Once clerkships start, college rules revised in September 2026 treat you as a learner, not an employee, supervised at all times by a licensed health professional. You can take a history and do a basic exam with a supervisor immediately available on site. Intimate exams and invasive procedures need a supervisor physically with you.

College rules limit clinical work to 80 hours a week averaged over four weeks, with at least one day in seven free, also averaged. No shift may run more than 24 hours, and you must get at least 8 hours off between shifts and 14 after a 24-hour call. If you are too tired to work safely, you must say so and are released from duty without penalty.

In Phase 1, courses are graded Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory under a college rule revised in September 2026. Each course ends with an exam, and courses longer than two weeks add a low-stakes early warning assessment by the 25 percent mark. Policy 408 (revised June 21, 2023) makes exams closed, so you cannot keep copies of questions, and has you sit in-person exams at your home campus on your own laptop.

Clerkships are graded A to F, and in letter-graded courses a grade below C does not pass. The college's grading page gives clinical electives a Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory grade, and each syllabus states its scale. You get feedback by the midpoint of any course of four weeks or more, and a written narrative assessment after each core clerkship. Final grades are due within five weeks.

National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) subject exams, often called shelf exams, are standardized tests taken after a rotation. The psychiatry department says its clerkship is assessed by clinical evaluations, an OSCE and the NBME Psychiatry Subject Examination. College rules require every student to take and pass a standardized clinical skills assessment, the OSCE, before graduation. It is tied to the end of the core clerkships, and if you fall short you remediate and are assessed again.

USMLE Step 1 tests the sciences behind medicine, and Step 2 CK tests the clinical knowledge you need to care for patients under supervision. LCME accreditation is what makes OU students eligible to sit the USMLE. 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.

Under Policy 406.11 (revised June 7, 2026), the required Step 1 sitting follows Phase 2. Policy 406 (revised September 16, 2026) encourages Step 2 CK as soon as possible after Phase 2. It says you must take it no later than June 30 of the year in which you complete Phase 2. Because Phase 2 ends in December on the college's charts, ask Student Affairs how that date applies to your class.

On the current schedule, worked out from the Class of 2029 and 2030 charts, a student entering in 2027 would finish Phase 2 around December 2029. The required Step 1 sitting and Step 2 CK would both fall in the first half of 2030, about a year after the switch to designated testing dates. Only the optional Step 1 sitting after Phase 1 would fall near the switch, around the turn of 2029.

• Step 1 results: reported pass/fail since January 26, 2022.
• Step 1 limits: four attempts, all within 18 months of finishing Phase 2, or you are dismissed. A failure at the optional sitting still lets you enter Phase 2, with the retake after it. No pass by the end of the first Phase 3 semester means a leave of absence.
• Step 2 CK: a three-digit score, with a current minimum pass of 218. You must pass to be certified for the Match.
• Time limit: all graduation requirements within six years of starting, under Policy 406.11.
• Phase 1 failures: up to two remediation attempts for one failed course. Two or more failures in semesters 1 and 2 mean repeating the year. A failure given for missing attendance requirements cannot be remediated. Phase 1 must be finished within 30 months of starting, with no more than two semesters repeated.
• Failed part of a clinical course, such as a written exam: up to two remediation attempts. Failing the second means a non-passing course grade.
• Failed clinical course: academic probation and a repeat within one calendar year.
• Class quartiles: calculated separately for each track from percentage course grades weighted by clock hours, after Phases 1 and 2.
• Graduation honors: Special Distinction for the top 5 percent of each track and Distinction for the rest of the top sixth, using recorded Phase 1 and 2 grades. 3+3 students are not eligible.
• Policy 432, last revised February 1, 2023, before FrontierMD, has second-year students take the NBME Comprehensive Basic Sciences Exam near the end of the preclinical curriculum.

Your track decides where you spend medical school, and it is set before you start, because the tracks differ from the first year. Under college rules, applicants offered a place state a preference in January and can describe any special circumstances. The Admissions Board fills each track by preference and availability, and declining your assigned track rescinds your offer. After you accept, you can ask in writing to change track, and the board decides. Wait-list offers are for whichever track has space, and declining one removes you from the list.

In Oklahoma City, the college sits at the center of OU Health, formed in 2021. The campus About page says students and residents train at on-site institutions including the OU Health University of Oklahoma Medical Center, Oklahoma Children's Hospital OU Health and the Veterans Affairs Medical Center. The MD page shortens the first to OU Health Medical Center. The About page adds that affiliate training programs run at hospitals and clinics around the state. The neurology department's undated page lists services at OU, Oklahoma Children's Hospital and the VA.

Under a college rule revised in October 2026, Tulsa students complete the clinical curriculum through the LIC. It depends on continuity with patient panels and preceptors, the physicians who teach you in practice. You join at set entry points, so a missed start may cost six months or more. An SCM page last updated in October 2023, before the July 2025 launch, says all clerkships run together across the year. The MD page lists large community hospitals, OU Health clinics and community physician practices.

SCM's residency page, updated in October 2026, names Hillcrest, St. Francis and Ascension St. John as partner hospitals for resident training. Undated catalog pages from the older curriculum name the same three for the Tulsa clinical years. SCM's emergency medicine department, on a page updated in June 2026, says OU students from both campuses can take its rotation, typically four weeks with 15 shifts at Hillcrest Medical Center.

