The Brunel Medical School Medicine course

The course runs in three phases. Phase 1 covers Years 1 and 2, and Brunel calls it Foundations of Medicine: you build the science of the body one system at a time, alongside clinical skills, communication and regular GP visits. Phase 2, Integrated Clinical Care, covers Years 3 and 4 and is mostly clinical placements. Phase 3, Preparation for clinical practice, is Year 5 and gets you ready for your first job as a doctor.

Three strands run through all five years: professional knowledge, professional skills, and professional values and behaviours. Put simply, they cover what a doctor needs to know, what a doctor needs to be able to do and how a doctor should behave. Attendance at every timetabled session is compulsory throughout.

In Phase 1 the science and the practice run side by side. Body-system topics are mixed with teaching on ethics, professionalism, psychology, digital health and population health, which is the study of health across whole communities rather than one patient at a time. Anatomy practicals are linked to the topics you are working on in TBL.

Technology is a thread through the course. You use the school's digital platforms on a laptop or phone for your timetable, online resources, virtual microscopy (studying tissue slides on screen), feedback and workplace assessments. You also study digital health itself, such as how doctors choose and interpret diagnostic tests that use artificial intelligence. A laptop is compulsory for all five years; a tablet on its own is not enough.

The balance shifts in Year 3. You spend most of each year on placement, learning from clinician educators, who are doctors from different specialties with a teaching role for Brunel students. The school stresses that you are not there only to watch: you apply your knowledge to the care of patients, under supervision.

Anatomy, the study of the body's structure, runs through the first two years and follows the body systems you study in those years. It is taught in the Clinical Anatomy Suite in Quad North. The suite has ten tables, each with its own large wall-mounted screen, display cabinets of anatomical models, and a table designed for wheelchair users.

The main specimens are plastinated. They are human bodies and organs, donated for teaching, that professionals have dissected to show particular structures and then preserved with plastic, so they are dry and durable enough to handle and study closely. They range from whole bodies to single organ systems. You study them in teams, guided by teachers with scientific or clinical backgrounds.

Imaging is built into the practicals. Radiologists, doctors who specialise in medical images, guide you through X-ray, CT, MRI and ultrasound images of the structures you are studying. You also use hand-held ultrasound scanners on volunteers, so you see anatomy and how it works in a living person, not only on a specimen.

You meet patients in your first term. Communication skills training with actors starts in the first weeks of Year 1, so you have practised before you see real patients. In 2025, Year 1 students told the GMC that a session with GP educators had prepared them for what to expect. The GMC noted this was especially helpful for international students new to how UK general practice works.

In Years 1 and 2 you are in the same practice every two weeks. You learn about the UK healthcare system, see how the practice team works together, build your consultation skills and contribute to community health projects. Longitudinal case studies, in which you follow patients over time, include home visits in pairs, supervised by clinical educators. Year 1 students told the GMC they had spoken with patients before these visits and introduced themselves alongside the patient's GP.

From Year 3 contact becomes intensive. You rotate through hospital wards and clinics, community mental health services and primary care, taking part in patients' care under supervision. In Year 5 you complete assistantships, placements in which you work alongside junior doctors and help with their duties under supervision.

Brunel uses programmatic assessment. You are assessed regularly through the year in several different formats, and the results build up a picture of your progress. Academic coaching and regular feedback help you see where you stand and what to work on.

The formats are coursework submitted online, individual SBA tests during TBL sessions, invigilated in-person exams, anatomy spot tests and Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCEs). In a spot test you identify labelled structures on specimens or images. In an OSCE you move round a series of timed stations, each testing a skill such as examining a patient, taking a history or explaining something to an actor.

Your progress is also recorded in an e-portfolio, an online record of your placements, feedback and reflections, held on the assessment platform described in the GMC's 2025 report. The platform holds supervised learning events, where a clinician observes you with a patient and gives feedback. It also holds direct observation of procedural skills, where a clinician watches you do a practical task such as taking blood and rates it, plus written reflections and end-of-block sign-offs.

Every UK medical student must pass the MLA to join the medical register with a licence to practise, and at Brunel it forms part of the Year 5 final exams. It has two parts. The Applied Knowledge Test (AKT) checks how well you apply medical knowledge. The Clinical and Professional Skills Assessment (CPSA) is a practical exam run by each medical school in the final or penultimate year, for example as an OSCE.

