The UArizona College of Medicine – Tucson MD program

The preclerkship curriculum follows the organ systems in a set sequence. Under the school's guiding principles, each block combines several disciplines and links basic science with clinical science, the social and behavioral sciences and the humanities. Twenty basic science disciplines, from gross anatomy to radiology and ultrasound, are coordinated by 12 discipline directors across all phases. Each block also sets aside two hours for spiraling, or revisiting earlier content.

Policy also shapes the format: no more than half of learning events may be lectures. Scheduled teaching runs between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., with noon to 1 p.m. protected for lunch and enrichment activities. You get at least one day without new content before a high-stakes exam, and midterms fall on Mondays.

Three strands run beside the blocks. The Doctor and Patient course, home of the Societies, teaches interviewing, physical examination and professionalism. The Clinical Reasoning Course meets for two hours every Friday morning. A third strand, Pathways in Health and Medicine (the curriculum page also calls it In Practice), covers behavioral science, medical humanities and the social sciences.

From the clerkship year on, you learn mainly on wards and in clinics, with teaching such as the Department of Medicine's weekly academic half-day. Near graduation, a two-week Preparation for Residency Boot Camp offers a shared week of skills such as order entry and prescription writing, then specialty-specific training.

The 2025-26 preclerkship manual shows a sample week. Monday to Thursday mornings, from about 8 a.m. to noon, hold lectures, labs, team learning and large-group sessions, as do Monday and Wednesday afternoons. On Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, half the class is in Doctor and Patient/Societies sessions while the other half has unscheduled time.

Friday opens with the Clinical Reasoning Course, followed by more teaching until about noon, and Friday afternoon is free. Policy guarantees two half days of protected unscheduled time a week, averaged over two weeks, including Friday afternoons.

Faculty-led contact hours may not exceed 32 a week, averaged over two weeks: up to 26 hours of block teaching, four of Doctor and Patient and two of Clinical Reasoning. Assigned work outside those hours, such as preparing for team sessions, is capped at eight hours a week.

Gross anatomy, the study of body structures visible to the naked eye, is one of the 20 disciplines threaded through the blocks. Foundations introduces it, the Musculoskeletal block covers the bones, muscles, nerves and vessels of the limbs, and the Nervous System block teaches the anatomy of the central nervous system, head and neck.

Donated bodies come through the university's Willed Body Program, which the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine has run since 1967 and which also serves other Arizona schools. Each year medical students hold a memorial service for donors' families and friends; the 2027 service is on March 20, 2027.

The anatomy director's own research is on teaching methods that combine donor-based and digital techniques with clinical application. In the final year, the Gross Anatomy Lab Assistant elective lets you help teach first-years. Its course page, which still carries 2018-19 wording, describes assisting them during dissection exercises, after an orientation with a prosection demonstration (a prosection is a specimen already dissected by experts).

Another fourth-year option, Selected Topics in Gross Human Anatomy, is an independent study tied to your chosen specialty. You revisit regions such as the head and neck or thorax in two- or three-week units through dissection, reading and discussion, then present your dissection to anatomists.

School policy commits to patient care and other clinical experiences from the first week, which includes a day of community engagement. Doctor and Patient skills teaching starts on day one.

By the end of the preclerkship phase you will have done multiple histories and physical exams in Society sessions. You will also have written numerous SOAP notes, the standard subjective, objective, assessment and plan record, and presented patients aloud.

Outside scheduled teaching, most students volunteer in the CUP clinics in their first two years. An elective two-year Senior Mentor Program pairs you with a healthy older adult in Tucson.

Preclerkship blocks and courses are graded Pass or Fail under the school's Grading and Progression Policy. To pass a block you need an overall medical knowledge score of at least 70%, which is also the pass mark for each high-stakes written exam on the ExamSoft system. Any score under 75% triggers a required review with a learning specialist and an individualized study plan.

Clinical skills are graded without your own mentor deciding the result. In Doctor and Patient, a trained patient instructor grades a history and physical practicum in semester 1, and standardized patient encounters plus written histories count in semester 2. Semester 3 is graded on the Year 2 Clinical Thinking OSCE, scored by a different Societies mentor.

