The Best Medical Schools - 2017

[peteneras]

Not of particular interest to most medic parents in the present admissions cycle which is still ongoing; but for others watching and future potential medics - out now, the 2017 world rankings of the best universities to study Medicine.

Oxfordmedic my original point was in response to the implication by OP that Oxbridge medics fled to London for superior clinical training. OP very frequently tries to make the point that London is vastly superior to Oxbridge for Medicine which it may well be but on this smaller point it's been the case historically that the people at the top of the rankings were offered the limited places ahead of those at the bottom although a small number chose of their own volition to go to London. It's fairly simple really, but I repeated it when accused of the point of fact constituting 'libel'. As I've said several times, it's not a big deal but sometimes the endless repetition of how shit Oxford and Cambridge are as medical training grounds are can get tedious.

I understand the context of your point now. Nothing inaccurate in what you say.

What a spikey thread

It's a bit silly 😜. Who cares where you go to medical school. I want a caring doctor who can communicate well and knows what they are doing. End of. Couldn't care less if they trained at Oxford, London or Timbuktu. My DD worked at GOSH & met Drs from all over the UK as well as the world.

Goodbye, I am always surprised how hard it seems to be to get London kids out of the capital. Yes they will consider a move for UG, but lots then return for PG. (And indeed a sort of 'Waitrose index' seems to apply, where cities accessible to London and with a London feel are preferred.) Very few of DDs would be medic peers applied outside London/Oxbridge and we know one at least who switched focus from Cambridge to Oxford when scope to do clinical in London was withdrawn. DD, though she could well change her mind, currently sees intercalation as a chance to return to return to the capital for a year.

So more factors at play than simply where you sit in the year group.

Obviously also support for OP. If London med schools have a disproportionate number of students from London they must be better.

Yes I completely agree Needmoresleep, for those who had the option of staying on at Oxford or Cambridge - but the lowest in the rankings didn't.

Unicorns Cambridge stopped transfers to London from the October 2014 intake. They had been increasng the number of places in Cambridge before that and wanted to stop it from the 2013 intake. I'm not sure why they changed their minds about the timing but the suggestion of legal action by the 2013 intake may have had something to do with it.

GF are best ignored really - those who children may be looking at medical schools need to get away from the idea that "the best medical school" is of much significance and focus on what will be a good match and where they will be happy. The first criteria should be do I match what they are looking for or will I be eliminated without interview. Then you can look at early clinical contact or not, type of teaching (PBL heavy or light), location of teaching hospitals, proximity to London or to home if that matters to you, prosection or dissection if that matters to you (arguments for both but some students do have a preference) .

Once your child gets to the wards the quality of teaching is going to depend both on the people doing the training and your child's ability to charm people into giving them extra training. They'll need to be active in seeking out training opportunities. As the NHS is increasingly under-resourced training is becoming more difficult to squeeze in. There are still quiet periods in any hospitals but it's why teaching can sometimes be better in a smaller hospital than the "world leading" hospital.

You'll also find that their medical interests and idea will change when faced with the realities of life in hospital. They mainly start off wanting to be in hospital but more than half will become gps. Are they prepared for that? For some this is an enforced choice but more will choose it later when they realise the work/ life balance can be better. If your child currently wants to be a surgeon have they considered that one day they may be unable to continue? Doc Martin isnt the only surgeon forced to choose a different career later in life although the reasons are probably more often tremors and other inability to cope with the physical demands of the job.

True tgat only well ranked could stay for clinical but many of the best ranked did move. They were well advised to imho as camb is a great pre clinical school but the clinical is nowhere near as good as elsewhere eg Edinburgh

You are absolutely right, Helspopje, Edinburgh features very, very highly in my personal list of the world’s top medical schools. IMO it stands at a par with the London schools. If not for the fact that Edinburgh is 7 hours drive from London, I would have gladly sent my DC there in a flash to study medicine - assuming he applied and was accepted, of course!

