California University of Science and Medicine

CUSM uses a flipped classroom: students work through pre-lecture material, then class time opens with iRAT and tRAT readiness quizzes and moves on to clinical cases and board-style questions. Bao Vu describes three scheduled days a week, with labs, clinical skills, and a College Colloquium covering ethics.

Clinical skills run through both preclinical years, teaching history and physical exam techniques system by system alongside the coursework.

As a young school, CUSM gives students real say. Bao says students helped move grading from letter grades to pass/fail and cut the schedule from five days a week to three.

Bao describes faculty as heavily invested in student success, with a real open-door policy, and a class that shares notes and supports each other.

Arrowhead Regional Medical Center, across the street from campus, is the primary teaching hospital for the clerkship and transition-to-residency phases, and ARMC physicians serve as faculty and mentors.

Regional affiliates for third- and fourth-year clerkships include Eisenhower Health, Riverside Community Hospital, Riverside University Health System, and Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center.

CUSM sits in Colton, near San Bernardino. Bao notes there are fewer distractions than at other Southern California schools, with Redlands and Riverside nightlife 5–15 minutes away.

Big Bear ski resorts, Orange County beaches, and Los Angeles are one to two hours away.