Medicine 2021

[Millylovespuddles]

Hi all
It looks like there’s no medicine 2021 entry thread yet, so it might be an idea to get the ball rolling.
My DD is getting stuck into her A level course, doing well so far, but I’m guessing we parents could do with some mutual support and advice from parents who’ve been here before.

With a new medical school, how can you judge the quality of its doctors especially well?

Keele's (and Norwich's and Hull York's and Brighton & Sussex's and Exeter/Plymouth's) first cohorts are already at consultant level or applying for consultant jobs. "New" is a relative term: they have been open for at least 15 years.

Also Cambridge talks about there being an option to do three years of research between years 4 and 5 - the MB/PhD programme - but you intercalate anyway in year 3, have I got that right?

UCL also offers this option, although slightly earlier in the programme.

You don't intercalate at Oxford, Cambridge or St Andrews. You do two separate three-year degrees. Well, it's slightly more subtle than that at Oxford but that's the general picture. For students doing the first three years at St Andrews the actual medicine degree is done somewhere else. For students doing the first three years at Oxford or Cambridge it has previously been possible to do the clinical medicine degree in London. This is no longer the case for Cambridge and will cease to be the case for Oxford after this year's intake. At Imperial, UCL, Edinburgh and King's (in most cases) you are required to intercalate. Elsewhere, it's optional.

Sorry, UCL's PhD option isn't earlier. Getting my years mixed up.

Toby which year was each of those schools founded. I don't know about the rest, but Exeter is local to me my GP teaches at it and I'm fairly sure it's only around nine years old, so I doubt its alumnae are consultants yet. Perhaps I'm mistaken or perhaps it's an exception to Keele, Hull etc.

Thank you Sir Toby that's helpful!

Wasn't Exeter formerly part of the Peninsula Medical School (not sure about exact title)? Early graduates of that must be around applying for consultant posts?

Check the individual med school requirements (not just the subjects/grades) and tailor UCAS to that, and reference if possible. Agree with others that 3 high grades are key so 4 not necessary. DC needs to be willing accept place wherever offers come from if not first/second choice. Go to as many open days as possible. And good luck!

MarchingFrogs this could be a felicitous moment where everyone is correct :)

I definitely reserve judgment about the quality of all doctors trained at some of the establishments mentioned however, having just had cause to sack one lot for at the very least lazy doctoring, but more accurately something else.

First class nurses though (not sure where the training was done), incl a senior one who remarked to me that she didn't know why some people became doctors, since they were so bad at it.

Toby which year was each of those schools founded. I don't know about the rest, but Exeter is local to me my GP teaches at it and I'm fairly sure it's only around nine years old, so I doubt its alumnae are consultants yet. Perhaps I'm mistaken or perhaps it's an exception to Keele, Hull etc.

Peninsula Medical School had its first intake in 2002 (to Exeter & Plymouth). It split into separate medical schools at Exeter & Plymouth in 2013 but both largely continued delivering their courses in a similar way to the original combined school.

Yes got that. I was talking about the Exeter Medical School which you mentioned earlier, which is really too new for much to be gleaned about its graduates.

The others, fair play - obviously been around a few years. I've no particular reason to know, just curious as to how one can judge the quality of graduates of a new medical school.

The University of East Anglia School of Medicine also had its first intake in 2002. Brighton & Sussex, Hull York and Keele had theirs in 2003. Keele had previously taken students from Manchester and St Andrews into year 3 in 2002.

The GMC judges them competent which is good enough for me. And the NHS. The SJT is universal to all medical schools and counts for a lot. Best doctor I've come across lately came from UEA - he saved my mum's life when the consultants missed stuff. Will forever be grateful to whoever trained him.

I think you said your mother went private mumsneedwine! Also er..... there might be a tiny bit of an internal conflict in the fact that the GMC presumably judged the consultants who missed stuff fine. So your logic kind of comes apart, unless there's a synthesis I'm missing.

There will be a few more private medical schools opening in the near future. Buckingham has been running for a few years (hospital placements in Milton Keynes) and is opening a new campus in Crewe (Leighton Hospital) this year or next. I believe Brunel University is also about to open one (Hillingdon Hospital). There's been a lot of talk about the University of Chester opening one, too, and possibly Worcester University. Buckingham's tuition fees are £36,000 a year and I presume the other private schools' will be similar.

