The David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA MD program

The school builds Phase 1 around case-based learning, so that you begin thinking like a physician from day one. It runs as one course, Foundations of Medical Sciences (FoMS), with three strands side by side. Scientific Foundations of Medicine (SFM) teaches the science, Foundations of Practice (FoP) the clinical skills, and the FoMS Clinical Experience takes you into clinical settings.

Content areas called threads run through all three phases in a planned order. The main one, Medicine and Society, covers teamwork across professions, leadership and advocacy, health equity, health systems, the structural and social drivers of health, ethics and integrative health, often through the medical humanities. Other areas of focus include LGBTQ+ health, team-based care and ultrasound.

In Phase 2 you learn mainly on clerkship teams, with intersessions, short teaching blocks between clerkships, for skills practice, simulation and more SFM. Phase 3 is largely self-directed: mentored scholarship in Discovery, coaching in the LCE, and electives chosen around your career plans.

The school's faculty recruitment page shows how a Phase 1 week is laid out. FoP small groups meet on Monday and Thursday afternoons in Geffen Hall. Many SFM workshops run for 2.5 hours on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday mornings, and clinical experience visits fall on Tuesday or Wednesday afternoons at affiliated or community sites.

You must attend at least 90% of required sessions in each Phase 1 course, and missing 20% or more can mean an incomplete grade or repeating the course. The workload policy caps the estimated weekly load, including class time, assignments and study, at an average of 60 hours.

On clerkships, duty hours are capped at 80 a week, averaged over the rotation, with no shift over 28 hours and at least one day off a week on average. There is no overnight call before exams, and you have the Thursday off before each end-of-clerkship exam. An absence without notice can mean failing the clerkship.

Anatomy is one of the SFM sciences, and anatomy practical exams set by the FoMS teaching team are part of Phase 1 grading. Phase 1 ultrasound sessions are designed partly to deepen your grasp of anatomy and physiology. Before working in the Gross Anatomy Laboratory, every student reviews its safety procedures.

The fullest description comes from the Pathology department, which teaches gross anatomy, on an undated page that still uses the block numbers of the pre-2021 curriculum. It describes a lab in the Center for Health Sciences with 30 cadaver stations, using embalmed and unembalmed bodies. Sessions mostly use prosections, bodies already dissected by experts so the structures are ready to study, with several chances for first-year students to dissect certain structures.

A current page adds that Discovery students in the TMEP course, which trains them to teach anatomy and ultrasound, dissect cadavers weekly and produce prosections used by first-year students. They also lead tutoring sessions and teach small groups in Phase 1 courses and intersessions.

Your first patient contact comes in Phase 1 through the FoMS Clinical Experience. It places you in real clinical settings, where you use your interviewing and examination skills and begin forming your identity as a doctor. Visits are compulsory: a missed session must be made up, and every site visit must be completed to pass FoMS.

A map of these sites labeled 2022-23 shows the range: AltaMed Health Services in Commerce, the Saban Community Clinic, Veterans Affairs programs in West Los Angeles, UCLA clinics and the LA County Fire Department. The current list may differ. Urban Health Equity Pathway students go to dedicated community-based sites in year one.

Many students also join the Student Run Homeless Clinics, a service-learning program begun by the Department of Family Medicine in 1990. Students run more than 40 clinics a year at shelters and other sites, serving up to 1,600 patients, supervised by UCLA faculty and community physicians.

Under a 2019 supervision policy you are always supervised, and invasive procedures and sensitive exams, such as pelvic and rectal exams, need a qualified supervisor present.

Phase 1 is graded pass/fail. To pass FoMS you attend required sessions, complete the coursework and sit every exam: Pit Stop computer exams written by FoMS faculty, FoP knowledge checks, OSCEs, anatomy practicals and NBME exams. Each has a threshold score. Fall below it and you are directed to support, such as review sessions, coaching or the assistant dean who advises you, and written exams require a retest.

Missing the final retest threshold on a Pit Stop exam or the FoP knowledge checks delays your clerkship start, and four or more failed Pit Stop exams mean repeating Phase 1.

Core clerkships have been pass/fail since 2022-23. To pass, you need a satisfactory clinical evaluation, rated across 13 skills from history taking to systems-based practice, and a score above the 5th national percentile on the NBME shelf exam. A failed shelf exam can be retaken after two weeks of study; failing three times in one clerkship means repeating it. Each clerkship also has a radiology exam with a passing score of 70%.

Each CPX case is a focused work-up followed by a written exercise, with individual feedback, and you must pass the CPX to graduate. Faculty also write narrative assessments of skills such as communication, teamwork and professionalism, and representative comments can appear in your MSPE.