The first time I heard of Edinburgh as a top medical school was going back a few decades when I met and became best friends with a flatmate whose dad was one of Edinburgh’s world renowned surgeons cum medical professor. His mum too was a top doctor.

I remember friend was always hinting dad was a famous doctor especially when we were in the company of young trainee nurses. I was convinced friend was only trying to impress the nurses but much later on, I discovered that it was indeed true that friend’s father was very highly regarded in the medical profession in Europe, USA, Asia and Australia; was a doyen of surgeons and a world-class surgeon extraordinaire; had performed more than 10,000 major operations (yes, I do mean ten thousand!); published a few hundred scientific papers and written more than a dozen medical books used by medical students and nurses alike; won countless prestigious medical medals from different continents; honoured by The Queen and other Heads of State for his work; taught and trained many doctors and surgeons who in turn are themselves today’s top medical professionals.

Edinburgh did not find its position in the QS premier league table (page 1) by fluke. If anything, I thought it was much underrated.

”Who cares where you go to medical school. . . Couldn't care less if they trained at Oxford, London or Timbuktu.”

You speak for yourself.

Given the choice† I know which doctor I’d rather have. . . - no prizes for correct answer.

†and believe me, increasingly in the modern day, people from all over the world are opting for private medical treatment and they have plenty of choices . . .

Well, no one would have expected you to be partisan, peteneras! We know that wherever your son has gone, whether Eton or a London medical school, is the best and all other choices are not as good. My niece had a great time at Cambridge, did clinical in Oxford and then after her junior rotation got into the London pool to pursue her first preference speciality. There is hope even for those who mistakenly chose Cambridge for UG medicine!

If London has such superior med schools I wonder why St George's had places in clearing last year. First time I've ever known a medicine course not fill their places. I'm informed by the med students I teach it's due to the reputation of St George's course and the fact it's PBL heavy. PBL may suit some students but obviously a lot are giving it a wide berth.

And as for not beating a path to Addenbrookes if you have a medical issue, depends what the issue is. If you have an unusual auto immune condition it's probably the exact place you do want to go to.

Strange that I'm being accused of being partisan when I've spent my precious Saturday afternoon hours doing nothing but heaping praise on a medical school situated some 400 miles away - a place and school which has nothing to do with me!

And what has Eton got to do with this thread is a puzzle to me. Indeed, Eton is a great and fantastic school, some may argue it's the greatest in the world. That's why I sent my son there as with London medical schools. It's not difficult to understand . . .

It was more the suggestion that Oxford and Cambridge were sub par and that you didn't agree with the listing. And then spent time demonstrating that all great medical discoveries have not come out of Oxbridge but have come out of London. A bit like the way you constantly list famous OEs but won't admit to any Wykehamist or OP ever having achieved anything.

Helspopje exactly, what I was trying to say in my previous posts, Cambridge clinical did not have as good a reputation as its preclinical as Addenbrooks was more like a district general hospital. A lot chose to move for reputation to Oxford (with its larger scale clinical set up), London teaching hospitals or as you say occasionally to Edinburgh or other places.
I may be biased but I think that if I was going to generalise about a group, the Oxbridge medics tend to be the most interesting bunch to teach, they actually do think about things and ask really good questions. However obviously some may be more suited to research and not be so good at or exposed as much to practical clinical work.

Well you don't really 'send' DC to a uni do you?

I suppose one could reasonably level a charge of bias peteneras because until your DS didn't get a Cambridge offer you were wildly prejudiced in favour of Cambridge and since then have been viciously against all things Oxbridge. To your credit it does show strong parental affection.... I guess....

Quite, ontopofthesunset. In the same way my DS has had a fabulous time in Oxford throughout undergrad and now clinical and seems to have perfectly passable clinical skills if the merits he's getting are anything to go by. He's also very good indeed at communicating - I don't think Oxford really does stunt personal growth as a medic too acutely.

