Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine offers nearly 200 academic enrichment opportunities designed for students to customize their education to meet their individual goals. Options include advanced degrees, clinical electives, global health and research experiences, selectives, and more.

Advanced degree program options

Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine prepares students for every possible career aspiration. Students may combine their academic enrichment time to complete certificate programs, fellowships, or master’s degrees. Mayo Clinic offers several such programs, and students may also complete these programs at institutions external to Mayo Clinic. 

In collaboration with the Mayo Clinic Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Arizona State University (ASU), and several other renowned universities worldwide, we offer a variety of advanced learning programs that offer the ability to obtain a cross-disciplinary professional degree in addition to an M.D. degree. 

Students who have completed two or three years of the M.D. program and are in good standing are eligible to participate in a complementary degree-granting academic enrichment experience. Applications to these experiences are all completed post-matriculation. 

Featured dual degree opportunities

Global health study and travel opportunities 

Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine is committed to providing global health opportunities with several foreign and domestic medical schools with whom MCASOM and other medical staff have faculty ties. 

Learners interested in global health issues will have an opportunity to embark on a life-altering experience by working abroad and improving healthcare delivery across the globe. Medical students will gain a deeper knowledge of global health issues through an exchange of ideas, research, and creative educational efforts and resources. 

These global health opportunities offer diverse, excellent, safe, and life-changing global health rotations and research options to medical students throughout their four years of medical school.

Featured global health opportunities

Research

Along with clinical skills development and reasoning, formulating hypothesis-driven research is an integral part of advancing medical knowledge and discovery as part of a physician and scientist. At Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine, research is closely knitted and integrated into your M.D. program curriculum. 

Throughout our Doctor of Medicine program, students have ample opportunities for research. Students have ready access to Mayo's extensive research resources, more than 6 million medical histories, and multiple well-staffed research core facilities and mentors from every medical and surgical subspecialty. 

This process includes: 

• Learning the discipline and rigor of hypothesis-driven research
• Understand the statistical methods that are commonly used in biomedical studies (FunCaTS – Fundamentals of Clinical and Translational Science module)
• Reviewing and critically evaluating existing medical literature as a basis for composing a research proposal
• Writing a quality proposal to justify and describe the research project that the student will complete
• Completing the planned studies under the supervision of an experienced Mayo investigator
• Learning the skills to present scientific data at a local or national meeting by presenting research
• Writing a scientific paper for publication

Featured research opportunities

Selectives

Selectives are offered throughout all four years of medical school. Selectives enable students to experience the self-directed approach behind the design of the medical curriculum, emphasizing personal responsibility for the learning experience.

Selective blocks may be utilized for career exploration, working in underserved communities, remedial activities, exploration of research interests, research presentations, achieving higher-level learning objectives through reflection, enhancing clinical skills, or any activity related to medical education that is not directly provided for in the medical curriculum.

Selectives may be self-proposed or selected from a list of available clinical experiences organized through Mayo Clinic. Activities are not restricted to Mayo Clinic's campuses in Rochester, Minnesota; Scottsdale, Arizona; or Jacksonville, Florida, and may be embarked upon in Mayo Clinic Health System, or other national and international medical centers. 

Featured selectives opportunities

Student perspectives

Here's what a few of our current students and alumni have to say about what they've loved most about selectives at Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine.

Additional opportunities

In addition to our main academic enrichment opportunities, there are additional opportunities you can pursue to complement your medical school training, including certificate programs, distinction track programs, and opportunities for professional development.

Certificate

Certificate programs are designed for students to develop and strengthen knowledge in a specific thematic discipline or field of study.

Distinction track

Distinction track programs are generally less rigorous than certificate programs, but allow for specialized concentration within a medical discipline, bolstering a student's knowledge base in this area.

Professional development

Students can take advantage of various opportunities through continuing education and career training fellowships. Credit towards a student's M.D. is not awarded in these circumstances.