skillnoro — Let's go

600+ Courses from Top Med Schools with Free Certificate & CME Credit

Some of the free certificates I’ve earned

(Written by Manoel with latest updates by Pat.)

To support continuing medical education (CME), many universities — including top institutions like Stanford, Yale, and Penn — offer free medical online courses and webinars.

These include free certificates of completion like the ones above, and often also a transcript. Furthermore, if you’re a healthcare professional, they also carry continuing medical education credit (CME credit).

I’ve scoured the web in search of platforms that offer free medical courses, testing these platforms one by one, and collecting a dozen free certificates along the way, including from Ivy League schools.

In this Class Central article, I’ve compiled all the platforms I’ve found. Combined, they offer over 600 medical online courses and webinars, with free certificates and CME credit.

We recommend you take careful note of any dates mentioned on course pages. For example, many have an end date, after which the certificate and CME credit are no longer available. You may still be able to watch the videos, but cannot gain recognition after the closing date.

And some other medical schools have resources for a nomimal fee. For instance, Johns Hopkins has many priced at $5 each.

We’ll continue to update this article as we find more platforms. If you know a platform that fits the article and isn’t listed below yet, please share it in the comments.

What’s continuing medical education (CME)?
How to enroll in CME courses?
How to earn CME certificates?
Where to take CME courses?
- Stanford
- Dartmouth
- Brown
- California
- Chicago
- Pennsylvania
- Yale

Understanding Continuing Medical Education (CME)

Yale CME Platform

Medical research is very active. Every year in the US, more students earn doctoral degrees in life sciences than in any other field. And in most EU countries, medical sciences are the primary recipients of research funding. This is only natural. We’re talking about people’s health. The stakes are high.

Since the medical field evolves rapidly, lifelong learning is an integral part of medical professions. Continuing medical education (CME) simply formalizes this necessity. It consists of activities, including courses and webinars, that allow healthcare professionals to keep up with development in their fields.

These activities lead to certificates and carry continuing medical education credit (CME credit) in proportion with the activities’ length and depth. In many places around the world, healthcare professionals must earn CME credit on an ongoing basis to demonstrate their continued competency.

While primarily geared toward healthcare professionals, fortunately, these activities are often accessible to everyone, even those of use that don’t work in healthcare. And sometimes, they’re even free. In this article, we focus on online platforms that offer free CME resources available to everyone.

Enrolling in CME Courses

Dartmouth Health Online CME Activities

After spending some time researching CME platforms, you start to notice some patterns.

For one, most med schools offer CME activities. Some only organize in-person activities. But often, they also offer online activities in the form of courses or webinar recordings — so called enduring or on-demand materials.

Additionally, universities typically rely on third-party platforms to organize their online CME activities and issue certificates. A couple of platforms seem to be particularly popular. I’ve come across these quite often:

CloudCME — used by Stanford and Johns Hopkins, among others
EthosCE — used by Brown and Chicago, among others.

The advantage of these platforms being popular is that once you’ve tried them, you’ll feel comfortable navigating the CME platforms of most universities, at least US-based ones.

The sign up process, in particular, is almost always the same. Compared to platforms like Coursera, CME platforms tend to ask for more information, including your phone number, address, and current degree.

If you don’t want to share that information, you can just fill in random values. They don’t verify phone numbers. But know that the degree information you input will usually be appended to your name on certificates, and the address will typically show up on your transcript, so you might want to fill in sensible values.

Earning CME Certificates

My Stanford transcript, listing the courses I’ve taken

After finishing an online CME activity, you’ll have to complete a posttest to demonstrate your learning. These typically involve 2 to 10 multiple-choice questions, specifically about the activity’s content.

Some instructors make their posttests very easy — sometimes concerningly so, since some posttests just involve ticking a checkbox promising that you’ve watched the CME videos in full. I found this a bit alarming, considering these activities are used for the ongoing validation of clinicians’ knowledge.

Other instructors make their posttests quite difficult, testing learners on minute and sometimes subjective details, verifying programmatically that the learner watched the CME videos in full before unlocking the posttest, and allowing learners only two attempts to pass the posttest.

If you achieve a passing grade in your posttest, you’ll typically be asked to fill a survey evaluating the quality of the CME activity. Once you’ve filled the survey, you’ll have access to your certificate of completion, or the certificate will be emailed to you within a day.

Additionally, most platforms will also allow you to access and print a transcript listing all the CME activities you’ve completed on the platform. You can see my Stanford transcript above.

CME Platforms

Here are the CME platforms I’ve explored. Combined, they offer over 600 CME activities, most of them with free certificates, and for healthcare professionals, CME credit. As mentioned above, if you need the certificate or CME credits, check that the course is still offering them, since many courses do not offer certificates or credits after a particular date.