Well, if you've not already realised, the whole idea of me starting this thread is to put forward for discussion what one thinks about the QS ranking for the world's best medical schools for 2017. It is not about which medical schools best suit your strengths and therefore apply to them, etc. That has been done to death already.

And it is exactly on this basis that the rankings on the QS table is open for discussion. I have expressed my opinions, supported with links, evidence, etc. whenever necessary and you seem to have a problem with that. In any case, no one has to agree with me.

You have not expressed anything constructive except to inform us how great a time your niece has had at Oxbridge etc. and your bigoted attempt to drag Eton into a thread that has no place for it.

And since you brought up the subject of ”list of famous OEs but won’t admit to any Wykehamist. . . . .” please then, could you provide us with a list of famous Wykehamists in the last (say) 10 years?

No, make it the last 50 years.

Or better still, the last 100 years, as compared with Eton’s list. . .

Yes, you do ‘send’ DC to a uni by applying to them . Getting it or not is another matter, yellow stranger.

That’s not correct in saying I’m ”viciously against all things Oxbridge”. I’ve always said I loved Oxford, have lived there for a few years and loved it. I’m also on record in saying Cambridge is a better university than Oxford academically. As regards the discussion on this thread, I’ve said I disagreed with the order of the first dozen places. The first dozen places include Oxbridge, for goodness sake. Really, one must be out of his/her mind to sniff at the world’s first dozen medical schools. To all intends and purposes are there any great differences between the world’s first two dozen schools let alone first dozen?

No, I’m only going against Oxbridge when I read idiotic comments like ”lowest on the med school rankings [from Oxbridge] had to go to London”

Like someone already said above, that’s an insult to the Oxbridge students who went to London, not to mention the London schools themselves.

Strangely I don't care at all about how many famous people my children's school has produced. And I'm not at all bigoted about famous public schools. I have no dog in the Eton/Winchester fight; I know a reasonable number of adults who went to one or the other and none of them have achieved anything out of the ordinary - a mixture of computer scientists and language teachers and marketing consultants and small business owners, much like most of my friends who went to less illustrious schools. I don't expect my children will become world leaders though they may do, I suppose. I certainly didn't choose their school on the basis of that. And I wouldn't encourage them to choose their university on the basis of that either.

peteneras very boring to have to say it again but although a smallish number of students made a positive decision to go to London, the lowest in the rankings (and this wasn't an insignificant number) have had to find places to do clinical in London, because they hadn't done well enough to be offered clinical at Oxford/ Cambridge. I don't know the exact proportion year on year - perhaps thirty students out of one hundred and fifty odd? Very roughly.

The obsession peteneras has with London med schools never ceases to amuse.

My dd is at Dundee. It's been pretty good so far. They do full body dissection and she has been seeing real patients for several months.

When I was applying to medicine (1995) London medical schools were much less in favour. Offers were typically much lower than outside the capital, BBB compared to AAB or AAB for example.

I trained outside of London (by choice) am now a consultant in a central London teaching hospital. Should my daughter wish to do medicine would I want her to do her training at my hospital? Probably not. The intake each year is huge. We have so many students coming and going it is almost impossible to build up any relationship with them.

I also really agree with previous posters that say that no one is hugely interested in which medical school you went to. Job applications are anonymised and scored by points . Going to Imperial doesn't get you an additional point. Getting involved in audits/quality improvement projects however will.

”The obsession peteneras has with London med schools never ceases to amuse.”

Well Northernlurker, if your username is anything to go by, it seems to me that you’re rather ignorant of what is going on in the south.

Amuse yourself at your own peril of my “obsession” with London med schools. It’s not only me who says that London is unstoppable but also London, not Oxbridge, is the powerhouse of British universities.

Most of the learning occurs during the early years of your training. It is then you embark on a steep learning curve and you continue to acquire knowledge and experience through the whole of your career. The best doctors are made on the job - it matters not one jot where you went to medical school any anyone who believes otherwise has a very poor understanding of what makes a good clinician.