The Saint Louis University School of Medicine MD program

The curriculum rests on three pillars: basic science, health systems science (how health care is organized, paid for and made safer) and clinical medicine. The school emphasizes active learning, where you apply concepts with classmates in class. Besides the methods below, its curriculum pages list case-based tutorials and virtual patients that use AI and virtual reality to give instant feedback.

Foundation courses come first, from molecular biology and anatomy to pathology, immunology and pharmacology. From the spring of year 1 you study one organ system at a time. Each organ module ends with a National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) exam. Organ modules include simulation scenarios in which you turn a history and examination into a diagnosis and treatment plan.

Longitudinal courses run in parallel: interviewing and physical diagnosis, ethics, medicine and society, patient safety, quality improvement and leadership in the business of medicine. From the class entering in fall 2026, a nutrition thread on food as medicine runs through the organ modules, especially cardiovascular, pulmonary and renal. It is part of at least 40 hours of nutrition education, or a competency-based equivalent.

In the clerkships, teaching moves to wards and clinics, with sessions such as weekly evidence-based medicine teaching in internal medicine.

In the pre-clerkship phase, teaching usually runs from 8am to 5pm, Monday to Friday, with on average 8 hours a week set aside for unscheduled study. Pre-recorded lectures and reading are blocked into the schedule. No week may include more than 4 hours of required activity outside those hours, for example when standardized patients are only available then.

Attendance is required at clinical and standardized patient sessions, at active learning such as team-based learning and simulation, and at small groups and lectures marked required. So are faculty sessions in your learning community, one of six houses. Vacations must fall in designated breaks, with at most 4 days of non-medical planned absence in year 1 and 2 days in the fall of year 2.

In clerkships, duty-hour rules cap clinical and educational work at 80 hours a week, averaged over four weeks, with at least one day off a week on average.

Anatomy is part of Normal Structure and Function (NSF), which runs from about August to mid-November of year 1 on the school's 2025 curriculum map. NSF combines gross anatomy, histology (tissues under the microscope), embryology, neuroscience and physiology in three modules, Musculoskeletal, Thorax and Head, and Abdomen and Pelvis, each graded separately.

You learn gross anatomy by cadaveric dissection of bodies donated through SLU's Gift Body Program, run by the Center for Anatomical Science and Education (CASE). An October 2024 SLU News story described first-year students' hours in the anatomy lab with donated bodies, and in October 2025 the program's director stressed the anatomy learned through cadaveric dissection. Faculty letters about fall 2020 describe first-years dissecting a whole-body donor with dissecting partners.

Graduate students in an advanced CASE dissection course also prepare prosections, specimens dissected in advance to display particular structures, for medical, graduate and allied health anatomy courses. In the spring, Brain and Behavior revisits the nervous system, combining clinical neuroanatomy with neurology and psychiatry.

Each fall, first-year students organize an interfaith memorial service for the donors; the 2025 service honored 355. Donors' remains are later cremated and buried in SLU's plot at Saints Peter and Paul Cemetery.

Your first patients are standardized patients. In Clinical Interviewing, in the fall of year 1, you interview them and learn to adapt a history to a patient's social circumstances. Clinical Diagnosis, from about February of year 1 into year 2, teaches the physical examination system by system, from neurologic to pelvic exams. Phase 1 also brings cardiovascular, thoracic, gallbladder and vessel ultrasound in the Clinical Skills Center.

The school says you treat real patients during your first two years, and clinical electives are one route. Urban Community Health, a first-year elective tied to the community health distinction, uses elective half-days from January for clinical work at local community health centers. An Elective in Women's Health covers labor and delivery, the operating room and clinics, and Neonatology puts you on newborn intensive care rounds.

The school's 2023 strategic plan report described first-year students rotating with third-year students, and its 2025 curriculum map labels the year 2 strand Clinical Diagnosis and Preceptorship, meaning time alongside a practicing physician. You can also volunteer with the mobile health clinic and at Casa de Salud before clerkships begin.

The first three semesters are pass/fail. Each course weights its assessments to a score out of 100%. A Pass needs a score of 75% or more, 65% to 74.99% is In Progress and needs remediation, and below 65% is a Fail. Organ system courses have at least a mid-course and a final exam, the final is always an NBME exam, and NBME exams make up at least half the grade.

To track Step 1 readiness you take CBSEs: a baseline in the spring of year 1, two in the fall of year 2 and a final one in November. You report all practice test scores, which learning specialists check weekly against readiness benchmarks. Under the 2026-27 handbook, you also need a first CBSE score above 40 or an NBME exam average above 85 before moving into year 2. Meet neither and you must join a Step 1 preparation program in the summer before year 2; meet only one and you are strongly encouraged to.

