The SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University College of Medicine MD program

Foundations is taught in six interdisciplinary units rather than separate subject courses. Disciplines such as gross anatomy and biochemistry are folded into units built on foundational concepts (Units 1 to 3) or organ systems (Units 4 to 6). Normal function is taught close to the diseases that disrupt it, rather than normal function in year 1 and disease in year 2. The same clinical cases carry both the science and the patient-care skills.

Each unit runs a series of problem-based learning (PBL) cases through its weeks, alongside interactive lectures, labs and clinical skills sessions. Lectures fill the largest share of scheduled hours in the 2026-27 Unit 6 calendar. Weekly formative quizzes modeled on the end-of-unit exams track your progress. There is no separate doctoring course: skills such as interviewing are taught inside the units and assessed at the end of each. Research skills thread through too, from hypothesis testing and scientific writing in year 1 to data analysis in year 2.

The curriculum is mapped to six competencies, modeled on those residency programs use: patient care, medical knowledge, practice-based learning and improvement, interpersonal and communication skills, professionalism and systems-based practice. In the clinical years you learn on wards and in clinics as part of a team of attending physicians, the senior doctors in charge, plus residents and nurses. Teaching comes through supervised patient care, teaching rounds, conferences and lectures.

Scheduled teaching fills only part of the week. The 2026-27 Unit 6 calendar shows totals of about 11.5 to 25 scheduled hours a week, and the program's FAQ says required activities stay at or under 25 hours. The class is split into two halves for labs and small groups.

A full week in Unit 6 might hold 10.5 hours of lectures, 4.5 hours of lab, 4.5 hours of PBL and 2.5 hours of POPS, 22.5 hours in all with a short unit introduction. Other weeks bring 3-hour bedside sessions in hospital, with travel time built in, clinical skills labs, patient presentations or protected study time. Short online modules include a 30-minute biostatistics session on screening tests and reviews of health insurance, Medicaid and Medicare.

In the August 2026 Unit 1 calendar, week 1 opened with the first two PBL sessions on a case called Ms. Alvarez, sessions on vital signs and the cardiac exam, lectures on the circulation and a graded weekly quiz. Week 3 brought an orientation to the anatomy lab, an introduction to dissection, a histology introduction, a POPS session on homeostasis, a patient presentation and the White Coat Ceremony.

Anatomy is taught inside the Foundations units rather than as a separate course, and you dissect. In Unit 1 you start with prosections, then perform dissections that show the musculoskeletal system and what injury does to it, with radiographs and ultrasound alongside.

The program's FAQ says the anatomy lab includes radiology and imaging and is tied directly to learning the physical exam. Unit 3 covers the anatomy of the head and neck, including the eye, alongside examination of the head, eyes, ears, nose and throat. Unit 4 explores the gastrointestinal tract through dissection.

Dissection carries into year 2. In the Unit 5 calendar for August 2026, one half of the class dissects the thorax and removes the lungs while the other half removes the heart. Each half then teaches the other, and both study the inside of the heart. Unit 6 studies the brain in five brain labs, using imaging and virtual microscopy. Before practical exams, upper-year students run gross anatomy mock practicals three times a year and histology reviews for groups of about 20.

Clinical skills start in Unit 1: listening to heart and lung sounds, feeling for the major organs, measuring pulse and breathing rate, and learning how to take a history. You also meet standardized patients one to one, and patients come into class to describe living with their conditions.

From Unit 2, in the fall of year 1, you work with a physician preceptor in their office, practicing interviews and parts of the physical exam. The program's FAQ describes an afternoon there every other week, continuing through the year, with preceptors assigned partly by location rather than chosen by you.

Year 2 takes you onto hospital wards. In Units 5 and 6 you take histories from hospitalized patients, examine them and prepare a differential diagnosis, a list of possible diagnoses, with an initial plan. Unit 5 opens with onboarding for these bedside sessions. The 2024-25 handbook says students in years 1 and 2 work under direct and indirect supervision on low-acuity tasks, such as taking a history.

Outside the timetable, students help run the Brooklyn Free Clinic, a student-run clinic that gives free care to uninsured local residents under the guidance of volunteer physicians.

Foundations is graded pass/fail, and the program's FAQ says there is no internal ranking. Grades are given by competency: under the 2024-25 handbook, you must meet expectations in each competency assessed in a unit, and systems-based practice is not graded in Foundations. A shortfall is recorded as an Identified Deficiency (ID), which you remediate through a professional learning plan before moving on.

Each unit ends with summative assessments. Besides multiple-choice exams, the school uses essays, lab practicals and OSCEs (Objective Structured Clinical Examinations), in which you move through timed stations and are scored on tasks such as examining a standardized patient. The 2026-27 calendars show Unit 1 ending with practical exams and an OSCE.

