Fourth-year medical students enjoy a diverse range of experiences through which they can explore their medical interests, strengthen areas of weakness in knowledge, clinical skills, and/or clinical reasoning, and broaden their preparation for postgraduate training and practice. 

The year comprises a required 30 weeks of elective credit (20 weeks required with SIU Faculty), 1 week of Medical Humanities, and a fourth-year Doctoring Curricula.

Students may also design their own elective if they are interested in a course or topic for which a regular elective does not exist. This Individual-Designed (ID) elective can include experiences with non-SIU faculty, or at a military or other health care setting.  A student must be in good academic standing (determined by Student Progress Committee) to enroll in an elective experience with any non-SIU faculty.

Evaluations are administered at the completion of each elective on a pass/fail grading scale. 

Upon graduation students must meet all fourth-year requirements, attain a passing score on USMLE Step 1 and Step 2, and successfully complete all SIU Medicine graduation requirements.