Clerkships and electives are graded Honors, High Pass, Pass or Fail. A clerkship grade is 15% knowledge exam, 15% clerkship activities, 50% clinical assessment and 20% workplace-based assessments (WBAs). The WBA share is all or nothing. You need one a week, covering at least four entrustable professional activities (core tasks such as taking a history or presenting a patient), from two faculty and two residents where possible. Honors goes to the top 30% of composite scores.

Every clerkship except Ambulatory Medicine ends, on its last day, with an NBME shelf exam: a national multiple-choice test of the specialty lasting 2 hours and 45 minutes. The Year 3 OSCE has two parts, the Arizona Clinical Interview Rating (modified) and the Integrated Clinical Encounter, each with a 65% pass mark. It is given in Intersessions II and again about six months later.

For MD students, LCME accreditation is what makes you eligible for the USMLE; DO and international medical students qualify through other routes. Step 1 covers the sciences behind medicine and has been reported pass/fail since January 26, 2022. 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 July 2027 entrant would finish the year 2 blocks in December 2028 and sit Step 1 in about January to February 2029, before clerkships start in early March. Step 2 CK would follow in 2030, with your first attempt due by the Friday of the third week of August of year 4. A later date needs your House Dean's approval, and the academic calendar says it must be taken before November 30. Both exams fall under the designated testing dates that begin in January 2029.

• The USMLE says it will publish each year's testing dates more than a year ahead, and it has urged schools to review rules on when students must test. Calendars for your class are not yet posted, so this timing may change.
• Retakes: if you fall below 70% overall after failing no more than one exam in a block (any number in Foundations), a retake exam is held on the Monday after the block.
• Remediation: one failed block a year can be remediated, in summer for year 1 or the Step 1 study period for year 2. Failing two blocks in a year means repeating the year.
• Graduation also requires every required course, your electives, the Scholarly Project, passes in Step 1 and Step 2 CK, the Year 3 OSCE and at least two weeks of rural or underserved clinical work.
• Time limits: take Step 1 within three years of starting and at least eight calendar days before your first clerkship. Pass it before Step 2 CK, and pass each Step within a year of your first attempt.

For the first 18 months you are based on the Tucson campus. Clinical rotations then center on Banner – University Medical Center Tucson, Banner – University Medical Center South and the Southern Arizona VA Health Care System. Banner describes its Tucson hospital as Southern Arizona's only Level I trauma center, caring for the most critically injured patients. Inpatient pediatrics is at Banner Children's at Diamond Children's Medical Center, at the same Campbell Avenue address as the main hospital.

Each department uses its own mix of sites. Psychiatry opens with a week of orientation and teaching, then five weeks on consultation, inpatient, geriatric, emergency and substance-use services across the main hospital, South campus and VA. Surgery rotates through transplant, burn, robotic, oncology, thoracic, trauma and vascular services at the main hospital, general surgery at South and the VA, and a rural private practice.

Pediatrics splits into three weeks inpatient at Diamond Children's and three weeks in an outpatient clinic, from Banner clinics to private or rural practices. Newborn nursery time is at the main hospital unless you are at a rural site. The OB/GYN department says its clerkship runs from the University Campus and selected community sites.

Family medicine, per its 2025-26 syllabus, uses community health centers, residency clinics, private practices, and Indian Health Service and tribal clinics. Hours run about 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays with no required call. Under a 2021 policy, you request your top site choices and clerkship offices in Tucson assign sites, weighing educational goals and geographic preference; changes need an extreme hardship.

The Rural Health Professions Program selects up to 30 first-years a year, according to its own page; the family medicine department describes 15 per class. Its preceptors work in family medicine, OB/GYN, internal medicine, pediatrics, general surgery or medicine-pediatrics. The program provides housing, a stipend for the first rotation and mileage for one round trip per rotation.

Electives start in year 1 as optional enrichment courses. First-year options in 2026-27 include Care of the Older Adult, The Healer's Art, scrub training for the operating room, artificial intelligence in medicine, and a course on patients with Valley Fever and HIV.

Most elective time comes in the final phase: 28 units in two- and four-week periods. The 2026-27 fourth-year catalog lists 189 courses, from wilderness medicine, clinical toxicology and emergency ultrasound to forensic pathology, culinary medicine, and climate change and health. No more than 16 weeks may go to one subspecialty field.