Gateway 1 comes after Unit 4, Gateway 2 after Unit 6 and Gateway 3 after the core clerkship year. At each, faculty certify that you are ready to move on. Under the 2024-25 handbook, a failed Gateway may be retaken after a study period. The same handbook describes Gateway 3 as a video-recorded clinical skills exam: you take histories from and examine standardized patients, then write notes. You must pass it to graduate.

Clinical courses use five grades: Honors, High Pass, Pass, Conditional and Fail; Conditional means you failed part of a course, such as a written exam, and can pass after remediation. The registrar's clinical-years page says each clerkship requires a passed written exam, and some add an oral exam or a history-and-physical practical. In psychiatry, the grade combines clinical performance, a short-answer vignette exam and a shelf exam, a standardized multiple-choice subject test from the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME).

Step 1 is one of three USMLE exams required for licensure, and it has been reported only as pass or fail since January 26, 2022; Step 2 CK still gets a three-digit score. You must pass Step 1 to move into Core Clinical Medicine, and pass Step 1 and Step 2 to graduate. 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 August 2027 would sit Step 1 in February or March 2029, shortly after the switch. For Step 2 CK, the 2026-27 admissions booklet sets a deadline of October 31 of fourth year, which for that student would be October 31, 2030. The 2025-26 calendar set aside six weeks in April and May, after the core year, for a delayed clerkship or Step 2 study, but the 2026-27 calendar has no Step 2 entry.

• Under the 2024-25 handbook you schedule Step 1 yourself and must sit it before your first clerkship.
• If your Step 1 result is still pending when clerkships begin, the same handbook lets you start your first block conditionally until the pass arrives.

For the first 18 months you are based on the Brooklyn campus; from April of year 2, clerkships take you across New York City. The registrar's current list names 13 clinical sites, from Kings County Hospital Center and Maimonides Medical Center to Northwell Health hospitals and Richmond University Medical Center on Staten Island.

Allocation runs by lottery. During year 2 you rank your preferences for the order of your clerkship blocks, and hospital sites for each clerkship are first assigned by lottery too. Departments handle changes and will consider exceptional travel hardship. Required clerkships must be completed at SUNY Downstate, and your sub-internship at University Hospital at Downstate, Kings County Hospital Center or a designated affiliate.

Sites shape the experience. In psychiatry, one Kings County Hospital Center assignment is all adult inpatient work. A joint University Hospital at Downstate and Kings County assignment is all consult-liaison, assessing medical and surgical inpatients for psychiatric illness. Kingsboro Psychiatric Center has a more chronic inpatient population, while Maimonides, Lenox Hill, Coney Island and Brookdale mix inpatient weeks with consult-liaison, emergency, child or outpatient weeks. Under the 2024-25 handbook, student duty hours stay within first-year resident limits, such as 80 hours a week averaged over four weeks.

University Hospital at Downstate, the 342-bed hospital within the university, runs a 24-hour Emergency Care Center and is a regional referral center for neonatology, transplantation and pediatric hemodialysis. Its legal name is still University Hospital of Brooklyn, the name on the registrar's list. The university's council approved the change to University Hospital at Downstate on September 9, 2026, and the new name becomes official once SUNY and government approvals and record changes are complete.

On June 5, 2025, the governor's office said it had received a community advisory board's proposal for more than $1 billion of state investment in the hospital. The plan would keep all current inpatient and outpatient services, including maternity and kidney transplant, and add a new annex with an ambulatory surgery center. Turning every double room into a private room, and adding rooms, would give 225 operational beds; the plan also aims to raise the average number of inpatients a day, then 165.

On December 10, 2025, the governor announced that design was set to begin on the $1.1 billion plan, run as two projects: renovating the hospital, including an expanded emergency department, and building the annex. On February 17, 2026, a contract was approved to demolish a condemned parking garage on the annex site, and on September 15, 2026, SUNY reported the demolition nearly complete. On October 20, 2026, Downstate's President's Bulletin said design was under way, with preliminary renderings expected in early 2027, and described a modernized hospital of about 225 beds.

In Foundations you can take non-credit electives, usually on evenings or weekends, meant to give you clinical exposure from first year. They are graded Elective Pass or Elective Fail and appear on your transcript without credit.

The core year includes two 2-week electives, 4 weeks in all, for fields you may not meet on clerkships, graded pass/fail. The 2026-27 list ranges from dermatology, ophthalmology and radiology to plastic surgery, urology, sports medicine, forensic pathology and geriatric psychiatry, each offered in two-week sections.

The advanced phase requires 20 weeks of electives under the registrar's current rules, usually in 4-week blocks, though some run for 2 weeks; full time means about 30 hours a week. No more than 12 weeks may be in one subspecialty, 8 weeks away from Downstate, 8 weeks in research and 4 weeks in reading electives such as history of medicine. You can also design a tailor-made elective, clinical or research, with a faculty preceptor.

