The Heidelberg University School of Medicine is one of twelve schools at the Heidelberg University. It was one of the four original faculties of the university in 1386. It comprises today 22 institutes and maintains a close relationship to the University Hospital Heidelberg.
Heidelberg University Medical School is the most competitive and hardest German medical school to enter into, with an acceptance rate of 3.6 percent (2008). Its medical degree program comprising two years of basic science, followed by the first of the two steps of the German medical licensing examination, and four years of clinical studies, has undergone a fundamental reform in 2001: From 2001 on, all medical students at Heidelberg University, University Hospital Heidelberg (as opposed to the Heidelberg University Faculty of Medicine in Mannheim) pursue a reformed six-year-long course named "HeiCuMed" ("Heidelberger Curriculum Medicinale"). This degree course is an adapted version of the Harvard Medical School curriculum. Undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate programs of Heidelberg University Medical School have played a fundamental role in Heidelberg being awarded "University of Excellence" status by the German Universities Excellence Initiative.