How will I study?
There are two routes at Nottingham by which you can graduate as a doctor – the five-year course (A100) and the graduate entry four-year course (A101). The objectives are the same, namely to equip you with the knowledge, skills and behaviour to allow you to graduate with the Bachelor of Medicine Bachelor of Surgery (BMBS) degree and to practise as a new doctor on the foundation training programme. In addition, if you are on the five-year course, you will obtain a Bachelor of Medical Sciences (BMedSci) degree after three years.
Essentially, we want our junior doctors to learn from real-life patients and not exclusively from books or the internet. We have access to five teaching hospitals in the region with over 4,000 beds in total, and a catchment population of almost two million people for our teaching in primary care and community health services.
Teaching is delivered through lectures, seminars, visits to general practices and hospitals, and a diverse range of clinical placements. Towards the end of your course you will undertake an intensive revision programme to support your transition from student to foundation training as a new doctor. The course covers areas such as management of acute medical and surgical emergencies; practical aspects of prescribing; dealing with complaints; the doctor as a patient; and the doctor and the law. A further two weeks are spent ‘shadowing’ the year-one foundation physician or surgeon post which you will start after graduation.
Assessment
Progression is assessed by formal exams and your performance on clinical placements. Following graduation, students are required to undergo a further two years of foundation doctor training. Full registration is granted by the General Medical Council (GMC) at the end of the first year of this training.
As a graduate, you are entitled to provisional registration with the GMC with a licence to practise, subject to demonstrating to the GMC that your fitness-to-practise is not impaired. If you are a non-British national graduating from a UK medical school, you will be subject to work permit restrictions.
Career prospects
You will receive advice about your career options throughout the course.
Application and interview
Applicants for A100 must complete the UKCAT and apply through UCAS. You will then be asked to complete an online questionnaire. Interviews are arranged once candidates’ academic and non-academic criteria have been assessed. Offers are only made after interview. We accept applications from students who wish to defer entry but constructive experience will be expected (eg travel or work in a medicine-related field). Applicants for A101 are required to complete the GAMSAT.
Open days
A100 applicants invited for interview will be given a tour of the School. Tours also take place during the University-wide open days, where you can talk to representatives and students from the School – for details, please see www.nottingham.ac.uk/opendays
The School of Graduate Entry Medicine and Health, who run A101, also runs regular open days – for details, please see www.nottingham.ac.uk/gem