The USF Health Morsani College of Medicine MD program

The handbook describes Years 1 and 2 as mainly classroom and simulation based and Years 3 and 4 as mainly clinical. The Medical Science courses form one continuum, each covering one or more organ systems, with the emphasis shifting toward disease, diagnosis and treatment as they go.

In the 2026-27 syllabi, science courses mix in-person lectures with case-based engaged learning sessions, labs and, in several courses, simulation at CAMLS. Courses 1 and 2 ask you to treat anatomy, physiology and the other subjects as one integrated course, and regular USMLE-Rx quizzes of Step 1-style questions help you find gaps.

Doctoring runs through all four years: small groups on interviewing, examination, ethics, humanities and health systems in Years 1 to 3, then a Year 4 course mixing in-person events with online learning. Evidence-Based Clinical Reasoning applies study design and statistics to problem-based cases. Interprofessional sessions may bring in pharmacy, nursing, physical therapy, social work and athletic training students.

Nutrition teaching is growing: the college reports 36 hours of nutrition instruction in 2025-26 and 76 required hours, built into existing courses and clerkships, in 2026-27. A pilot culinary medicine experience is led by a chef educator.

In Years 1 and 2, scheduled class time averages 26 contact hours a week over a semester, never more than 35 in a week. The college plans around a 7:30 am to 5:30 pm weekday and leaves about 15 hours a week for independent study and self-directed learning.

In Year 1, Doctoring I takes one afternoon a week, Tuesday or Thursday from 1 to 5 pm, and some Friday afternoons are kept for Scholarly Concentration sessions. In Year 2, Doctoring II moves to Monday or Wednesday afternoons, and problem-based groups meet on Thursday afternoons until late October.

Clinical years follow resident duty-hour rules: at most 80 hours a week averaged over four weeks, and one day in seven free. Primary Care clinics run Monday to Thursday, 8 am to 5 or 6 pm, and surgery teams round from 5:30 am.

The 2026-27 syllabi for Medical Science Courses 1 and 2 set eight anatomy lab exercises on the back and limbs, then five on the heart and lungs. Both say the labs focus mainly on prosections, cadavers that have already been dissected. Your group of six or seven rotates through three stations. At the prosection station at CAMLS, teaching assistants take you through the cadaver; the imaging and ultrasound stations are in the downtown building.

Before each lab you work through a virtual cadaver in 3D dissection software and an ultrasound module, and need 70% on a prelab quiz to attend. The Course 1 practical asks you to identify specimens, models, bones and X-ray, CT and MRI images, with about 60 seconds per question.

The two-week Advanced Human Anatomy elective in Years 3 and 4 lets you dissect two regions of a cadaver, or do ultrasound work or teach first-year students instead. Most surgical tracks in Year 4 also require a four-week Advanced Surgical Anatomy, Pathophysiology, and Skills selective.

Professions of Health, the two-week opening course, includes interviews with patients, standardized patients and health professionals. Doctoring I small groups then meet each week to practice history taking and examination. You take turns interviewing a standardized patient or one of your group's leaders, and you practice examination on standardized patients. In Course 2, a CAMLS lab adds heart and lung sounds and cardiac ultrasound.

In Year 2, the six-week Doctoring Clinical Experience gives you six half-days with a community preceptor in Hillsborough, Pinellas or Pasco County. Each week you interview and examine a patient, and you write two reflection papers. A separate six-week block at CAMLS pairs you with a fourth-year student for three standardized patient sessions.

Full-time clinical work starts with Introduction to the Clerkships in late May, at the start of Year 3, and responsibility grows each year up to the Year 4 acting internship.

Most courses and clerkships use tiered grades: Honors, Pass with Commendation or Pass, with Remediation, a provisional fail you must fix, and Fail below. Courses under four weeks, or without enough assessment for tiers, may be graded Satisfactory or Unsatisfactory instead. In 2026-27 these include Professions of Health, the fall half of Doctoring I, the Scholarly Concentration Course, Doctoring III and IV, and the Year 4 EPA courses. Evidence-Based Clinical Reasoning I grades its two parts pass or fail, then gives a tiered final grade, with Honors from 92%.