Under Phase 3 grading policies last reviewed in 2023, Discovery is pass/fail, judged on attendance, faculty evaluations, assignments and a final scholarly project, and the LCE is graded Pass or No Pass. Fourth-year clinical electives have no written exams and are graded Honors, High Pass, Pass or Fail from the evaluation score. Global health, research, special and non-clinical electives are pass/fail, as are away electives on your transcript.

Two national exams sit alongside this. USMLE Step 1 tests the sciences behind medicine and, according to usmle.org, has been reported only as pass or fail since January 26, 2022. Step 2 CK tests the clinical knowledge needed to care for patients under supervision. The school's USMLE policy, in effect since October 2020, says you must take Step 1 before Phase 3 advanced electives and pass both exams to graduate.

• You may not take time off in Phase 1, or take time off or drop a core clerkship, to prepare for a first attempt at Step 1 or Step 2 CK.
• You must pass both by an annual deadline for the school to verify your rank list for the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP), which runs the Match. Miss it and you can still graduate by passing before your final semester ends.
• A first Step 1 failure pauses further electives until you pass; a second means academic probation, and a third means referral for possible dismissal.
• In August 2026 the USMLE program announced a move to designated testing dates from January 2029, with Step exams offered less often each year (usmle.org). On the current schedule, a student entering in August 2027 would sit Step 1 after the USMLE Prep block in about December 2028, just before the change.
• On the current schedule, a 2027 entrant would sit Step 2 CK as Phase 3 opens, around the end of 2029, under designated testing dates. The USMLE program says Step 2 CK will not be offered in some months and encourages schools to review their rules on when students must sit the exams, so UCLA may adjust these dates.

Classes are on the UCLA campus in Westwood, but clinical work takes you across the region. The school's clerkship map names 15 main affiliates, and departments add clinics and practices across Southern California, from Malibu to Pomona. The handbook requires every student to have reliable transportation, and absences caused by transport problems are not excused.

Under a handbook policy last reviewed in 2020, clerkship sites are first assigned by an electronic lottery based on your preferences. You can then ask for a different site, ideally at least 30 days ahead, for reasons such as personal circumstances, a disability accommodation or concerns about the learning environment. Not every request can be met.

Some affiliates, including Providence, Dignity Health and Adventist Health, restrict services such as abortion, contraception and gender-affirming care. Training at these covered affiliates is voluntary, and if you object, the school will try to find you another site. Los Angeles County and VA hospitals have their own onboarding steps, including fingerprinting.

The site lists below come from each department's page. Most are undated, so treat them as a guide rather than a fixed roster.

• Emergency medicine (7 sites): Olive View, Santa Monica, UCLA, West Los Angeles VA, Harbor, Kern and West Valley. The four-week core clerkship became required in October 2022.
• Obstetrics and gynecology (7 sites): Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, Cedars-Sinai, Harbor-UCLA, Olive View-UCLA, Kaiser Permanente in Panorama City, Kern Medical Center and UCLA Santa Monica.
• Pediatrics (7 sites): Santa Monica UCLA with Cedars-Sinai (combined), Cedars-Sinai, Olive View-UCLA, Harbor-UCLA, Kaiser Permanente Sunset, UCLA Mattel Children's Hospital with Olive View-UCLA (combined), and Miller Children's Hospital (MemorialCare).
• Neurology (6 sites): Ronald Reagan, West Los Angeles VA, Olive View-UCLA, Santa Monica-UCLA, Harbor-UCLA and Cedars-Sinai, with two nights of long call and two weekend days over the four weeks.
• Psychiatry (5 sites): Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital, West Los Angeles VA, Harbor-UCLA, Olive View and Kedren Community Mental Health Center; the department also names site directors at Kern Medical. There is no overnight call.
• Family medicine (22 sites): among them Harbor-UCLA, MLK Community Hospital, Venice Family Clinic, Clinica Romero, three Kaiser sites and Pomona Valley Medical Center. UCLA Health practices run from Malibu and Santa Monica to the Central Coast.

Phase 3 includes 32 weeks of electives, 26 of them clinical; many students spend the other six on research, in Discovery or separately. A research elective can be one six-week block or split, such as three plus three weeks, and can overlap with residency interviews. The 2026 diagram says every type of elective is offered each semester, in any order.

Courses are numbered by type. In the 2026-27 catalog for visiting students, 100-level means non-clinical, 200-level a consult service, 300-level an outpatient sub-internship and 400-level an inpatient sub-internship or intensive care unit (ICU) rotation. The handbook's attendance policy refers to a required 12 consecutive weeks of sub-internship training in 300-level, 400-level or ICU electives.

