All applicants must apply through the Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS) and register for the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP).
Notice: The deadline for receipt of all application materials is October 15; applications received after that date may not be reviewed.
UC Davis Health ERAS codes:
All application materials must be received through ERAS. These are the required and recommended materials:
All applications are screened by our Selection Committee utilizing a holistic review. This is a flexible, individualized way of assessing an applicant’s capabilities by which balanced consideration is given to experiences, attributes, and academic metrics, and when considered in combination, how the applicant might contribute to our program’s mission and as a future practicing physician. This means that we take into account the entirety of students’ performance and background in determining who we offer interviews to. Thus, we do not have a minimum board score requirement (USMLE and/or COMLEX) —we only require that you have passed each step that you have taken. We review all applications that have passing scores, even if you failed on initial attempts. Students’ clinical performance and extracurricular activities (e.g. research, community engagement, volunteer work, leadership positions, life experience before medical school) are very important parts of our review. We value diversity in all its forms – socioeconomic status, race/ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, and living with disability.
Signaling: While we preferentially review applications from those who signal our program, we also consider applicants who do not signal us. But due to a high volume of applications, we are unlikely to extend interview offers to applicants who do not signal our program with either a gold or silver signal.
We generally do not review applications until after the release of the Dean's Letter in the end of September. Due to the time required to do a thorough holistic review, and the fact that we do not usually extend interview offers until all applications are reviewed, our interview invites usually do not come out until the last two weeks of October. We only send out all invites in the afternoon (not in the morning during rounds) and use the Thalamus program scheduling tool. We do not extend more invites than interview slots. Once all our interview slots are filled (approximately one week after the initial invites go out), we notify the remaining applicants if they have been selected to be our waitlist (should some interviewees cancel their interviews), or if we will not offer them an interview.
For the 2024-2025 interview season, we will follow the AAMC’s recommendations and University of California rules and perform all interviews in a virtual fashion. Interviews will be scheduled between mid-November and the end of January.
We plan to offer a limited number of in-person Second Look days in late January or February for those interested in visiting our campus in-person. An applicant’s decision to attend one of these will have no bearing on their ranking in our program, so they should feel no pressure to attend. To ensure equity in this process, the Second Looks occur after we finalize our rank list and submit it to our Graduate Medical Education (GME) Office. The GME team here ensures that we do not change our list after the Second Looks. We will provide more details on the interview day about our Second Look program.
Our interview day structure has not yet been finalized for this year, but a general overview is the following:
The Internal Medicine Residency Program will only sponsor J1 Visas.
Requirements for consideration of international medical graduates applying for postgraduate training in internal medicine also include:
Postgraduate Training Licensees
A Postgraduate Training License is issued to an individual who has graduated from an approved medical school, passed all required examinations, has not received either a minimum of 12-months credit (for U.S. or Canadian medical school graduates) or 24-months credit (for international medical school graduates) of Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME)-accredited postgraduate training if completed in the United States and its territories, or the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada (RCPSC) and/or The College of Family Physicians of Canada (CFPC)-accredited postgraduate training if completed in Canada, and is enrolled in a Board-approved California residency program.
Applying for a Postgraduate Training License (PTL)
The VA requires that all male residents, fellows, and paid employees who are required by law to register for the Selective Service must be able to provide evidence of registration or exemption from registration. All our residents rotate through the Sacramento VA Medical Center as a major teaching site. Thus, we require that applicants have this evidence of registration or exemption if they are going to apply to our program, as they must be able to work at the VA if they match in our program.
The requirements for Selective Service Registration are found here: Selective Service-Who Must Register. If you have any questions about this, please contact us at imres@ucdavis.edu.
Important: if you determined that you do not meet this requirement, please contact us immediately so we can assist you further.
All prospective applicants applying to the UC Davis Internal Medicine Residency Program will be considered per the screening criteria by our Selection Committee utilizing a holistic review; please refer to the application information included on this page for more details. Below you will find UC Davis Health and The Office Graduate Medical Education’s policies on employment, benefits and eligible and selection criteria:
For further details on UC Davis Health's and GME employment and eligibility please visit the GME’s website to learn more.
For medical students who are interested in rotating at UC Davis in their 4th year to check us out, the UC Davis School of Medicine does offer many elective courses in the Department of Internal Medicine. These are coordinated through the School of Medicine and not the residency program. More information can be found here.
Students will need to visit the AAMC's Visiting Student Learning Opportunities™ (VSLO®) and complete an application (there is a fee associated with this).
Please note that for our Externship (Visiting Acting/Sub Internship) in Medicine (IMD 462), space is very limited. We do require that students have successfully completed all of their 3rd-year clerkships before enrolling for these electives. Please include the following additional documents for consideration: a letter of interest and USMLE/COMLEX scores (you may compile it into a word document and save as one PDF to upload onto the VSLO website).
Although we do not supply housing or stipends, there are many rentals available near the medical center. Arrangements for housing must be done on an individual basis.
Please note that the Office of Student and Resident Diversity does have a special program that offers significant financial assistance to qualified 4th year medical students who are underrepresented in medicine and/or from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. Find More information on this Diversity in Medicine Visiting Elective Program.
Lastly, please note that doing a visiting student rotation does not guarantee an interview in the residency program.