In the clerkship phase, Tulsa students also work in the free Bedlam Clinics, supervised by faculty. Bedlam E runs on Tuesday and Thursday evenings for acute and episodic care, and Bedlam L serves chronically ill patients. The first Bedlam evening clinic opened in 2003, and MD and physician assistant students staff the clinics. SCM's curriculum page, updated in December 2025, makes completing all required Bedlam E clinics a graduation requirement.

College rules have the Office of Community Partnerships review external sites for required rotations. Any required site more than 60 miles from your home campus must provide housing with a private lockable bedroom and a full bathroom. The rule does not cover a required rotation at the other OU campus, such as a Tulsa student rotating in Oklahoma City. An undated handbook passage on the older third year describes a random lottery that sets the order in which students pick schedule templates.

You take six weeks of selectives in Phase 2, as two-week rotations, and options differ by campus. The current catalog includes anesthesiology, dermatology, emergency medicine, neurosurgery, ophthalmology, orthopedic surgery, otorhinolaryngology, pathology, radiology and urology, plus medical informatics in Tulsa. A four-week Tribal Health selective in Tulsa is listed for fourth-years.

The Oklahoma City electives catalog lists inpatient, outpatient, research and special study versions by department, mostly four weeks long. It also lists sub-internships in many specialties.

Away rotations fall under a college rule revised in September 2026. You can do community-based electives at in-state sites, or away electives at another US medical school, usually arranged through the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) Visiting Student Learning Opportunities service. You apply at least 60 days ahead and pay your own travel, housing and fees. Off-campus electives are not allowed during or after Transition to Residency, or in your graduation month.

The same rule caps you at six electives in any one discipline, not counting research and special study electives. For international study, fourth-years in good academic standing can apply to rotate at an affiliated program in September or February. Funding may be available, but not for every applicant. College officials must also visit international affiliates regularly to check safety and supervision.

The MD/PhD program runs jointly with the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation and is offered on the Oklahoma City track. You enroll in the College of Medicine and the Graduate College at the same time and receive tuition and a stipend. It runs for eight years, starting with 10 weeks of lab research the summer before you matriculate.

The program's design page, undated and still built on two preclinical years, shows medical school first, then three or four years of graduate work, then the clinical years. Graduate options are Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Cell Biology, Microbiology and Immunology, Pathology, and Physiology. Students must apply for an F30 award from the National Institutes of Health. On intake, the Dual-Degree page says two students a year and the MD/PhD page says up to three.

Policy 409, last revised September 4, 2018, describes Master of Public Health (MPH) coursework in what is now the Hudson College of Public Health, from one course up to a master's degree. It calls this a flexible program rather than a true dual or joint degree. Its suggested timing assumes the older curriculum, so check the current arrangement with the college.

The college presents research as a choice that depends on your specialty and goals. Many departments list four-week research or scholarship electives. Under college rules, pre-approved projects and summer activities can appear on your transcript as Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory, with no credit and no effect on GPA or class rank. They can also be highlighted in your Medical Student Performance Evaluation, the summary sent with residency applications.

In its 2025 cycle, the Family Medicine Summer Research Experience gave about 10 rising second-years a seven-week primary care project with a mentor and a $2,000 stipend. The college held a Research Symposium on November 6, 2026, and a student research portal and specialty research liaisons help you find projects.

A leave rule revised in September 2026 lets you ask for time away for a research experience or another degree, such as an MPH. Leave normally lasts up to one academic year, though research or approved dual-degree leave can run longer. Research leave counts toward the six-year limit, while time enrolled in approved dual-degree coursework does not.

In Oklahoma City, preclinical life centers on the Basic Sciences Education Building, where nearly all class-based teaching happens. An undated college page says each module has a home there, with a desk and personal storage for each student, computer workstations and a space for small-group discussion.

The CSETC is a 22,000-square-foot simulation center on the health campus, with simulation suites, surgical skills labs and exam rooms. It reports more than 40,000 hours of simulation a year and is an American College of Surgeons Accredited Education Institute.

The Interprofessional Sonography Laboratory opened in 2024 at the College of Allied Health and has nine imaging stations. It offers self-study open lab hours several days a month, and a faculty advisor says interested students can use it throughout all four years.

SCM is on the OU-Tulsa Schusterman Campus, 60 acres the university bought after a 1999 gift. OU-Tulsa lists a Simulation Center that serves medicine, physician assistant and other programs, on a page last updated in November 2023. A 2014 OU News article on the groundbreaking described plans for a 16,000-square-foot Tandy Education Center. It was to have 10 exam rooms, two intensive care and emergency rooms and space to train standardized patients, and be open to all SCM students.

The Student Success Program's learning specialists help with study strategies, test-taking and time management. Any student having academic difficulty can get one-on-one coaching, for coursework or Step exams. Peer Assisted Learning (PAL) offers free one-on-one tutoring in Phase 1 from students who did well in that course. You are also encouraged to share your academic performance with your Learning Community mentor.

The Career Advising and Mentor Program (CAMP) gives Oklahoma City students a clinical faculty advisor in their chosen field, who helps with schedules, residency applications and interviews. On SCM's CAMP page, last updated in January 2021, first- and second-years meet a physician mentor in groups of three to five. From year 3, an attending, or senior physician, at the Bedlam Longitudinal Clinic mentors you and works with you twice a month.

Student Counseling Services offers confidential counseling at no cost, and those who treat you take no part in your academic evaluation. You can also ask for academic counseling from someone with no role in assessment or advancement decisions. Wellness workshops run each year, and Talk About It Tuesday is a monthly student gathering, with therapy dogs a favorite.