College of Medicine MD Curriculum

The curriculum is structured in Threads and Systems with longitudinal disciplines integrated throughout the 4 years.

A Thread is a thematic collection of Systems. A Thread is comparable to a semester at the collegiate level in that it lasts the duration of a semester and is comprised of several Systems.

Systems are the components of a Thread. A system is comparable to the collegiate level course.

Curriculum Schematic (PDF)

Example: Thread 1, Cellular Disease 780, is composed of 4 systems: Human Blueprint, Immunity, Infectious Disease and Hematology and Oncology. Each system will have a final exam and grade.  The Thread grade includes all of the systems plus other longitudinal components, including professionalism, the Integrated Clinical Skills Exam (ICSE) and the Thread Final.

Yes!

• Threads  (comparable to a semester)​
• Pass/Fail​
• Students who achieve a 90% or higher final score for all of the systems in a Thread AND have a final professionalism grade of 90% or higher for the Thread will be awarded a “Pass with Distinction” (PD).
• There is no curve applied to grades.
• Systems (components of a Thread and comparable to a course)​
• Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory​
• Students who achieve 90% or higher for their final score for a system will be awarded a “Satisfactory with Distinction” (SD).
• There is no curve applied to grades.

The pre-clerkship curriculum grades are not used in the GPA calculation. Only the clerkship grades are used for the GPA.

There are 2 major ways that medical school grades are communicated to residency programs:

1. Transcript​
   1. Thread Grades: Pass with Distinction(PD)/ Pass (P)/Fail (F) ​
   2. System Grades: Satisfactory with Distinction(SD)/Satisfactory (S)/Unsatisfactory(U)
2. Medical Student Performance Evaluation (MSPE)​ will include:
   1. Information about our grading system​
   2. Notation of how many distinctions were earned during the pre-clerkship years.​
   3. Example: "{Student Name} earned a Satisfactory with Distinction in 6 of 13 Systems and 1 Pass with Distinction in 1 of 4 Threads."