The Barts and The London (Queen Mary) Medicine course

In years 1 and 2 most teaching happens on campus, through lectures, team-based learning in small groups, anatomy and physiology practicals, and clinical and communication skills sessions. Each is explained below.

Some sessions use a flipped classroom: you work through videos, podcasts or quizzes online first, then use class time to test and apply what you learned. The year 1 handbook asks for one to four hours a day of self-directed study, and lectures can be revisited on QMplus, the university's online learning platform.

From year 3 the balance flips towards placements. You learn on wards, in clinics and in GP surgeries through ward rounds, case-based learning and supervised practice, with regular campus teaching blocks in between. Communication skills run through all five years, from patient-centred interviewing in year 1 to a course on breaking bad news in the final year.

Year 1 opens with the nine-week Fundamentals of Medicine module, followed by five body-system modules of about three weeks each. The 2024/25 year 1 handbook gives the timetabled hours for every module, which shows what a week looks like.

In 2024/25 the three-week Cardiorespiratory module had 29 hours of lectures, 3 hours each of anatomy and physiology practicals and 3 of clinical skills. On top came 16 hours of Medicine in Society, which includes your GP placement, and 6 hours of protected SSC time. Across the year 1 modules that works out at roughly 18 to 21 timetabled hours a week, including SSC time, before independent study.

Attendance is monitored closely. You tap in with your ID card or scan a code, and anyone arriving more than five minutes after the start is recorded as absent. You need at least 90 per cent attendance, and falling below that leads to professionalism points on your record.

The clinical years look different. In year 3, placement activity usually runs from 8am to 6pm, Monday to Friday, except Wednesday afternoons, with half a day a week kept for self-study. The year 3 handbook advises keeping any paid job to 20 hours a week or less.

During the year 3 GP block you spend one full day a week, six to eight hours, in a practice. A sample day in the 2025/26 GP handbook starts with a supervised student clinic of 30-minute appointments, then a debrief. After lunch comes a tutorial, then time in a nurse's clinic, at practice meetings or on a home visit.

• In 2024/25 most year 1 modules also had problem-based learning (PBL), where a small group researches a case with a tutor who guides rather than teaches. It took 4 to 6 hours in a three-week module and 17 in Fundamentals. The 2027 course pages no longer mention PBL.
• Year 1 in 2024/25 ran from mid-September to early June, in three semesters. Later years can start in August and run into July.

Anatomy is taught in the Turnbull Centre on the Mile End campus. The core method is prosection: studying body parts that experts have already dissected, so you can see the structures clearly without spending hours exposing them yourself. You also use models, bones and radiographic images such as X-rays, CT and MRI scans.

The anatomy laboratory has 20 stations, each with two computers showing images, videos and scans. Classes focus on functional and clinical anatomy, meaning how structures work and why they matter to patients, with clinical demonstrators in every class. The 2024/25 handbook lists 24 hours of anatomy practicals across year 1.

Dissection is optional. You can opt into classes in a dissecting room that holds up to 100 students. These run after the basic practical teaching, so you already know the anatomy before you dissect. Year 1 students dissect the limbs and year 2 students dissect the thorax and abdomen.

Each dissection starts with an introductory lecture, and clinical teaching fellows and surgical trainees demonstrate in every class. Sessions also look at any disease found in the body, not just normal structure.

Your first placement starts in September of year 1. A group of six to eight students spends 12 days, on alternate Thursdays through the year, at one GP surgery with a GP tutor. Each day has a theme. You interview patients, doctors and other health professionals to learn what living with illness is like and how social factors shape health.

Your year 1 GP work is assessed in three ways. You write a creative piece on how becoming a medical student may change the way you and others see you, and a reflective case discussion. Your group also makes a poster on health promotion.

In year 2 the GP teaching, called GP2, runs over six days. In 2025/26 three were at the same GP practice in small groups. The other three combined a half day of TBL on campus with a half day of online role play with actors, in groups of 12 to 15.

Year 2 also brings teaching on managing mental illness from psychiatrists at the school's partner mental health trusts, East London Foundation Trust (ELFT) and North East London Foundation Trust (NELFT).

From year 3 you are on clinical placement for most of the week. General practice continues, with one day a week for eight weeks in year 3 and a five-week block in year 4. In the six-week final-year assistantship you see patients on your own, supervised by your GP tutor.

Each year of the MBBS is a single 120-credit block assessed in five sections. Section A is continuous assessment: coursework, portfolios, placement assessments and your professionalism record. Section D is an OSCE, and Section E covers your SSCs.

Sections B and C are end-of-year exams, and what they test changes as you go. In years 1 to 3, B tests applied knowledge and C tests data interpretation, including recognising images. In year 4 they are two specialty exams. In year 5, B is the written finals, now the national knowledge test described below, and C is the Prescribing Safety Assessment (PSA), a national online exam on safe prescribing.

Each section must be passed separately, so a strong result in one cannot make up for a weak one, and Section A must be passed before the rest. The pass mark is 50 per cent, adjusted for how hard each exam was judged to be. The degree is pass or fail, but students who pass every section first time can earn a distinction (typically the top 10 per cent) or a merit (the next 15 per cent).

Written papers use several formats: single best answer questions, where you pick the best of several options, extended matching questions, multiple choice and very short answer questions, where you type a brief answer yourself. Computer-based exams test anatomy, histology (tissue under the microscope) and data interpretation in the first two phases. OSCEs start in year 1.

Continuous assessment includes in-course tests, case write-ups, presentations, logbooks and placement assessments, which supervisors sign off on PebblePad, an online portfolio. The 2027 course pages call the whole approach programmatic assessment. In plain terms, your progress is judged on how you engage across the year as well as on the written and practical exams at the end of it.

