The Yale School of Medicine MD program

The pre-clerkship curriculum is built from eight master courses of two to 11 weeks, taken one after another. Four longitudinal courses of four to eight months run alongside: Professional Responsibility, Human Anatomy, Scientific Inquiry, and Populations and Methods. Clinical Skills and Foundations of Patient Care continue throughout, and threads such as pharmacology, pathology and health equity run through all the master courses.

Lectures are deliberately few. You meet new material through videos, online modules and large-group sessions, then practice it in small-group case workshops, team-based learning, labs and sessions with patients. Expect faculty to question you directly. Attendance is compulsory only for sessions with patients or community guests, clinical skills, simulation, required trainings and transition courses such as Introduction to the Profession.

Progress is measured against nine competencies, from patient care to the creation of new knowledge, each with milestones for every phase. The curriculum dates from 2015 and was updated in 2026.

In March 2026 the school announced a redesigned, competency-based curriculum launching that summer. The announcement describes courses broken into learning units with measurable goals, each ending in review and practice assessment, and faculty acting more as mentors and facilitators. The course pages, checked in October 2026, still list the courses described here.

In the clerkships, most learning happens on the wards and in clinics as part of the care team. Block teaching adds simulation, Top Ten workshops on common complaints or shared topics and, in some blocks, a weekly Thursday-afternoon session.

The school's workload guideline, approved in 2023, caps scheduled classroom time at 32 hours a week, with up to 20 more hours of preparation such as readings and videos. Two afternoons a week stay free, with few required evening or weekend sessions.

A year 1 week mixes the current master course with the longitudinal courses running alongside it. It also holds a Clinical Skills session, a Foundations of Patient Care session and, for much of the year, an anatomy lab. Studying for qualifiers comes on top, and in year 2 many students keep up research part-time.

Human Anatomy is one of the longitudinal courses, built around dissection; the Bulletin says four students share each cadaver and work as a team. Its three threads are dissection, lectures and embryology, with particular weight on diagnostic imaging and the musculoskeletal system.

Each weekly lab combines a drawing exercise, dissection, small-group discussion and skills such as physical diagnosis and ultrasound. Guides, quizzes and video lectures sit on the course's Guided Anatomy website, with imaging modules on X-ray, CT and MRI. Real and virtual prosections, specimens already dissected by experts, include 3D prosections explored with augmented reality.

The two official descriptions differ on timing. The anatomy web page and Year 1 schedule show weekly labs from September to April of year 1, with more anatomy folded into two year 2 courses. The 2026-27 Bulletin says the course runs from the second term of year 1 to the end of the first term of year 2.

From year 3, the four-week Advanced Surgical Anatomy elective takes up to 10 students through surgical dissections and procedures.

Patient contact starts in the opening course, Introduction to the Profession (iPro). In its first days you join care teams in several clinical settings at YNHH. The course also includes simulation, time with New Haven community organizations and small-group sessions at a museum. The Bulletin says every first-year student attends a session at the Yale museums.

Foundations of Patient Care, formed in 2026 from two earlier courses, then gives you weekly clinical time through the pre-clerkship phase. In Part 1 you learn with first-year students from Yale's Physician Associate (PA) program, in small groups led by a faculty tutor. You also observe professionals such as physical therapists, spiritual care providers and clinical nutritionists.

Part 2 runs from mid-March of year 1 to the end of November of year 2. Groups of three or four see patients weekly with a physician tutor, about 24 sessions in all. Clinical Skills classes also include interviews with real patients.

There are no grades in the pre-clerkship phase. Each course's knowledge exams, called qualifiers, are pass/fail, and you pass by scoring above a minimum the course directors set. You sit them under a random code number known only to you, so faculty never see an individual student's score. Results come within a week, with the reasoning behind correct answers.

If you fail a qualifier, you complete a remediation plan with the course director, usually within 10 days; passing it passes the course. A single failure stays with your faculty coach and the head of your advisory house, your faculty adviser. Repeated failures go to the Progress Committee, which reviews student progress: three usually bring supervised remediation, and four or more academic probation, which appears in your MSPE.

Faculty who teach you in consistent small groups, Clinical Skills instructors and Foundations of Patient Care tutors also write narrative commentaries on your progress toward the milestones. You, your coach and your head of advisory house can read them. The Progress Committee formally reviews every student at the end of each pre-clerkship year, at the end of clerkships and in April of the graduation year.