Also, now that Northern Ireland has a government again, the opening of the University of Ulster's medical school (Londonderry/Coleraine, not private) should be going ahead. This is in addition to the new schools at Kent & Medway (Canterbury/Margate) and Edge Hill (Ormskirk) taking their first intakes this year.

£36k Toby! That's staggering.

Any views on Lincoln medical school? First cohort this year but being run under the auspices of Nottingham so presumably should be ok..? Just wondering about insurance options as the offer appears to be AAA?

Not really. The NHS pays about £100,000 for each student's five- or six-year course in a public medical school, in addition to the £33,000-£34,500 from the Office for Students. So that's about £27,000 a year averaged across give years on top of the £9,250 a year students in public medical schools pay themselves. So £36,250 a year for a public one versus £36,000 a year for a private one.

The money paid by the NHS and OfS is one of the reasons I get so annoyed at people who insist on doing a medicine degree when they have no intention of working as doctors. The organisations that pay out this money are also getting fed up with paying out and getting nothing in return. I've got the impression recently that funding is likely to change radically in the near future, or state-funded medical graduates will be required to work as NHS doctors for a minimum number of years or else pay back the £100,000+ invested in their training. The latter was supposed to happen as part of the recent expansion of medical student numbers but it got forgotten about in the chaos of EU exit and elections.

five years, not give years

I'm really sick of autocorrect

@Pumpkintoof - while Lincoln is effectively an offshoot of Nottingham, you should bear in mind that all of the new medical schools have been set up in partnership with established schools, are delivering those schools' curriculums and have the emergency backup option of their students' transferring to the partner schools if the new schools fail for some reason (very, very unlikely: the GMC has a close eye on them). So Aston is delivering Leicester's course, Anglia Ruskin is delivering Dundee's, Sunderland is delivering Keele's, Kent & Medway is delivering Brighton & Sussex's and Edge Hill is delivering Liverpool's.

Sorry, that was supposed to be Pumpkintopf: autocorrect insisted on Pinpointing and I mistyped the override.

Thanks sir Toby - so no difference really to applying to Nottingham directly which ds may prefer as not so close to home , and RG. Would also give a contextual offer of AAB if firmed - hope he wouldn't need that but worth thinking about.

When do offers have to be 'firmed' - can you wait until all your offers are in ie could ds wait to see if he got an offer from eg Cambridge before deciding whether to firm Nottingham? Completely wishful thinking that he may get multiple offers I know!!

The deadline for making firm/insurance choices is 5th May, assuming he has decisions from all the universities he's applied to by 31st March. Universities can't withdraw an offer as long as he meets this deadline (unless he turns out to have provided false information or has failed to supply other required documents). They can't force him to make a decision on firm/insurance choices before another university has made a decision on whether to make him an offer, although some universities will try to coerce or bully applicants into making these choices earlier. If he doesn't have all decisions from universities by 31st March the deadline for him to make firm/insurance choices moves back to 4th June.

These are all 2020 deadlines. Some will vary by a day or two from one year to the next.

Obviously, students at Lincoln will be taught by Lincoln staff in Lincoln facilities, so it's not an identical experience to being at Nottingham.

Lincoln are building a beautiful new medical school. And the hospital has been used to train Nottingham students for years, so they seem very well equipped to cope. Know someone at Anglia Ruskin who loves it. We need doctors badly and I'm very sure the new schools will be just as good as the old. Maybe better as they can cherry pick the best bits of their courses.
And goodbye, weird comment ? Not sure of your need to comment negatively on everything I say. Private doctors have been trained by the NHS - most also do both work. And the wonderful man who saved my mum was in A&E so v much NHS. Only know where he trained as he was chatting to me about good beaches at 3am and I know Norfolk. Her dementia doctor trained at Leeds & her liver doctor trained at Southampton - I asked them last week because of this thread.

I so agree all doctors should have to work for the NHS for a prescribed time. My DD would never consider not doing this as she knows how much her course is costing.