Almost all electives last three weeks, and places are first allocated by lottery, with students choosing courses in December for the following year. The visiting catalog alone runs from burn medicine at West Valley and liver transplantation at UCLA to trauma surgery at Harbor-UCLA, and several departments offer ultrasound-focused electives.

Away rotations at other institutions are capped at 12 weeks, and away research counts toward that limit. Through the Global Health Program, fourth-year students can take clinical electives abroad, mostly in low- and middle-income countries; partner electives with UCLA course numbers do not count toward the cap. You must first complete the program's Fall Selective, an introduction to global health.

Discovery is the school's required scholarly block, done with a faculty mentor in one of eight Areas of Concentration. These are basic, clinical and translational research; global health; healthcare improvement and health equity research; health justice and advocacy; informatics and data science; innovation and entrepreneurship; medical education; and social science and medical humanities. PRIME-LA students have their own.

Discovery is close to full time, 30 to 40 hours a week across the school's pages, with time kept free for the LCE. Your mentor helps define the project and track progress, meeting you two or three times a month, and students present at the annual Discovery Scholarship Day. In 2023-24, 90% of students joined an Area of Concentration, research being the largest at 35%.

After the core clerkships, students in good standing can add a master's from elsewhere at UCLA. Options are an MBA (Anderson School of Management), MPH (Fielding School of Public Health), MPP (Luskin School of Public Affairs), MS in Clinical Research, MLS (School of Law) or MA in Education. For the MBA, MPP and MPH, normally two-year degrees, the school's definitions page says the concurrent route adds one year, with both degrees awarded together.

PRIME-LA is a five-year track training leaders to improve health care delivery, research and policy for California's underserved communities. About 18 students join each year; the first 18 started in July 2008. You take the HEALS curriculum and must earn an accredited, in-person master's by graduation, at UCLA or elsewhere; past students have studied at Berkeley, Columbia, Harvard, Johns Hopkins and UCSF.

The MSTP, an MD/PhD program established in 1983 and funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has 12 to 15 places a year. Two of those students can do their PhD at Caltech in Pasadena. You complete the first two years of HEALS, then the PhD, averaging four years and counting in place of Discovery, then the final year of medical school. The whole program averages eight years.

You can also apply for an academic leave of absence for research, a fellowship or another degree, such as the NIH Medical Research Scholars Program. That leave does not count toward the six-year limit for finishing the MD.

• Urban Health Equity Pathway: urban health with a focus on South Los Angeles, built with CDU. Its page says it launched in 2024, starting with the Class of 2028, and takes 8 to 12 students a year, though its FAQ also says nine are offered places. You do community service, research hours and a capstone project.
• The Charles R. Drew/UCLA Medical Education Program no longer accepts applications and hands over to the Urban Health Equity Pathway after the Class of 2027; CDU now runs its own MD program.
• Global Health Equity Pathway: a competitive track. You take the Fall Selective and a spring skills series in year one and plan a Discovery project with a partner organization. You then spend at least four months there and may return in your final year to hand the project over.
• Global Health Equity Concentration: a non-competitive option with a mentored global health project, no travel required, and an optional clinical global health elective in your final year.

Simulation teaching is based in Rosenfeld Hall, which opened in 2023 across the street from Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. Level A has five inpatient simulation rooms, four exam rooms, a classroom and an auditorium. Level 1 houses the Standardized Patient Program, with 16 exam rooms and four simulation rooms, and Level 2 holds the Center for Advanced Surgical and Interventional Technology.

The Simulation Center also runs a practice lab in Geffen Hall Room 301, with three rooms for simulation and procedure practice and smart lockers for borrowing task trainers. The Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library serves medical students, with more than 683,000 print volumes.

Every student belongs to one of four societies: Utilis, Caritas, Levamentum or Accendo. Societies are UCLA's version of learning communities, giving each student a consistent advisor and a community across class years. Each is led by an Assistant Dean for Student Affairs who advises about a quarter of each class from before orientation to graduation, helps in times of difficulty, and helps prepare your MSPE.

The Academic Support Office offers one-on-one help with study skills, time management and test taking, plus tutoring and review sessions in the first two years. Specialty Advisors for Career Exploration (ACEs), launched in 2021, are faculty who mentor students in their specialty, and the Career Development Office advises on residency applications.

The Behavioral Wellness Center, on the first floor of the Center for Health Sciences, offers confidential counseling for medical students, and the Well-Being Office runs workshops and support groups. The school's Director of Disability Services arranges exam accommodations and helps with requests for accommodations on USMLE exams, which it advises starting six to nine months ahead.