All preclerkship courses are graded as pass/ fail. Students must pass the comprehensive final summative exam in a course to achieve a passing score. Clerkships will be graded as pass/ fail/ honors.

In all pre-clerkship courses, you will have summative and formal formative assessments. Summative assessments (exams) are designed to determine student mastery of material and contribute to the pass/fail course grade. Formal formative assessments are designed to provide individual student feedback in learning material between summative assessments and do not contribute to the pass/fail course grade.

We have a Medical Education Program Evaluation Plan that we developed to assess LCME standard alignment, course/clerkship quality, and student outcomes at multiple time points from multiple data sources throughout the four-year program. The results will be used by multiple entities within the College to determine progress and any needed changes.

Physical examination skills are taught via a combination of in-class instruction and through the Physical Examination Teaching Associate (PETA) Program. The PETA program is one of a growing number of programs throughout the country that trains patient educators to teach students the technique of physical examination using their own body as a teaching tool. This allows students to learn in small groups and receive immediate practice and feedback about their skills, and have confidence that they will not accidentally hurt their patient as they learn. The curriculum is overseen by faculty and allows them to focus their time with students on questions of pathology and clinical reasoning. Students will then take the skills that they learn in the classroom and apply them in a real clinical setting. Each student is assigned to a Continuity Clinic site as part of the Longitudinal Primary Care course. Students will get to use the skills that they have learned in the Continuity Clinic under the supervision of their attending primary care physician preceptor.

Our main hospital affiliate is HCA Houston Healthcare, a large health care system of hospitals across and around Houston. We intend to have our students have their clerkships at the following hospitals: HCA West Houston, HCA North Cypress, HCA Clear Lake Regional, HCA Kingwood and HCA Southeast. The HCA-UH Family Medicine and Ob-Gyn residencies are based at HCA West Houston. The HCA-UH General Surgery, Internal Medicine, Emergency Medicine and Transitional Year residency programs are based at HCA Kingwood Hospital. We also have affiliation agreements with MD Anderson and St. Joseph Medical Center.