Program Overview

Do you want to make a difference? With patient experience and student satisfaction at its heart, this hands-on, forward-thinking degree from one of England’s top four medical schools will give you the knowledge, skills and confidence to become an outstanding doctor primed for tomorrow’s healthcare needs. Nurturing critical thinking and a caring approach to your medical practice, we’ll help you develop the clinical and communication, teamwork and leadership skills for a top career in medicine.

You will benefit from close relationships with our principal NHS hospital partners. You will practise your clinical and communication skills in the safe setting of our Clinical Skills Resource Centre (CSRC), which features specially designed replicas of hospital wards and emergency rooms, with high-specification patient-simulators. You will also learn from real patients from the outset, with clinical placements starting in the first two weeks of year one.

Key Features

• Benefit from close relationships with our principal NHS partners – Plymouth Hospitals NHS Trust, South Devon Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust and local general practices – who have helped develop the course and provide wide-ranging placement opportunities.
• Learn from real patients from the outset, with clinical placements starting in the first two weeks of Year 1. 
• Ensure your learning is always current and follows best practice, through the internationally renowned research that constantly feeds into our teaching, to reflect today’s dynamic healthcare delivery environment.
• Take part in expert-led discussions around clinical case studies and the latest medical science breakthroughs, through our Structured Small Groups teaching approach, including Problem Based Learning. These are also a great opportunity to learn from other students’ knowledge and experience.
• Practise your clinical and communication skills in the safe setting of our Clinical Skills Resource Centre (CSRC), which features specially designed replicas of hospital wards and emergency rooms, with high-specification patient-simulators.
• Utilise online systems to support your learning including the student logbook, custom-made for our students to access lecture notes, online assessment systems and lecture sessions. 
• Deepen your understanding of the structure and functionality of the human body with our Life Sciences Resource Centre (LSRC), which includes radiographic imaging and expert-led life science sessions.
• Choose the subjects that most interest you to study in-depth and build your own interests, specialisms, and research, scientific and analytical skills over the five years of your degree with our Special Study Units (SSUs). There are over 200 to choose from – see a sample list of current SSU titles.
• See how clinical medicine or research is practised in different social and cultural contexts in other parts of the South West, UK or the world, and further your experience through our elective opportunities.
• Explore another discipline at degree level – from history of medicine to music, psychology to statistics – through our Intercalated degrees programme. Our BSc (Hons) Urgent and Emergency Care – developed with local emergency department/consultants, is a unique opportunity in the UK to work in and learn about the area of emergency care alongside your medical degree. External intercalation opportunities are also available.
• All students will spend Years 1 and 2 in Plymouth. In Years 3-5, students will spend at least one year either in Torbay, Taunton or Plymouth, and rotate around these sites. Travel to GP practices from these main hospital sites will also be required.