We’ll continue to expand the list as we find new platforms. If you have other recommendations, please share them in the comments.

Stanford Free CME Courses

Pat’s certificate for Stanford’s Gut Check – How the Microbiome Shapes CAR-T Therapy Outcomes

Stanford Medicine offers hundreds of online learning resources in the medical field, from podcasts to full-fledged courses, many including free certificates of completion and CME credit. Learners also have access to a formal transcript from Stanford, listing all the training they’ve completed.

Here are some of the free resources available on the platform:

Podcast: The Stanford Medcast, a biweekly 30-minute medical podcast. Each episode focuses on a new topic, often related to recent medical developments. You can find them all here.
Webinar: The Grand Rounds, a series of hour-long (or more) on-demand webinars, where experts discuss various topics related to healthcare. Here’s a webinar that focuses on Narcolepsy
Online Course: Diagnosis and Management of Migraines, To Prescribe or Not To Prescribe? Antibiotics and Outpatient Infections, and Health Across the Gender Spectrum, to name a few.

You can find Stanford’s entire CME catalog here.

If you’d like to learn more about Stanford CME, I’ve written a detailed article about the platform: Stanford Medicine Offers Courses with Free Certificate & CME Credit.

Dartmouth Free CME Courses

My Dartmouth transcript, listing the course I’ve taken: Calming and De-Escalation

Dartmouth University offers 213 online CME activities, almost all free, including grand rounds and webinars on topics including maternity management, long COVID, TB, and violence.

Here are some of the free resources available on the platform:

Tick-borne Illnesses
TB Infection Power Primer: Answering Primary Care’s Most Common Questions
Maternal Mortality Webinar Series – TeamBirth in New Hampshire
Long COVID 2025: What Primary Care Providers Need to Know
Neuroscience Education Series – De-escalating the Behavioral and Violent Patient

You can find Dartmouth’s entire CME catalog here.

Note that on this platform, you may have to Reference on the “Purchase” button to take a course, giving you the impression you’ll have to pay, but the on the checkout page, price will actually be $0.

Brown Free CME Courses

My certificate of completion for Brown’s Fears, Bias and Discrimination in Substance Use Disorders

Brown University offers 5 free online CME activities on topics including addiction and opioid use disorders.

Here are some of the free resources available on the platform:

Health Professions Educator Development
Clinical Practice Guidelines for Prescribing Opioids for Pain and Best Practices for Managing Acute Pain
Buprenorphine Prescribing for Opioid Use Disorder in Primary Care
Stigma: Its Impact and What You Can Do
Addiction Medicine Tips for Community Health Centers.

You can find Brown’s entire CME catalog here.

California Free CME Courses

My certificate of completion for California’s Improving Access to Contraception

The University of California has CME platforms for its various campuses, including UCSF, UCLA, UC San Diego, UC Davis, and UC Irvine. Currently, you need to check the individual campus sites, but they are planning to amalgamate them all onto one platform in the future. Stay tuned!

In total, the University of California offers around 40 free CME activities on topics such as diabetes, addiction, and emotional wellbeing.

Here are some of the free resources:

Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities: Promoting Health and Well-being
Healthy Lungs California 2024: Engaging Providers & Health Systems on Lung Cancer Screening
2024 CMCR Symposium Cannabis, Cannabinoids and Aging
Hypertension Part 1: Practical Tips & Tactics. Right Care Heart Attack & Stroke Prevention
The Importance of Being Centered for Self-Care and Reducing Burnout

You can find courses from the various campuses here:

UCSF: currently 5 free courses focusing on mental health, reproduction, and tobacco issues
UCLA: currently 17 courses focusing on long covid and disabilities
UC San Diego: currently 5 courses on cannabis, self-care, and ultrasound training
UC Irvine: currently 12 courses focusing mainly on heart attack and stroke issues
UC Davis: at the time of writing, it is unclear if any educational events are free or open to all.

Chicago Free CME Courses

My certificate of completion for Chicago’s First, Do No (Financial) Harm

The University of Chicago offers 37 online CME activities, many of them free. These discuss topics related to various areas of medical research, such as oncology, palliative care, and pediatrics.

Here are some of the free resources available on the platform:

Identifying and Managing Patients with Monogenic Diabetes
Effective Management of IgA Nephropathy: Integrating New Therapies and Clinical Insights
Managing Pain During Serious Illness.

You can find Chicago’s entire CME catalog here.

Penn Free CME Courses

My certificate of completion for Penn’s Tarasoff Duties

The University of Pennsylvania offers 18 online CME activities, many are free. These include mini-courses and webinar recordings on both purely medical topics as well as topics surrounding the medical field, such as the laws and ethics of doctor-patient confidentiality.

Here are some of the free resources available on the platform: