The University of North Carolina School of Medicine MD program

TEC 2.0 brings the basic, clinical and social sciences together. You take three Medical Science courses per semester, one at a time, and prepare for each day by reading assigned sections of Scholar Rx Bricks, an online textbook. Faculty can then use class time for problem-solving and clinical reasoning through cases and advanced lectures.

Ten threads, which the school calls coils, carry basic sciences and specialty areas through the curriculum. They are anatomy and embryology, biochemistry, clinical epidemiology, genetics, histology, microbiology, nutrition, pathology, pharmacology and physiology. Each has its own director and builds on the year before. In Circulation, for example, you study the structure, function, disease and drug treatment of the blood and heart together.

Patient Centered Care (PCC) meets once a week for three hours, mostly in small groups learning history-taking, examination, communication and clinical reasoning. Social and Health Systems (SHS) is a weekly seminar on how social and cultural forces shape health, on bioethics and on health policy, with readings, oral presentations and analytical papers. In 2023 the school described each seminar as a group of 14 people. SHS continues as SHS 4 in the clinical year and SHS 5 in the final phase.

When TEC 2.0 launched in 2023, the school cut instructional hours but made every session required. Scheduled teaching is now capped at 25 hours a week. Required time, which adds simulations, prosections, ultrasound practice, online modules and group work, is capped at 30 hours. Reading and exam preparation come on top.

The 2023 weekly plan put Medical Science sessions every morning. The 2027-28 first-year calendar puts SHS 1 on Monday afternoons, PCC 1 on one afternoon a week and required class meetings at 12:30. It also schedules Thursday lunches for the advisory colleges, the small advising communities every student is assigned to. Each course has an exam every two to four weeks and, near its end, a Clinical Reasoning Exam: a written exam of free-response questions.

The school says several afternoons a week are free. You get four absence days a semester, with no doctor's note needed, but you cannot use them for exams, labs or patient sessions.

Anatomy is taught on real human bodies. In The Patient, your first course, you are introduced to your cadaver and learn the musculoskeletal system through dissection and prosection, plus the surface anatomy behind your first heart, lung and abdominal examinations. The course ends with an anatomy practical exam.

You return to the lab through year 1. Circulation picks up where The Patient left off, and the first week of Homeostasis is spent viewing the whole respiratory system in your cadaver. In Body Regulation you dissect the abdominal cavity, and in Reproductive and Genitourinary Health you finish the year's anatomy by dissecting the pelvis. Neuroanatomy follows in year 2, in Neurons to Networks.

The labs are in Roper Hall, the medical education building. Bodies come through the school's Anatomical Gifts Program, which relies on whole-body donation and does not accept unclaimed bodies.

Clinical skills start in the first semester. After learning history-taking and examination in PCC small groups, you try them in Clinical Skills Encounters with standardized patients, who are members of the community. These run in the Simulation, Experiential Learning, and Training (SET) Center in Roper Hall, and each encounter is recorded so you and your teachers can review it.

Real patients come in the clinical weeks. Three times in the Foundation Phase, classes pause for a week while you work with a community preceptor, interviewing, examining and presenting patients under supervision. The first two fall in October and February of year 1, and the third in year 2, between Neurons to Networks and Life Stages.

Community Health Training Program scholars start sooner, with weekly clinic time from the spring of year 1. The Student Health Action Coalition (SHAC), a student-run free clinic begun in 1967, is another place to build skills.

The Foundation Phase is pass/fail: to pass a Medical Science course you need an overall score of 70, or no more than two standard deviations below the class mean if that is lower. You also need 70 on each NBME exam; a lower score gives you an Incomplete and one retake. A Clinical Reasoning Exam score under 70 means a review with your case-based learning facilitator. It is not recorded on your transcript or your Medical Student Performance Evaluation (MSPE), the school's summary letter for residency applications.

