The Tulane University School of Medicine MD program

Phases I and II are organized by body system. Each Phase I module follows one system, such as the heart or kidneys, and the anatomy, biochemistry, histology, genetics and physiology courses each teach their part of it. The courses keep their own identity, but the timetable lines them up, so in the cardiovascular module you study the heart's structure, tissues, physiology and metabolism together.

Phase II applies that science to disease, from inflammation and infectious disease through the organ systems to Brain, Mind and Behavior, which joins neuroscience with neurology and psychiatry. Mechanisms of Disease, the pathology course, runs across the Year 2 modules with pharmacology and infectious disease. Clinical Diagnosis is timed to match it, so you learn to examine each system as you study its diseases.

Foundations in Medicine (FIM I and FIM II) is the clinical counterpart to the science. It introduces the competency areas Tulane expects beyond knowledge, such as patient care, communication, professionalism and community engagement, through small groups, standardized patient sessions, all-day FIM days and service learning.

Tulane caps required instruction in Phases I and II at 24 hours a week, counting lectures, labs, small groups and online work that replaces class. Assigned work outside class, such as preparation and quizzes, is capped at 10 hours a week, not counting your own study. The instruction cap can rise to 30 hours only under the emergency preparedness policy.

Phase I modules last two to five weeks, each ending with an exam, usually on a Friday; the standard make-up date is the following Wednesday. FIM small groups meet mostly in the afternoons. From the second half of Year 1, Wednesday and Friday afternoons are free of School of Medicine classes for electives or dual-degree courses.

In the Class of 2030's preliminary calendar, the first module starts on August 10, after orientation, Phase II starts on March 29 and Year 1 ends on May 29. Breaks include Thanksgiving, two weeks of winter recess and a week for Mardi Gras.

Anatomy is taught in Phase I through Gross, Developmental and Radiological Anatomy, the largest Year 1 course, from the Department of Structural and Cellular Biology. It tracks the modules: Fundamentals in Human Biology starts with the vertebral column and spinal cord, later modules take each system in turn, and the course ends with head and neck. Embryology and medical imaging run alongside. The course combines lectures and labs with team-based learning and team exams.

Current sources point to dissection. Tulane's 2026-27 technical standards list taking part in the dissection of cadavers among the abilities students need. The MS Anatomy program, whose students take the course alongside first-year medical students, is built on cadaveric dissection-based gross anatomy.

Pages written in 2022-23 for parents of the Class of 2026 describe first-years dissecting through the final head and neck module. They say the class would then hold a memorial service for their donors in April, with candles, poems and essays.

Electives go further: Advanced Anatomy offers individual dissection projects, with places limited by the number of cadavers, and Teaching Medical Gross Anatomy makes you a lab teaching assistant.

Your first patients are standardized patients. In Year 1 FIM sessions you conduct full medical interviews in pairs, with time-outs and rewinds allowed, and learn vital signs and heart and lung examination from SP teaching associates. A cardio-physiology workshop adds the Harvey heart and lung simulator and a hands-on EKG demonstration.

Real patients come early through service. FIM tracks service-learning and clinical hours, and its course director can help you find clinic shifts. In the student-run clinics, students see patients with supervising physicians; at Fleur de Vie NOLA East, teams present each patient to the attending and agree on a plan.

In Year 2, Clinical Diagnosis brings history and examination sessions with a preceptor, clinical reasoning sessions and shadowing of internal medicine faculty and residents. SPs teach focused examinations from the head, eyes, ears, nose and throat to the nervous system, plus male urological exams. Clerkships follow a mandatory orientation week in early May; in 2026 it ran May 4 to 8, with the first block on May 11.

Preclinical courses are pass/fail, with 70% as the pass mark. A score of 65 to 69% can earn a temporary Condition grade, cleared by one more attempt and recorded as C/P. To move up a phase you must pass every course. Scoring below 70% on more than two module exams in Phase I, or three in Phase II, means a remediation exam.

Phase I module exams are written and, for most modules, practical. Phase II includes NBME exams and ends with the Comprehensive Basic Science Exam and a custom final. Practice questions, quizzes and NBME self-assessments give feedback without counting, and faculty who teach you in small groups write narrative comments on your skills and professionalism.

Clerkships and most 4-week rotations are graded Honors, High Pass, Pass or Fail; 2-week rotations are pass/fail. In surgery the raw shelf score sets your highest possible grade. Failing a shelf brings a Condition grade and one retake, which caps your grade at Pass.