Two OSCEs (Objective Structured Clinical Examinations, hands-on exams with simulated patients) are graduation requirements, both held at the University of Connecticut's clinical skills center. The P-OSCE, at the end of the pre-clerkship phase, tests a complete history and physical examination. The C-OSCE, taken as close to the end of clerkships as possible, tests problem-focused history taking, examination and communication. You must pass it to start the ATP, and a first failure brings remediation and two more attempts within 12 months.

Clerkships are graded Pass or Unsatisfactory with a narrative, under the policy approved in April 2026; some school pages call the lower grade Fail. The grade reflects your level in five domains, from professional attitudes to responsibility to society, and a critical deficiency in any one can mean Unsatisfactory. You must also complete logs, workplace-based assessments and required teaching, and pass an anonymous, pass/fail end-of-clerkship knowledge exam that does not feed the narrative.

Directors write that exam locally or borrow it from their discipline's national education organization. Many US schools instead use National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) subject exams, called shelf exams, and Yale's clerkship page links a 2022 video on why Yale does not. Tiered grades appear only in the ATP, under a policy effective August 2026. Four-week clinical electives and sub-internships are graded Honors, High Pass, Pass or Unsatisfactory; two-week and non-clinical electives are Pass or Unsatisfactory.

• Step 1 tests how you apply the basic sciences and Step 2 CK your clinical knowledge. Both are one-day computer-based exams you must pass to graduate, and Step 1 has been reported pass/fail since January 2022.
• The school's USMLE policy (effective December 2025) has you take Step 1 after finishing the pre-clerkship phase, either in a testing period before clerkships or during the ATP. Step 2 CK falls in the ATP, and both must be taken by December 31 of your final year.
• The 2026-27 Bulletin strongly suggests finishing both by June 30 of your first ATP year, and you get up to three attempts at each.
• On the early option you take Step 1 in January of year 2 and do two-week electives before starting clerkships in the second block. You finish clerkships three months after classmates and begin the ATP in April.
• In August 2026 the USMLE program announced a move to designated testing dates from January 2029, with Step exams offered less often each year. On the current schedule, if you enter in August 2027, Step 1 normally falls in the ATP from January 2030.
• On the early option, if it is still offered, you would sit Step 1 in January 2029. Step 2 CK comes later, so both Steps would fall under the new model.

Clerkships take place mainly on the wards and in the clinics of YNHH's two campuses and the West Haven VA Medical Center. Some time is spent in private physicians' offices and other affiliated institutions. The 2026-27 Bulletin describes YNHH as a 1,554-bed hospital on two New Haven campuses, including Yale New Haven Children's Hospital, Yale New Haven Psychiatric Hospital and Smilow Cancer Hospital.

The school sorts sites into local and non-local. A December 2025 article lists YNHH, the West Haven VA, two community health center networks and practices in New Haven and eight nearby towns as local. Bridgeport, Middlesex, Lawrence and Memorial and Greenwich hospitals are non-local, as are practices in any other town, and the school spreads time there fairly across students.

Each department assigns clerkship sites from a preference form you return within seven days. Priority goes to approved disability accommodations, then to how often you have already been placed at an away site, then to special requests. Lotteries settle oversubscribed sites, and later changes need significant circumstances.

You arrange your own transport, and not having a car does not rule out a site outside New Haven. The student budget includes $3,418 a year for travel to rotations during the clerkship period, and a few affiliated institutions provide apartments near their sites.

For the ATP the school lists more than 100 clinical electives and sub-internships, overseen by more than 65 faculty. In a clinical elective you help care for patients alongside a resident or fellow, often in a subspecialty you want to explore; most last four weeks. A suggested-electives page and specialty advisers help you match choices to your residency plans.

Away rotations, electives taken at other institutions, are allowed in the ATP once core clerkships are done. You apply through the Visiting Student Learning Opportunities (VSLO) service of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) and arrange your own housing. The limit is four away rotations, with no more than two away sub-internships in one specialty without permission.

The Bulletin lists electives far beyond New Haven: month-long primary care rotations at Chinle Health Center on the Navajo reservation in Arizona and at the San Francisco Free Clinic. It also lists six weeks in Appalachia and family and transgender medicine in Oneonta, New York. Global clinical electives after the clerkship year include sites in Africa, Changsha in China, Mettapracharak Hospital in Thailand, Cordoba in Argentina and Santiago in Chile. Endowed travel fellowships cover pre-trip care, airfare and some living costs.

Non-clinical electives include Clinical Informatics and Data Science, Spanish for Health Care Professionals, the Healer's Art on professional values and a health equity advocacy elective first run in spring 2026. Early Step 1 students fill the weeks before clerkships with two-week electives such as Diagnostic Procedures and Methods or Culinary Medicine, or full-time research without a stipend.