In the core clerkships you receive two grades, and both go on your transcript. One comes only from the NBME subject exam, or shelf exam, a national multiple-choice test in that specialty. The 75th national percentile or higher earns Honors, the 50th to 74th Near Honors and the 5th to 49th Pass. The other is for clinical performance, which can include professionalism and an OSCE, and directors aim for about 30% Honors, 40% Near Honors and 30% Pass.

A shelf score below the 5th percentile becomes In Progress. You then study for two weeks in the next free slot in your schedule, which can be a career exploration block, and retake the exam. If no slot is left, this happens at the end of the clerkship phase. Failing it a second time means repeating the clerkship. Post-clerkship grades rest mainly on evaluations from attendings and residents.

Step 1, the basic science exam, has been reported only as pass or fail since January 26, 2022. Step 2 CK tests the clinical science needed for patient care, and you must pass both to graduate. LCME accreditation is what makes students of an M.D. program like this one eligible to sit them. You sit Step 1 after your last pre-clerkship exam and before January's clerkship orientation, and Step 2 CK within 8 weeks of finishing the clerkship year.

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 2027 would have the dedicated Step 1 block from late November to about December 20, 2028. You must sit Step 1 before clerkship orientation in early January 2029, so it would fall just before the switch, or at the latest right as it begins. Step 2 CK would come in about January or February 2030, after it.

• These dates are projected from the 2026-27 calendar and the 2026-27 student handbook, the newest the school has posted, and the USMLE has encouraged schools to review rules on when students must test.
• Students who have not sat Step 1 by the end of the dedicated block are monitored on Academic Watch. Sitting it more than six weeks after clerkship orientation shows as a gap on your MSPE and costs you your lottery-set schedule and the chance to be a student chief. More than 12 weeks moves you to the next graduating class.
• OSCEs in select organ modules and in clerkships end in a graded write-up of the history and examination.
• Clerkship grades also decide eligibility for Alpha Omega Alpha, the national medical honor society: students in the top 30% are eligible, and 20% of the class is elected.

All the core clerkship sites the school lists are in the St. Louis area. The main teaching hospital, SSM Health Saint Louis University Hospital, opened across Grand Boulevard from the school in September 2020. It has 365 beds, is a Level I trauma center in both Missouri and Illinois, and is staffed exclusively by SLUCare Physician Group, SSM Health's academic medical group.

SSM Health Cardinal Glennon Children's Hospital, a Level I pediatric trauma center within walking distance, is the main pediatrics site. SSM Health St. Mary's Hospital – St. Louis, a 525-bed hospital in Richmond Heights with a Level III neonatal intensive care unit, is home to the school's obstetrics and gynecology department and its family medicine residency.

A student lottery, which the handbook calls the grid lottery, sets your rotation order. Each rotation starts with a one-day orientation, and an education coordinator manages your schedule and evaluations. Pediatrics uses an online intake form and site availability to build a more personalized schedule.

Most electives are expected to be at SSM Health Saint Louis University Hospital and elsewhere in the SSM Health network. Acting internships also run at St. Luke's Hospital (internal medicine) and at Mercy Hospital St. Louis (burn surgery, critical care and family medicine). The catalog still calls Mercy by its pre-2011 name, St. John's Mercy Medical Center, or Mercy Medical Center for short.

Pre-clerkship electives fill elective periods in years 1 and 2 and cover shadowing, research and department courses. Besides the clinical electives above, the 2026-27 catalog lists Introduction to Surgery, with skills labs, a cadaver lab on intra-abdominal anatomy and operating room observation. It also offers sports medicine shadowing and Acting Like a Doctor, which compares becoming a physician to an actor taking on a role.

In the clerkship year, two separate two-week career exploration electives, graded credit or no credit, let you try fields outside the core clerkships. Common choices are anesthesiology, dermatology, diagnostic radiology, emergency medicine, radiation oncology, physical medicine and rehabilitation, and research.

The post-clerkship phase holds 36 weeks of electives. At least 24 must be direct patient care, and up to 12 can be non-direct patient care, often structured research with a principal investigator. Options range from Wilderness Medicine, two weeks of field skills with an overnight camping trip, to point-of-care ultrasound and a fourth-year nutrition elective with 19 hours of teaching.