Clerkships are graded Honors (90 and above), High Pass (85 to 89.9), Pass (72 to 84.9) or Fail. Each grade combines the shelf exam (20 percent, 60 percent minimum) and the OSCE (40 percent, with 70 percent needed on each case). A Competency Assessment Form from supervisors adds 30 percent and professionalism 10 percent. Every campus uses the same standards, and if you fail a clerkship you retake the whole course.

Faculty write narrative comments in every required clinical course, and you get formative feedback by each course's midpoint. In the Individualization Phase, acting internships, the critical care selective and four-week electives are graded Honors to Fail; the neurology selective, two-week and research electives and Transition to Residency are pass/fail.

Step 1 has been reported only as pass or fail since January 2022. School policy says you take it after the Foundation Phase and before TAP, with a passing score posted by June 30 of your cohort's Step 1 year. The Combined and Additional Degree Program Policy sets December 31 for students in those programs. If you fail after clerkships start, you finish your current course, then pause to retake it. Asheville's longitudinal students must restart the year later or move to a block campus if there is space.

In August 2026 the USMLE program announced a move to designated testing dates from January 2029, with Step exams offered less often each year. A June 2026 announcement had set the change for 2028. On the current schedule, a 2027 entrant would finish the Foundation Phase in December 2028 and study for Step 1 in January and February 2029. You would sit it at the end of that study block, before TAP, in late February or early March 2029: shortly after the switch.

Step 2 CK is encouraged after the Application Phase, usually in April or possibly May: for a 2027 entrant on the current schedule, around April or May 2030. A pass must be posted by November 1 of the Individualization Phase, or you can be withdrawn from the residency Match run by the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP). These dates are projected from the 2026-27 and 2027-28 calendars. The school's Academic Calendars page, updated in September 2026, says its 2028 CAP dates are likely to change with the new USMLE testing schedule.

• Other Foundation Phase formats: quizzes, anatomy practicals, PCC final exams, ungraded end-of-semester exams in year 1 and the Comprehensive Basic Science Exam in year 2.
• With Student Progress Committee approval you can remediate up to two failed courses in June or July after year 1, and up to two in January or February of year 2.
• OSCEs count toward completing courses, clerkships, the third year and graduation.

Everyone does the Application Phase at one of six sites with the same objectives and assessments. Asheville, Charlotte and Wilmington are regional campuses, while Greensboro and Raleigh are sites, a difference in their level of LCME approval. Central, which the school calls Central Cross-Regional, covers Chapel Hill and surrounding areas. For the 2027-28 Application Phase, capacity is 114 at Central, 35 in Asheville, 30 each in Raleigh and Wilmington, and 12 each in Charlotte and Greensboro.

In early February of year 1 you rank all six sites, alone or as a pod of up to three students who share one list and are placed at the same site. MD-PhD students are placed at Central, Community Health Training and Kenan Urban scholars at their program sites, and students with approved caregiving or health exemptions are also placed directly. A computer program places everyone else, aiming to give as many students as possible a top-three choice, and results come in early March.

Requests to change site, for new health or caregiving needs, are heard in September of year 2. At a regional campus or site, you can stay on for the Individualization Phase and avoid a second move.

You need a car at every site, as bus service to clinics can be limited. Central students rotate across the Triangle and Triad, from east of Raleigh to Greensboro, some up to an hour from Chapel Hill. Regional students find their own housing for the year. Central students sent on short assignments to Greensboro or Wilmington can apply for housing from the Area Health Education Centers (AHEC), the state's network of nine regional centers for community-based training.

The Individualization Phase requires 12 weeks of electives (18 credit hours), in two-week, four-week or longitudinal formats, with at least eight weeks clinical; pathology and radiology count.

The 2027-28 course catalog lists 157 four-week and 51 two-week electives, plus 99 acting internships, 22 critical care and 12 neurology selectives, across all six sites. Examples include Immersive Wilderness Medicine in Asheville, Migrant Farmworker Health in Dunn, refugee and immigrant health in Charlotte and Greensboro, and correctional psychiatry in Raleigh.

Elective blocks can also go on away rotations at other institutions, through Visiting Student Learning Opportunities (VSLO), run by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). An acting internship done elsewhere counts as elective credit. A Larry D. Keith Scholarship gives recipients $1,000 toward a visiting elective.