The USMLE is the national exam series for a medical license. For MD students, LCME accreditation is what makes them eligible to sit it; DO students and graduates of international schools qualify through other routes. Step 1 has been reported only as pass or fail since January 26, 2022. You must pass Step 1 and Step 2 CK to graduate, within six years of starting.

The April 2026 handbook says Step 1 is generally taken in April of Year 2, after a dedicated study period that the Office of Medical Education puts at six to eight weeks. Under the policy approved in October 2026, you sit it before clerkships or after all seven; the school advises against testing mid-clerkship. The deadline is June 30 at the start of Year 4, so finishing clerkships on time in April leaves about eight weeks to study.

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 notice had named 2028. On the current schedule, a student entering in 2027 would sit Step 1 in about March or April 2029, after designated testing dates begin, and Step 2 CK most likely in summer 2030. This projection follows the Class of 2029 and 2030 calendars.

• Step 2 CK usually follows the clerkships, most often in the summer of Year 4. The 2026-27 catalog says that to secure residency interviews you will likely need a pass by the end of September. You must sit it by January 31 of Year 4 to be certified for the Match and pass it by March 15 to graduate.
• Clinical skills exams use standardized patients. SCOPE has eight stations at the end of Year 2, and most clerkships have their own assessment. The eight-station TOSCE in Year 3, which you must pass to graduate, includes writing a SOAP note, the standard patient note.
• The Medical Student Performance Evaluation (MSPE), the school's summary letter to residency programs, draws mainly on clerkship evaluations. The April 2026 handbook says it reports class rank in thirds, based on grades through Year 3.
• Missing the Step 1 deadline, or failing a delayed attempt, means a leave of absence until you pass. Failing a Step three times, or not passing both within 24 months of leave, puts you up for dismissal.

Six hospitals on Tulane's clinical-sites list belong to LCMC Health, a Louisiana not-for-profit hospital system. Tulane Medical Center, Tulane Lakeside Hospital (now Lakeside Hospital) and Lakeview Regional Medical Center (now Lakeview Hospital) joined LCMC in January 2023. Tulane Medical Center's services then moved to East Jefferson General Hospital (EJGH) and University Medical Center New Orleans (UMC). The move to EJGH was completed in January 2024, and by spring 2026 the old hospital had become Tulane's Downtown Campus Center.

EJGH, a 420-bed hospital in Metairie, is now the school's clinical home. A $216 million investment tied to the partnership added four critical care units, including bone marrow transplant and the Tulane Transplant Institute, plus eight operating rooms and 15 clinics. Students get badge access to an academic library with about 80 lockers and 25 computers, and to team workrooms.

UMC, shared with Louisiana State University (LSU), has a burn unit and what Tulane's hospitals page calls the region's only Level 1 trauma center. Manning Family Children's, a children's hospital in New Orleans, was called Children's Hospital New Orleans until February 2025. Lakeside Hospital focuses on women's health, and Lakeview Hospital in Covington is on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain.

Beyond LCMC, the list names the VA hospital (now the New Orleans VA Medical Center) and Ochsner Medical Center, under its older name, Ochsner Foundation Hospital. The rest are four hospitals in Baton Rouge and one each in Alexandria and Shreveport.

Each clerkship's leaders decide where you go. You submit site preferences before each rotation. They weigh these alongside hardships such as caregiving or medical needs, and you can swap with a classmate beforehand. You arrange your own transport, though shuttles serve some sites. Family medicine students live in their preceptor's community, with four-bedroom housing provided in the Opelousas area.

The Tulane Rural Medical Education (TRuMEd) program, which you apply to alongside your medical school application, is for students planning to practice in rural Louisiana or the Gulf South. TRuMEd students have family medicine faculty advisers from Year 1 and an elective summer preceptorship after Year 1 with the Louisiana Area Health Education Centers. They take the family medicine clerkship at a rural site, with priority when sites are chosen.

In Years 1 and 2 you take one required elective, any time after your first semester, graded pass or no credit. It can be a School of Medicine elective, research, public health or business classes, or the DeBakey Scholars program. Options include Medical Mandarin, Spirituality in Medicine, Leadership in Healthcare and shadowing a family physician.

Farther afield, the four-week China Summer Mission Trip looks at rural and urban health care in China. Tibetan Refugee Health is a two-week rotation in Dharamsala, India, assessing refugees under a board-certified physician. Health and Human Rights brings weekly discussions with advocates from public health and medicine.

In the clinical years you need at least 26 weeks of electives, or 28 as an MD/MPH student. Online and research electives are each capped at 4 weeks, or 8 weeks of research for MD/PhD students. Family medicine offers preceptorships, special-interest rotations from sports medicine to rural medicine, a one-month sub-internship, and an international rotation at an established site or with a preceptor you find.