Medical Science Courses 1, 2, 5 and 6, whose 2026-27 syllabi are posted, each have three course tests and a comprehensive final. The finals come from the NBME; Course 1's has 120 retired Step 1-level questions. Courses 1 and 2 add an anatomy practical, and in Course 1 Honors needs 90% on all three parts.

Clinical skills are tested in clinical practice exams, which work like an objective structured clinical examination (OSCE): stations with standardized patients, scored on your history, examination, communication and written note. Year 3 ends with the all-day Comprehensive Clinical Practice Exam, which you must pass to enter Year 4.

Seven clerkships end with an NBME subject exam, or shelf exam, a national test in the specialty. Passing needs the 5th percentile and Honors the 75th to 85th, alongside preceptor ratings. Primary Care, Pediatrics and Obstetrics and Gynecology add oral exams; Emergency Medicine uses knowledge quizzes and an ultrasound exam.

USMLE Step 1 tests the basic sciences and has been reported only as pass or fail for exams taken since January 26, 2022. Step 2 Clinical Knowledge (CK) tests how you apply clinical knowledge. The handbook requires Step 1 at least two weeks before Introduction to the Clerkships and Step 2 CK by August 15 of Year 4. You must pass both 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 notice had named 2028. On the current schedule, a student entering in summer 2027 would sit Step 1 in spring 2029 and Step 2 CK by August 2030, both after the change.

• Year 1 ends with an NBME comprehensive exam you must pass, and Year 2 checks your Step 1 readiness on the NBME Comprehensive Basic Science Exam or an equivalent.
• First-time takers can start Year 3 while awaiting a Step 1 result but need a pass for promotion. The college sponsors up to three attempts at each Step exam, the third only after a petition.
• You must finish the MD within six years of starting.
• The service and teaching hours required for graduation must be completed by the end of the fall semester of Year 4.
• For MD students, LCME accreditation is what makes you eligible to take the USMLE; osteopathic (DO) students and international graduates qualify through other routes.
• The LCME directory, updated October 14, 2026, lists full accreditation, first granted in 1971, with the next survey in 2030-31; the college was last reviewed in 2023.
• The USMLE program has encouraged schools to review rules that restrict when students take Step exams.

Core MD students do both clinical years from the college's central campus in Tampa. A lottery sets your clerkship order, taking your preferences into account, and clerkship directors assign sites. You arrange your own transport, and assignments are not changed for lack of it.

Tampa General Hospital (TGH), the primary teaching hospital, has been affiliated with the college since the school was created in the early 1970s. TGH says it is licensed for 1,354 beds, is the region's only Level I trauma center and trains more than 800 residents and fellows. Much of surgery, neurology, emergency medicine, labor and delivery and inpatient medicine happens there.

The James A. Haley Veterans' Hospital hosts half of Adult Medicine plus neurology, psychiatry, surgery and ICU rotations, and Moffitt Cancer Center hosts cancer surgery, gynecologic oncology and many Year 4 electives. Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital in St. Petersburg is a Pediatrics site.

The college's SELECT MD program, which sends students to Lehigh Valley in Allentown, Pennsylvania, for Years 3 and 4, is closed to new students; its last full class graduates in 2027.

Year 3 has two two-week electives, one each in the Surgical Care and Obstetrics and Gynecology blocks. Options on the 2026-27 list include introductions to dermatology, radiology, neurosurgery, orthopedics and pathology, research in emergency medicine, an online Culinary Medicine course and Advanced Human Anatomy.

In Year 4 you pick electives before visiting students can enroll and change them through drop/add at least 30 days ahead. Longitudinal options include Medical Spanish and the BRIDGE Clinic elective, whose student directors run the clinic for at least 150 hours a year, including telehealth sessions and a monthly clinic at AdventHealth.

Away rotations, which the college calls externships, let you spend up to three four-week periods elsewhere without prior approval, though not normally in Periods 10 and 11, around March and April. Most host schools use their own form or the Visiting Student Learning Opportunities (VSLO) service of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC).

