M.D. Curriculum
Saint Louis University School of Medicine’s M.D. curriculum calls you to a higher purpose. Through team-based learning, hands-on care and sociomedical insight, you’ll gain the skills and compassion to make a profound, lasting impact on the communities you serve.
Master Your Skills. Transform Your Community.
At SLU SOM, academic excellence is just the beginning. Your training in clinical care, emerging technology and complex healthcare systems will uniquely prepare you to thrive and serve in nationwide communities facing ever-evolving challenges and needs.
Clinical Training and Technology
- Early Exposure: Treat real patients during your first two years.
- AI and Virtual Reality: Interact with virtual patients and receive instant, automated feedback.
- Simulation Center: Replicate medical emergencies with real-time faculty guidance.
- Clinical Skills Center: Examine standardized patients in realistic clinical encounters.
- Active Learning: Solve real-world clinical problems through interactive classroom activities.
- Peer-Led Learning: Reinforce your understanding by explaining difficult concepts to your classmates.
- Team-Based Learning: Collaborate in small groups to explore medical nuance.
Community and Mission
- Service: Volunteer with the SLU mobile health clinic to help vulnerable populations.
- Social Determinants of Health: Analyze how environmental factors predetermine health access and outcomes.
- Holistic Care: Embody the Jesuit tradition of cura personalis by treating the whole patient — mind, body and spirit.
- Business in Medicine: Discover the financial and systemic choices affecting doctor-patient relationships.
- Patient Advocacy: Use your platform to act on behalf of marginalized populations.
- Medical Ethics: Explore moral norms that govern modern medical practice.
- Compassionate Communication: Learn to actively respond to unique patient needs.
Your Clinical Exposure, Unmatched
St. Louis is a melting pot of vibrant backgrounds and cultures. By training at clinics and hospitals that treat populations across the entire region — rural and urban, wealthy and underserved — you’ll gain a distinct clinical edge that sets you apart in any medical setting.
Primary Clinical Partners
- SSM Health Saint Louis University Hospital: Train at a 365-bed Tier 1 tertiary care hospital and major referral center.
- SSM Health Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital: Master pediatric medicine at a world-class Level 1 pediatric trauma center featuring a Level IV Neonatal ICU.
- SSM Health St. Mary’s Hospital – St. Louis: Gain training in high-risk pregnancy care at a hospital with a state-of-the-art Level III Neonatal ICU.
Your Journey, Customized
Tailor your medical education with one of SLU SOM’s eight optional medical distinctions. You can blend your professional interests with the standard M.D. curriculum through faculty mentorship and specialized electives.
Your Dual Degree Options
Combine your clinical training with research, business or public health. You’ll gain career flexibility and accelerate your path to a leadership role with real-world impact.