Away rotations fall under a cap of 20 weeks at sites not directly supervised by College of Medicine – Tucson faculty. International electives must be linked to LCME-accredited institutions or listed in the school's catalog, unless approved as an exception through the Office of Global and Border Health or a department.

The Global Health Clinical Preceptorship places you for at least four weeks with supervising physicians in a low- or middle-income country, after a global health intensive course. Students outside the Global Health Distinction Track can apply for the International Away Elective, four to eight weeks in any approved country. It is capped at 10 students a year and graded partly on a GeoJournal about the country and a reflection essay.

Every student completes the Scholarly Project, a required four-year research course spread over eight semesters, each graded Pass or Incomplete. With a faculty mentor you write a proposal, complete research ethics training, submit progress reports and a final product, and present at the Scholarly Project Conference in year 4.

The Medical Student Research Program, based in the Department of Surgery, offers full-time summer fellowships of two to three months with faculty mentors. It also runs a Curriculum on Medical Ignorance, with seminars, field trips and rounds devoted to what medicine does not yet know. The Research Distinction Track asks for at least 240 hours of research on a continuing project or 400 on a new one, a paper of at least 10 pages and a 30-minute presentation.

The MD/PhD, called the Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP), is run with the university's Graduate College, takes at least seven years and admits about 10 students a year. You complete the first two MD years and Step 1, do PhD research from year 3, defend your dissertation in the winter of year 6, then finish clerkships, Step 2 CK and electives. Twelve graduate programs have MSTP agreements, with public health under negotiation.

The MD/MPH, which adds a Master of Public Health, is run with the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health. You take a public health course in the fall of year 1, apply that spring, join the MPH in year 2 and finish alongside the MD in year 4. Its 42 units, mostly online or hybrid, include about 225 hours of applied practice, with up to 11 units of dual credit for MD work. An MD/O-MBA with the Eller College of Management is being redesigned.

Among the other Distinction Tracks, Bilingual Medical Spanish is for students already at intermediate-high proficiency and adds weekly classes, Spanish-language patient interviews and a certification exam. Rural Health needs at least 16 weeks with rural preceptors, focused on American Indian, border or rural Arizona health care. Global Health includes a summer rotation abroad, and Community Service builds on 90-hour blocks of CUP volunteering.

Two pathways change the timeline. The Primary Care Accelerated Medical Pathway (PCAMP) pairs a three-year MD with three years in the university's family medicine residency; graduates then work in Arizona for three years to repay primary care scholarships. Its page gives the yearly intake as two students in one place and four in another. The Accelerated Pathway to Medical Education takes 10 high school seniors a year into three undergraduate years plus the MD.

Simulation happens at the Arizona Simulation Technology and Education Center (ASTEC), which opened in 2005. Since 2019 it has filled the whole seventh floor of the Health Sciences Innovation Building, 35,000 square feet, and it serves all of the university's health sciences colleges as well as Banner.

Standardized patient work takes place at the Interprofessional Clinical and Professional Skills Center (ICaPS), whose program began more than 50 years ago mainly for this college's students. Since 2019 it has had 30 exam rooms on the eighth floor of the same building. A March 2026 university article counted about 140 standardized patients, community members aged 19 to 92.

In 2019 the Program in Medical Humanities and the Arizona Health Sciences Library set up a medical humanities reading collection and a reflection room for quiet reflection or meditation. First-year narrative medicine courses meet at the University of Arizona Poetry Center.

Societies double as a support system, built on peer support and steady faculty mentoring. Each Society belongs to one of four Houses, Catalina, Rincon, Santa Rita and Tortolita, led by a House Dean from Student Affairs. House Deans also join in remediation and study plans.

The Office of Student Success provides learning specialists, peer tutoring, block exam reviews, Step 1 and Step 2 CK preparation and lunchtime workshops. Its page lists resources it arranges, including Amboss for years 1 to 3, a six-month UWorld Step 1 question bank and NBME practice exam vouchers.

Counseling is free and confidential for medical students, with records kept out of your academic file and a reply within two business days. Campus Counseling and Psych Services (CAPS) is also open to you. On clerkships, duty hours are capped at 80 a week averaged over the rotation, with at least one day off each week and in-house call no more than every fourth night.