An International Health Elective and International Medical Spanish and Culture, four weeks each, run off campus. International travel requires registering with USF Health International and taking the university's travel insurance. Independent studies with a faculty supervisor usually happen on campus.

Every student takes the Scholarly Concentration Course in Years 1 and 2. After an orientation, a round-robin event and time trying out meetings, you choose a concentration by the end of September of Year 1. You then attend at least 10 hours of its sessions a year; the course is graded Satisfactory or Unsatisfactory.

College pages disagree on the count: the overview and requirements pages say eleven concentrations, while the program menu and 2026-27 syllabus list twelve. Six are AI in Medicine; Biomedical Research; Community Health & Wellness; Health Systems Engineering; Innovation, Entrepreneurship & Business in Medicine; and International Medicine. The other six are Law & Medicine; Medical Education; Medical Humanities; Nutrition Research & Health; Public Health; and Sex-Based and Sociocultural Differences in Health & Disease.

The four-year Scholarly Concentrations Program is optional. It asks for at least 180 contact hours and a capstone project, such as original research, service or a case study, by February of Year 4. It also asks for a presentation at USF Health Research Day. Completion is noted in your Medical Student Performance Evaluation (MSPE), the letter that goes to residency programs, and marked with an honor cord at commencement.

Between Years 1 and 2, the competitive Summer Research Elective supports a full-time project with a mentor. The RISE (Research, Innovation & Scholarly Endeavors) office reviews proposals and helps students with mentors, study design and statistics. Separately, the one-year Research Track adds a mentored research year, making the MD five years.

The 2026-27 Graduate Catalog lists five dual degrees. The USF Morsani College of Medicine-Moffitt Cancer Center MD/PhD Program takes about seven to eight years: two preclinical years, about four of PhD research, then two clinical years. A seven-year MD/PhD in Biomedical Engineering starts with a non-thesis master's and requires at least one peer-reviewed publication.

The MD/MPH adds a Master of Public Health that shares 9 credits with the MD; you apply once enrolled and in good standing. The MD/MBA adds a Master of Business Administration on a suggested five-year plan, with a year of MBA courses after Year 3. The MD/JD adds a law degree through Stetson Law School. A seven-year BS/MD route with USF's Judy Genshaft Honors College leads into the same MD: three undergraduate years, then the four-year MD, with the bachelor's degree usually awarded after the first MD year.

Years 1 and 2 are taught mainly in the Morsani College of Medicine building (MDD) at 560 Channelside Drive, in downtown Tampa's Water Street district. It also houses the Taneja College of Pharmacy and the Heart Institute. USF Health news reported its opening on January 8, 2020, with MD classes there from January 13.

The building holds the lecture auditorium, small group rooms and a suite for each of the Collegia, the learning communities described below. Its 5,000-square-foot Experiential Learning Lab has movable walls that switch between exam rooms and simulation spaces. The Florida Blue Health Knowledge Exchange, a largely digital library, lends SonoSim ultrasound devices.

CAMLS, at 124 South Franklin Street, holds the gross anatomy lab, a satellite Student Health Services clinic and the Center for Experiential Learning and Simulation. That center moved there in December 2016 and runs a program of more than 150 standardized patients.

On the USF Tampa campus, the Shimberg Health Sciences Library has a 3D printing lab and round-the-clock study space.

Every student is placed in one of nine Collegia, non-residential learning communities founded in 2012 that mix all four years. Each Collegium has about 15 students from each class year, about 60 in all. They are named for figures from medicine, such as Hippocrates, Galen, Osler or Paul Farmer, and each is led by a student chair. Physician assistant students join from 2026-27.

Each Collegium is paired with a faculty M.A.P.S. (Mentorship, Advising, Progress, and Support) advisor who stays with you for four years. You meet at least once a semester in Years 1 to 3 and three times in Year 4, following the AAMC's Careers in Medicine stages. By the end of Year 3 you also choose a specialty advisor.

The free Academic Support Center offers learning-skills advising, peer tutoring by senior students and a Step 1 board review course for second-years. Wellness support includes coaching, a trained Peer Support Network, free Headspace Premium and the confidential HELPS program for students and their families.