In the final year you sit the Medical Licensing Assessment (MLA), often called the UKMLA. Since 2024/25 every UK medical degree has had to include a pass in it. Its written part is the Medical Schools Council's shared Applied Knowledge Test (AKT): two computer-based papers of 100 single best answer questions, each two hours long, on consecutive days. Its practical part, the Clinical and Professional Skills Assessment (CPSA), is the school's own final-year OSCE.

• The General Medical Council (GMC), which regulates doctors, approved the CPSA in 2024. It then had 12 stations of 14 minutes, with one minute of reading time, and you had to pass at least 8. Some stations used real patients.
• The PSA is a two-hour online exam of 60 questions. In 2024/25 you had to pass it to be awarded the MBBS.
• From year 3, practice exams that do not count include questions in the style of the national knowledge test. In the final year, PebblePad records every practical procedure the GMC requires before you start work.
• Resits: you normally get one resit of a failed end-of-year exam, and exceptionally you may repeat a whole year for a third attempt.
• Final-year students who do not pass the CPSA first time are offered a remediation programme with a one-to-one tutor, a further clinical placement and practice sessions.
• If you leave early you can still receive an exit award. That is a Certificate of Higher Education in Medical Sciences after year 1, a Diploma after year 2, or a BSc in Medical Sciences after year 3.

Hospital placements start in year 3, when you begin rotating through the school's partner trusts. Placements usually last six to ten weeks, and you come back to campus at regular intervals for teaching blocks.

Hospitals are split into in-firms and out-firms. In-firms are close enough to the university that you are expected to commute every day rather than live on site. They include the Royal London, Homerton, Newham, Whipps Cross, King George and Queen's hospitals.

Out-firms are further away: Southend Hospital, Colchester Hospital and the Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow. Because of the distance, most students stay in hospital accommodation while on an out-firm. The 2024/25 final-year handbook also listed hospital contacts at Broomfield Hospital in Chelmsford and at St Bartholomew's Hospital.

Each site has its own local population and specialist services, so your placements will vary from one rotation to the next. Placement providers send you joining instructions and give you an induction to local policies.

SSCs run in every year and sit in the non-core fifth of the course. They range from basic sciences such as anatomy, physiology and pharmacology to clinical specialties, public health, and ethics and law. Some last two to five weeks and others run across a whole year, and many students set up their own.

Each SSC is graded on a simple scale and builds into a portfolio. You have to pass each year's SSCs to progress, and they can help decide merits.

The elective comes after finals and lasts six weeks, in the UK or abroad. In 2024/25 it fell between the end of March and early June, with a report due at the end of May. If you fail finals first time, you may be asked to give up some or all of it to prepare for resits.

Intercalating means taking a year out of medicine to study for a separate degree, which makes the course six years long. At Queen Mary it is optional and depends on your academic performance. You can apply for an intercalated BSc (iBSc) after year 2, 3 or 4, or for a master's degree after year 3 or 4, as long as you have passed every year so far.

Queen Mary runs eight iBSc programmes: Experimental Pathology, Global Medical Humanities, Global Public Health, Medical Education, Neuroscience, Pharmacology and Innovative Therapeutics, Prehospital Medicine, and Sports and Exercise Medicine. Medical Education is suspended for 2026/27. Each includes a research project supervised by a member of staff.

There is also a list of 12-month master's degrees adapted for intercalation, such as Critical Care, Cancer Sciences and Forensic Medical Science. You study alongside other postgraduate students, and the school warns these courses are demanding.

Every Queen Mary student needs the school's full written permission to intercalate. For courses at other universities, the school expects to give about 20 to 25 students that permission. Places on Queen Mary's own iBSc courses depend on your exam results and an interview. For a research career there is also a three-year MB PhD, which you can join after year 3 or year 4 before returning to finish the MBBS.

Teaching is spread across several sites, so expect to move between them. At Whitechapel, year 1 lectures are mainly in the Perrin Lecture Theatre in the Blizard Building. TBL sessions and some physiology practicals are in the Garrod Building, which also houses the MBBS support staff and the student support office.

The Turnbull Centre at Mile End holds the anatomy laboratory, the dissecting room and the Multi-Disciplinary Laboratory for physiology classes. Clinical skills teaching is based at the Robin Brook Centre on the West Smithfield campus, home to St Bartholomew's Hospital. Some teaching also uses the Charterhouse Square campus.

The satellite campus in Ilford has classrooms and a mock ward, a room laid out like a hospital ward for practising clinical care. The programme specification also lists dedicated IT labs, a multimedia anatomy learning centre and pathology museums.

Every student has an Academic Advisor, normally the same one for the whole course. Each advisor looks after around ten students from different year groups. You meet one to one at least three times a year, including at least once a term, to set goals and talk through anything that is worrying you.

Senior Tutors oversee the advisors and handle more complex matters, such as interrupting your studies or transferring course. The programme specification also gives each student a MedPro supervisor in years 1, 2, 4 and 5 to support personal and professional development.

The student support team of the Institute of Health Sciences Education, which runs the MBBS, is based in the Garrod Building. It helps with personal difficulties such as bereavement, health problems and financial crises. Academic help includes a one-week study skills induction in year 1 and the library's Academic Skills service.

In the final year, anyone who struggles on a placement or scores poorly in a practice prescribing exam meets a senior tutor. Senior staff also review every student's progress six times a year.

Outside the timetable, the Barts and The London Students' Association (BLSA) is a students' union just for medical and dental students. Each year group also elects course representatives, who raise issues at staff-student liaison meetings.