When the GMC visited in February 2025 it found AKT preparation was going well. The school told the GMC its assessments are mapped to the AKT's content, so students meet AKT-style testing six times before the real exam. Students said progress testing was helping them prepare. Progress tests are regular exams covering the whole course, used to track how your knowledge grows.

The GMC added that Brunel should keep working with the regulator to make sure its AKT and CPSA meet the MLA requirements, and the school was due to send more evidence in September 2025. When this guide was checked in September 2026, the GMC had not yet published a decision on whether Brunel's MLA exams meet its requirements.

Clinical placements take place in hospitals, general practices and community health services across Greater London and the South East of England. The partner trusts stretch from the borough around campus to Watford in Hertfordshire, Frimley in Surrey and the Reading area of Berkshire.

In Years 1 and 2 you are attached to one local GP practice. From Year 3 to Year 5 you spend most of each year on placement, rotating between partner organisations, and the school uses a digital platform to allocate placements. Each partner trust has a Director of Undergraduate Education, appointed by Brunel, who looks after Brunel students on site.

Several partner hospitals also teach students from other medical schools, so you may meet students from Oxford, Imperial, UCL, St George's or Southampton on the wards. Hillingdon Hospital, for example, was already training Imperial College London students before Brunel's arrived.

Brunel describes a campus lifestyle with little commuting except when you are on placement. Travel to placements is listed among the course costs you pay yourself, so budget for it, especially for trusts further from Uxbridge.

Student Selected Components are the parts of the course where you choose the topic. The first is the scholarly project at the end of Year 2, which could be a laboratory science project, a project to improve how healthcare is delivered, or a community engagement project. The GMC's 2025 report shows SSCs continuing in Years 3 and 4.

The school also lists laboratory research, quality improvement projects in general practice and hospitals, and learning to teach your fellow students among the opportunities in the curriculum. Quality improvement projects test small changes that aim to make care safer or work better.

The elective comes in Year 5, after your final exams. It lasts seven weeks: five weeks on a clinical placement and two weeks of holiday. You can go abroad or stay in the UK, and going overseas is not required.

You pay for the elective yourself, including travel, accommodation, insurance and vaccinations. An overseas elective is only allowed if you pass your final exams at the first attempt. Students who have to resit finals usually get a shorter elective, and it must be in the UK. The school checks safety arrangements, and some countries, such as the USA, may not be possible.

Brunel Medical School is based in Quad North, in the middle of the Uxbridge campus near the main student amenities, and the building's second floor has been refurbished for teaching. The TBL Studio is in a building close by.

You can book the clinical skills facility and the simulated wards to practise outside timetabled sessions, and staff are available in the skills facility during weekday working hours. Videos of specific skills are available for preparation and revision.

• Clinical Anatomy Suite, for anatomy practicals with specimens, models, scans and ultrasound.
• Two clinical skills laboratories for skills such as infection control, blood glucose checks, taking blood, injections, examining eyes and ears, and basic life support.
• Communication Skills Centre: 18 video-equipped consultation rooms for sessions with simulated and real patients.
• Two simulated hospital wards for small-group teaching of clinical examination.
• TBL Studio: a room designed for team-based learning, with round team tables, sound and display equipment and TBL software.
• A student social space with a kitchen, games and a lounge, plus the Student Support Office.

The medical school has its own Student Support and Wellbeing team, based in Quad North, as your first point of contact. It links you to Brunel's university-wide services, such as counselling and study skills, and adds support specific to the MBBS, including help with clinical placements, careers advice and support for international students.

Every student belongs to a House for the whole course, with a House Tutor who acts as a learning coach through a structured series of individual and group meetings. There is also a peer mentor scheme, and first-year students can join Brunel Buddy, the university's peer support scheme for new students.

The school recruits international as well as UK students, and the support reflects that. The Brunel Language Centre offers free academic English help and English classes focused on health-sector vocabulary.

Careers advisers help whether you plan to join the UK Foundation Programme, the two years of paid training after graduation, or return to your home country. They also give guidance on the US and Canadian licensing exams, the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) and the Medical Council of Canada Qualifying Examination (MCCQE), including which revision resources to use. Brunel says access to the exams themselves will open when its first year group graduates.

When the GMC visited in February 2025, students praised the support team, and Year 1 students mentioned a wellbeing room where a team member is available. The GMC also heard the team was stretched by staff leaving during a university restructure. In August 2025 the school said the reorganisation had been implemented and would be kept under review.