Family medicine's community medicine months place you with New Orleans public clinics or at national sites in Appalachian West Virginia, South Dakota, New Mexico, North Carolina and Washington State. Surgery runs a four-week Honors Surgery course each August for students applying in general surgery. Neurology offers stroke, pediatric and outpatient rotations, and psychiatry offers assertive community treatment and forensic psychiatry.

Away rotations at other schools happen in Year 4 and must be approved in advance; all core clerkships are done at Tulane. Radiology, emergency medicine, the acting internship and electives may be done outside Tulane's affiliated hospitals.

The MD/MPH is run with the Celia Scott Weatherhead School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. In the four-year form you are encouraged to start the summer before medical school and must start by spring of Year 1. You then use the protected afternoons and finish both degrees together. A five-year option, usually with a year's leave after Year 2 or 3, gives more time.

The dual-program MPH is 45 credits, including 12 transferred from medical school courses and a one-month MD/MPH rotation as your applied practice experience. You choose one of seven departments, among them Tropical Medicine and Infectious Disease, which awards the MPH&TM, a combined public health and tropical medicine degree. More than 1,350 students have graduated from the program.

The MD/MBA with the A. B. Freeman School of Business has an accelerated four-year route, fitting both degrees into the medical school timeline, and a traditional five-year route. In the five-year route you apply in the fall of Year 3, spend the fourth year at Freeman, then split the fifth between medical school and business school.

The MD/MS in Bioethics and Medical Humanities adds no time. You apply separately, begin with summer coursework before Year 1, and take classes on Wednesday and Friday afternoons in Years 1 and 2 and in the summer after Year 1. The 2026-27 catalog sets it at 30 credits: three core courses and seven electives, with hospital ethics rounds.

Two routes lead to an MD/PhD. The Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP) admits up to four students a year and takes seven to eight years. You do lab rotations before and after Year 1 and start the PhD after Year 2 and Step 1, ideally for three to three and a half years. Then you return for Years 3 and 4. Current students can instead apply in their first two years to the B track of the Physician Scientist Program (PSP-B).

Tulane's research page tells students to put coursework first and add research if time allows. ASPIRE pays a stipend for at least eight weeks of full-time research in the summer after Year 1, with weekly sessions, an abstract and a presentation. The DeBakey Scholars program is a four-year mentored project that earns a Distinction in Research.

• ASPIRE mentors can be at the medical school, the uptown campus or the Tulane National Biomedical Research Center in Covington, called the Tulane National Primate Research Center until October 2025.
• A separate MD/PhD in Public Health is open to Tulane medical students.
• Year-out research through external programs, such as those of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), is possible with a leave of absence, and you can generally complete only one combined degree.

Teaching is based on Tulane's downtown campus in New Orleans. The Murphy Building hosts orientation, the Office of Medical Education and the simulation center. The center's 14,000 square feet include a mock emergency room and intensive care unit, operating room, labor and delivery suite, hospital rooms and clinic exam rooms.

Simulation equipment includes virtual-reality procedure and ultrasound simulators, six laparoscopic towers, 25 Butterfly IQ3 ultrasound probes and patient simulators from premature infant to adult. The center runs American Heart Association courses in basic, advanced cardiovascular and pediatric advanced life support (BLS, ACLS and PALS).

The Rudolph Matas Library of the Health Sciences is open around the clock for study with your Splash Card. At UMC, students have a first-floor lounge with about 20 computers, and Tulane neurology has a classroom of its own.

Your learning community mentor meets your cohort as a group in Years 1 and 2, with a one-on-one in Year 2. The Office of Medical Education's two full-time learning specialists help with study strategies, time management and test-taking.

The office's PAL program uses near-peer tutors: tutoring if a course director or Student Affairs refers you, plus weekly review sessions open to all. For Step 1 there are optional summer study modules, a study plan built from a baseline NBME practice test, and Step 1 Champions, peers who answer questions. Students who delay Step 1 can be paired with a fourth-year who did the same.

In the clinical years, PAL tutors run a two-hour mid-block NBME question review for each donut group, and the Champions Project links third-years with fourth-year mentors. Duty hours follow residency standards: no more than 80 hours a week and at least one day off in seven, averaged over four weeks.

Career advising runs through all four years, with a residency day each year, the Careers in Medicine tools of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) and specialty advisers for Year 4 planning. A Director of Student Support and Wellness and the Downtown Health Center for Student Care, a primary care clinic for medical students, support your wellbeing.