Away rotations, called extramural electives, are electives at other medical schools or sites. You arrange them yourself with sign-off from your clinical dean and the matching Downstate department chair, and Downstate must have a malpractice insurance agreement with the host. Under the registrar's current extramural rules, electives abroad can count if the department approves them. The School of Public Health also runs a senior-year Global Health in Developing Countries elective overseas for a limited number of students, with priority for MD/MPH students.

The 2026-27 advanced-year catalog ranges from wilderness medicine and medical toxicology to transplant surgery and child and adolescent psychiatry. It includes Teaching Gross Anatomy and Near Peer Teaching in IPC, and sub-internships in neurology, family medicine, psychiatry and obstetrics and gynecology.

The MD/PhD, run jointly with the School of Graduate Studies, graduated its first student in 1967 and usually admits 2 to 4 students a year. You apply from inside the MD program: the graduate school's current timeline has applications due January 1 of your first year, with interviews that spring for those selected. The 2026-27 admissions booklet says you apply in your second year, and the College of Medicine's MD/PhD page allows any time in your first three years, so check with the school.

You follow Foundations for the first 18 months and work in research labs in your first two summers, starting after year 1, rotating through two labs before choosing a thesis sponsor. Under the 2024-25 handbook, MD/PhD students traditionally complete one 12-week clerkship block after passing Step 1, before starting PhD work. In the fall after year 2 you enter the graduate school for about three to four years of PhD work in Neural and Behavioral Science or Molecular and Cell Biology. You then return to finish your clinical training.

The MD/MPH and MD/MHA are concurrent degrees with the School of Public Health: you enroll in both programs at once and meet each degree's full requirements, with no credit shared between them. You take the courses over summers, starting in June before first year, or in a year off between third and fourth year. The MPH program focuses on immigrant and urban health, with advising concentrations in community health sciences, environmental and occupational health sciences, epidemiology and biostatistics, and health policy and management.

The eight Academic Pathways are Clinical Neurosciences, Medical Educator, Global Health, Bioethics, Health Equity Advocacy and Leadership (HEAL), LGBTQIA+ Health, Data Science for Health and Medical Humanities. Each requires three years of participation, at least 8 hours of teaching sessions and a scholarly product, and enrollment may be capped. The Clinical Neurosciences Pathway, Downstate's first, was founded in 2003, has more than 300 graduates and needs no application.

The Alumni Association funds a Summer Research Fellowship Program for the eight weeks between first and second year, with applications due at the end of March. Some students take a funded research year between their second and third or third and fourth years. Options include the Alumni Association's one-year fellowship and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Medical Research Scholars Program. Each spring, students present their work at Research Day.

At graduation, substantial research can earn Distinction in Research, which typically means one to two years with a Downstate faculty mentor. Shorter or unfinished projects can earn a Commendation in Investigative Scholarship, and the 2026-27 booklet puts the number recognized at about 15 a year.

The campus is on Clarkson Avenue in East Flatbush, a short subway ride on the 2 or 5 train to Winthrop Street. The eight-story Basic Science Building has four large lecture halls. The Health Science Education Building holds classrooms, labs and two floors of carrels, small study rooms with a desk and secure storage that serve as your home base for the first two years.

The Center for Healthcare Simulation, on the third floor of the Public Health Academic Building, has 16 standardized patient exam rooms, where actors play patients and family members and give you one-to-one feedback. Other rooms simulate emergency, surgical and labor and delivery scenarios with high-fidelity mannequins, and you review recordings of your sessions in debriefing rooms. College of Medicine courses there include Undifferentiated Severe Illness for third- and fourth-year students and Ultrasound Guided Procedures in fourth year.

The Medical Research Library of Brooklyn, in the Health Science Education Building, faces a long renovation. As announced on October 20, 2026, it is tentatively set to close on December 18, 2026, with construction from March 2027 to September 2030 and reopening expected in October 2030. Meanwhile the university plans 341 temporary study seats across the Public Health Academic Building, Student Activities Building and Basic Science Building, and library services will move to the Public Health and Basic Science buildings.

In year 1 you meet in small groups with an Early Career Advisor about academic, research and career questions, using self-assessment tools from the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). In the core clerkship year you are assigned a Clinical Advisory Dean, who advises you through graduation, helps plan your schedule and writes your MSPE. Each department also names specialty advisors.

The 2024-25 handbook puts the number of Clinical Advisory Deans at 14 and lets you submit preferences. The career advising office runs events in every year, from specialty information nights in year 2 to mock residency interviews with faculty in your specialty in year 4.

Academic help starts mid-unit. Under the 2024-25 handbook, Foundations students get a mid-unit report built from their quizzes and PBL facilitator feedback, and an Academic Support Team contacts those who need to improve. The same handbook lists free peer tutoring, study-skills counseling and Step 1 planning from the Office of Student Academic Services. Upper-year students also lead group reviews of lecture material, typically 90 minutes long.