The Wednesday Evening Clinic is a year-long elective, also offered as a sub-internship, at the New Haven Primary Care Consortium, which serves mainly Medicaid and Medicare patients. Up to 15 students beyond year 3 each act as primary care physician for 20 to 30 adults under faculty supervision. They see patients on Wednesday evenings and follow up results between sessions.

After the year 1 Scientific Inquiry course, most students spend 8 to 11 weeks of the following summer on mentored research, with stipends for full-time work. In summer 2026 more than 99% of eligible first-years did so. Admitted students can start earlier through START@Yale, an eight-week research program before matriculation.

The thesis reports original research under a full-time Yale faculty mentor; case reports do not count and projects cannot be shared. It may be laboratory, clinical, health equity, education or humanities research and must run to at least 30 pages. You aim to finish the research by September of your final year. Your mentor, a departmental reviewer and the Office of Student Research then review the thesis before final approval in March.

Extended study is one optional year between years 3 and 4. In a research flex year you work full time on research and can apply for a One-Year Research Fellowship with a stipend. About 15 to 25 students a year receive one. The MD-MHS (Master of Health Science) is completed in such a year, on one of these fellowships.

A hybrid flex year mixes research blocks, which can carry short-term stipends for 4 to 12 weeks, with clinical electives, global health or other projects. Neither kind of flex year adds a year of MD tuition. Estimates of take-up differ. The Yale System page says about half of students in recent years, and the 2026-27 thesis guide says about 65% of eligible students have used flex-year research.

About 20% of Yale MD students earn an MD-PhD, which averages seven to eight years, with the PhD fitted between the first two clerkship blocks and the last two. Other options include the MD/MPH (usually five years), MD/MBA (five), MD/JD (six), MD/MDiv (six) and MD/MS in Personalized Medicine and Applied Engineering. Joint-degree students other than MD-PhD students complete three years of the MD first and must take both Step exams by June 30 of the year the second degree starts.

Three scholarly concentrations, in biomedical ethics, medical education and medical humanities, each combine seminars, a practicum and a scholarly project. The Certificate in Global Medicine, declared by June 30 of year 1, builds a portfolio from coursework, research and a clinical elective abroad or in the US. It also requires language or culture work and a year in a leadership role; 38 students have earned it since 2013. The nutrition discipline page also lists a concentration in nutrition, launched in July 2026.

Edward S. Harkness Memorial Hall, at 367 Cedar Street, houses a student dormitory, lounge, gym, dining facilities and childcare center, plus the student affairs and student research offices. Its lower level holds the Clinical Skills Suite, where every practice room has ultrasound equipment.

Sterling Hall of Medicine, at 333 Cedar Street, holds the 450-seat Mary S. Harkness Auditorium and the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library. A 2019 renovation gave the library a large team-based learning classroom and eight small-group and study rooms. The Anlyan Center holds the anatomy and histology teaching space.

The Yale Center for Healthcare Simulation, at 728 and 730 Howard Avenue, has 13,000 square feet. Its rooms replicate an emergency department, ICU, ward, trauma bay, pediatric and newborn unit and operating room, with full-body manikins and video recording. It runs the Simulated Participant Program and is accredited by the Society for Simulation in Healthcare in all five categories.

Culinary medicine electives use Yale New Haven Health's Irving and Alice Brown Teaching Kitchen in North Haven.

Yale's learning communities are six advisory houses, Creed, Hamburg, Horstmann, Palade, Slayman and Yan, with MD, MD-PhD and PA students assigned at random for their whole program. The head of your house is your faculty academic adviser and writes your MSPE, and houses run social, service and community events.

Starting with the Class of 2027, every student also has a longitudinal coach, a faculty physician who follows 10 to 12 students from matriculation to graduation. You meet one-on-one at least four times a year to review your feedback against the milestones. Coaching is mandatory, and course and clerkship directors cannot coach students whose final grade they decide.

The associate dean for student affairs meets every first-year student and helps with problems of any kind, especially personal ones. The Academic Support Program offers a learning specialist for courses and USMLE preparation, and confidential peer tutoring that stays off your record. Trained Peer Advocates are classmates you can consult in confidence.

The Student Mental Health and Wellness Program offers short-term help, in person or online, with issues such as low mood, anxiety, stress or grief. Its social worker, psychologist and wellness counselor can also arrange longer-term care through Yale Health.