Medical students

After A-levels - and the completed UKCAT or BMAT examination if required – comes the first stage of education that focuses solely on medicine: medical school. There are 30 undergraduate medical schools in the UK, and two dedicated postgraduate institutions. All medical schools are run as a department of a UK university, and have close teaching links with nearby hospitals.

The final qualifications awarded by each medical school are fundamentally the same, although different universities name their degrees differently and award different postnominals. Attainment of a degree from medical school allows provisional registration with the General Medical Council (GMC), authorising supervised practice within the UK as a medical doctor

Medical school courses are generally five or six years in length, depending on whether the course involves intercalation, in which extra study of a subject related to medicine is undertaken for one year. This allows students’ research and study skills to develop, and sometimes gives an additional BSc qualification on top of the medical degree. Typically, several months of the course are spent abroad, on a medical elective.

Philosophical and structural approaches to the course vary greatly across medical schools, with a wide range of elements combined in different ways. The traditional approach draws a clear distinction between non-clinical (‘pre-clinical’) learning, taught first, and clinical work undertaken as the second half of the course. However, there has been a move in the UK towards integration of clinical and non-clinical elements.

In person

First year medical student, Natashja, discusses why she chose medicine, her first year of study and offers some words of advice for future medical students.