Global health electives need approval from the Office of Global Health Education (OGHE) at least eight weeks before departure, after a travel clinic visit and safety training. OGHE generally supports only trips of four weeks or more. CAMPOS students can take immersion electives, including an exchange rotation with the University of Cayetano in Peru.

The 12 Scholarly Concentration Programs run from the Foundation Phase to the Individualization Phase, where their electives are offered. Six are Care of the Older Patient, Clinical Research, Clinician Leadership in Quality and Safety, Global Health, Humanities and Social Sciences, and Medical Education. The other six are MESSAGE (Medical Education Supporting Sexuality and Gender Expressions), Medical Innovation, Nutrition, Planetary Health, Ultrasound and Women's Health.

You apply in November of year 1 and hear in February; eligibility includes an NBME average above 80 percent and no course failures. You can join only one, and not alongside the Community Health Training Program. It can be listed as one of three noteworthy characteristics in your MSPE.

The Carolina Medical Student Research Program funds about 40 students a year for eight-week projects, mostly in the summer after year 1. You find your own mentor and apply through a process modeled on National Institutes of Health grants. About 22 percent of the Class of 2027 took a leave of absence, usually after the Application Phase. They used it for research or a degree such as a Master of Public Health (MPH) or Master of Business Administration (MBA).

The MD-PhD program, which school policy calls the Medical Sciences Training Program (MSTP), trains physician-scientists and takes 10 to 12 students a year. It follows a timeline similar to the 2-4-2 pattern: medical school, the PhD, then the final two years in clinical medicine. Students can start Application Phase rotations in the spring after Step 1, before graduate school begins in the fall. The program's statistics, updated in January 2025, give an average of 8.16 years to both degrees; the school's September 2026 MSPE appendix gives 8.5 years.

An MPH from the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health comes after the Foundation and Application Phases. Its Population Health for Clinicians concentration is a full-time, 42-credit, 12-month program that most students apply for in the fall of year 3. The MD/MBA with UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School takes five years, with the fourth spent on MBA courses. Both the MPH and the MBA need their own applications, and neither can be combined with the accelerated three-year track. Other relevant degrees, such as a law degree (MD/JD), need advance approval.

Roper Hall opened in 2023 on the site of the former Berryhill Hall. Its six floors and 176,000 square feet hold a 400-seat Active Learning Theater, seminar and study rooms, and labs for anatomy, microbiology and simulation, plus a student-only fitness center and a Tranquility Room. The building allows for a larger class: in 2023 the school announced first-year growth from 190 to 205 that fall, 215 in 2024 and 230 in 2025.

The SET Center fills Roper Hall's fourth and fifth floors. It has 24 exam rooms laid out like doctors' offices for standardized patient work, and six simulation labs with high-fidelity mannequins, including a fully working operating room and a three-bed trauma bay.

In Asheville, UNC Health Sciences at MAHEC has study space, a 56-seat teaching and testing room and the MAHEC Simulation Center. In Greensboro, the Union Square Campus simulation center hosts ultrasound sessions, and Cone Health hospitals give students study space and lockers.

You are placed in one of seven Larry Keith Advisory Colleges: Cefalo, Cross, Dent, Dimock, Simkins, Smithies and Williamson. Set up in 2008, each is a small group led by faculty College Advisors and peer-selected student advocates, giving specialty-neutral advice across all four years.

The Office of Academic Excellence offers coaching in study skills and test-taking, exam error analysis, Step 1 study schedules and readiness checks, and tutoring by trained senior students. In the clinical years it coaches you for shelf exams and Step 2 CK. Career Development at Carolina follows the AAMC's Careers in Medicine model, with specialty Career Goal Advisors and Campus Advisors at clinical sites.

The Taking Care of Our Own program gives UNC physicians in training free, confidential therapy and medication management, alongside the university's Counseling and Psychological Services. Regional Campus Health Centers provide medical care away from Chapel Hill.