In your final year you can take away rotations at other US academic hospitals through Visiting Student Learning Opportunities (VSLO), a service of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). For an international elective, the school encourages its Global Health: Cross Cultural/International Experiences elective, spent at a site abroad that you choose. It also points you to two scholarships, the Dr. Tom Dooley Memorial International Elective Scholarship and the Everett M. Sugarbaker School of Medicine Scholarship.

The medical distinctions on the school's site are Community Health, Global Health, Healthcare Ethics, Medical Education, Medical Spanish, Research, Wellness and Arts in Medicine, with details of the last still to come. The school's 2025 report says the distinction pathways running that year each offered first- and second-year electives, seminars, experiential activities and summer opportunities.

Research is encouraged but optional, apart from one course. From the Class of 2029, which entered in July 2025, everyone takes Introduction to Research in year 1, on research in evidence-based medicine, clinical research principles, regulatory requirements and research ethics. Optional projects range from lab and clinical studies to case reports, reviews and quality improvement work.

The six-week Summer Research Fellowship between years 1 and 2 pairs you with a faculty mentor on a project you design, with 30 to 40 stipends available; 28 students took part in 2025. Research electives run in every phase, and the school funds up to $750 per student for conference presentations.

The Research Distinction spans all four years and ends with a presentation at the Alpha Omega Alpha Student Research Forum in year 4. That forum, held since 1966, starts with posters. Five or six finalists then give 15-minute talks, and the first-prize winner goes on to the National Student Research Forum in Galveston, Texas.

The M.D./Ph.D. program trains physician-scientists in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Molecular Microbiology and Immunology, Pharmacology and Physiology, or Health Care Ethics. Its timeline is about 1.5 years of medical school, including Step 1, then four years of Ph.D. study and 2.5 years of clinical training; the handbook expects both degrees in 7 to 9 years. The ethics Ph.D. is expected to take three to five years.

The M.D./MBA and M.D./M.P.H. each add one year. You apply in your first two years of medical school. After the first three years, including the clerkships and Steps 1 and 2, you spend a year on the second degree, then return to finish the M.D. The MBA is SLU's one-year, 48-credit program, with a seven-day study trip abroad. The Master of Public Health is an accelerated 42-credit degree over four consecutive semesters.

The school sits on SLU's health campus south of the main campus, beside the nursing and allied health schools, with Schwitalla Hall as its administrative home. The 30,000-square-foot Health Sciences Education Union brings medical, nursing, allied health, public health and graduate dental students together. Its tiered 225-seat auditorium lets students move around to form teams.

The Clinical Skills Center moved in 2011 to a 5,200-square-foot space in the Education Union, with ten exam rooms equipped like a clinic.

The Simulation Center, in the Margaret McCormick Doisy Learning Resources Center, gained 700 square feet of high-fidelity space in a 2024 remodel. It has adult and pediatric manikins with realistic vital signs and examination findings, task trainers for procedures from central lines to lumbar punctures, and American Heart Association life support courses.

The Medical Center Library has two liaison librarians for the School of Medicine, and the Doisy Research Center has 80 research labs on eight floors. The Caroline Building holds a wellness lounge and two fitness spaces. The school's strategic plan calls for a new Health Education Center for active learning and simulation.

You join one of six learning communities, called houses, named after figures from the school's history: Irene D. Long, Michael T. Railey, James Swierkosz, Cindy Fairchild, William Sly and Edward Doisy. Each has five or six physician faculty mentors and third-year student leads, and houses mix students across classes.

On arrival you are assigned a faculty mentor, a practicing physician from your house, who stays with you through medical school; you meet at least twice a year. Before residency interviews, every student also does a mock interview with learning community faculty.

The Office of Learning Services has learning specialists for one-to-one help with study strategies, time management, test-taking and stress. It runs course previews, Step 1 reviews and weekly small-group tutoring led by upper-year students. One-to-one tutoring is available for up to an hour a week and ten hours a year, with more on request.

Professional and Personal Development is a required series over the first three years on study skills, test anxiety, professionalism, wellness and Step preparation. In the clerkship year it meets every 8 weeks, with small groups to discuss hard experiences on rotations.

The Behavioral Health Program offers confidential counseling at no out-of-pocket cost, by telehealth, on campus or at the St. Louis Behavioral Medicine Institute. A Director of Well-Being joined in April 2025, and the school surveys student well-being twice a year.

Career advising adds specialty advisors in each department, interest groups, AAMC Careers in Medicine workshops in years 1 and 2, and an individual meeting with a dean of student affairs to prepare your MSPE.