• Summer before Medical School
• Preclinical Years 1 and 2
• The Graduate Years
• Clinical Clerkships

Summer before Medical School

Trainees are strongly encouraged (but not required) to spend 10 weeks of this summer completing a laboratory rotation at UCSF, which can later be applied toward the two-rotation requirement for graduate school. The MSTP office can provide advice and assistance in arranging the rotation, and stipend support from the MSTP grant is available beginning July 1.

Preclinical Years 1 and 2

Program trainees follow the standard School of Medicine curriculum and must satisfy all course requirements.

Trainees also attend Medicine 170.09, a weekly informal MSTP seminar series presented by UCSF faculty and senior trainees, which is designed to introduce the full range of research open to MSTP trainees at UCSF.

Optional: MSTP Journal Club, a weekly informal series of disease -related basic medical science presentations run by MSTP students in their first two years of medical school.

Optional: Many students also take graduate courses (such as BMS Cell Bio, BMS Genetics, and Advanced Neuroscience courses) during medical school.

A total of two lab rotations are required by all graduate programs (Please check the Medical Anthropology website for requirements specific to this program). Trainees have the option of completing their first laboratory rotation the summer prior to beginning medical school and during the summers following years 1 and 2.

MSTP trainees who complete the two rotations required by their chosen program are permitted to select a thesis laboratory, and can begin part-time thesis research before entering graduate school.

At the end of year 2, MSTP trainees have the choice of spending the summer either in a graduate laboratory or in a third-year clinical clerkship. The National Boards must be completed by April 22, 2005 and commitment to a laboratory rotation or thesis lab must be made by April 25, 2005 .

The Graduate Years

MSTP trainees declare a graduate school program during their second year of medical school. See Affiliated Graduate Programs.

MSTP trainees are strongly encouraged to take their graduate program's required qualifying (oral) exam by the end of their first year of graduate school and, like other graduate students, are required to do so by the end of the second year. Thereafter, they conduct full-time research until the thesis project is completed and a written thesis has been approved by the thesis committee.

Students meet with their thesis committee every six months and all MSTP thesis committees are required to have at least one MSTP Council member.

Optional: MSTP Clinical Preceptorship: In order to maintain their clinical knowledge and skills while in graduate school, and to sample areas of medicine that are of particular interest to them, MSTP trainees also are able to complete up to six units (one unit per quarter) of Medicine 160.04 -- the MSTP Clinical Preceptorship. For each preceptorship, the trainee selects a faculty mentor from any clinical department and arranges to spend at least 12 hours participating in direct patient care under supervision of that mentor during the quarter, with the schedule arranged by mutual agreement. Preceptorships may be taken during any six quarters chosen by the trainee, but only one preceptorship is allowed per quarter. MSTP trainees are given four weeks of senior-year clinical clerkship credit for six units of Medicine 160.04, following the usual formula that 1.5 weeks = 1 unit of elective credit; these help to save time or increase flexibility in the final clinical years.

Clinical Clerkships

The clinical clerkship requirements are the same for MSTP trainees as for other medical students (see Clinical Core), except that advanced credit is given for Medicine 160.04 and for any clerkships completed during the summer before graduate school.

MSTP trainees who are approaching completion of their Ph.D. training must notify both the MSTP Office and the Office of Curricular Affairs one year before the expected completion date, to allow planning of an individualized clerkship schedule.