The Keele Medicine course

Three themes run through all five years: professional values and behaviours, professional skills, and professional knowledge. They come from Outcomes for Graduates, the GMC's list of what every new UK doctor must be able to do. Each theme is taught and assessed in every year, at a higher level each time round the spiral.

In Years 1 and 2 the core of each week is small-group, self-directed learning, which the School also calls problem-based learning (PBL). Your tutorial group is given a written clinical case or scenario. You work out what you need to learn, study it on your own, then share and discuss it as a group. Lectures, seminars, lab practicals, anatomy and clinical skills sessions supply the rest of what you need.

From Year 3 this grows into case-based and case-illustrated learning, where written scenarios are mixed with discussion of patients you have met on placement. Most of your learning now happens as part of a clinical team, which Keele treats as a core requirement of the course.

In skills sessions you sometimes role-play and practise examinations on each other, which can mean changing into shorts and a t-shirt. Staff supervise these sessions and follow a set protocol.

Keele publishes an indicative weekly timetable for each year in its programme specification. A Year 1 week starts with small-group case sessions all day Monday. Tuesday has lectures and seminars, then an early clinical placement in the afternoon. Wednesday morning is clinical skills and lab practicals, and Wednesday afternoon is kept free for sport.

Thursday brings lectures and experiential learning sessions, where you learn by doing, followed by anatomy in the afternoon. Friday has lab practicals and seminars and ends with a wrap-up of the week. Year 2 keeps the same ingredients in a different order, with anatomy on Tuesday morning, two clinical skills sessions and a placement on Thursday afternoon.

From Year 3 the balance flips. Alongside placement, a Year 3 week has one case-based learning session, one clinical skills session and a block of lectures and seminars. There is also a session of anatomy and pathology, the study of how disease changes the body. In Year 4, placements fill six of the ten half-days. In a Year 5 general practice week, every day is placement, with one day including group learning and a group project linked to your GP placement.

The academic year also gets longer. Years 1 and 2 run from September to June, and Year 3 from September to July. Years 4 and 5 start in August. Year 4 ends in late June or early July, and Year 5 in June, with graduation normally in July.

The hours grow too. Keele's 2026/27 module specifications give 1,200 hours of study for each of Years 1 and 2. The clinical years are longer: 1,443 hours in Years 3 and 4 and 1,854 in Year 5, when you are on placement and studying full time, about 37 hours a week. The programme specification splits each year's study time roughly as below.

• Year 1: 32.2% scheduled teaching, 64.8% independent study, 3% placement
• Year 2: 28.9% scheduled teaching, 64.8% independent study, 6.3% placement
• Year 3: 19.2% scheduled teaching, 24.8% independent study, 56% placement
• Year 4: 19.8% scheduled teaching, 9.2% independent study, 70.9% placement
• Year 5: 8.6% scheduled teaching, 17.8% independent study, 73.7% placement

Anatomy is taught in the anatomy suite of the David Weatherall building, and the programme specification says anatomy teaching is based in the dissecting room. Keele's course page lists dissection among the practical activities on the course. The dissecting room is a large lab where several student groups can examine anatomical material at the same time.

Timetabled anatomy teaching runs through the first three years. The 2026/27 module specifications set aside about 60 hours of anatomy in Year 1, 40 in Year 2 and 20 in Year 3. In Years 1 and 2 anatomy has its own slots in the weekly timetable, and in Year 3 it is taught together with pathology.

The room has display areas for prepared specimens, models and posters, several screens and an overhead HD camera, so a demonstration can be shown to the whole room. The premises are licensed under the Human Tissue Act 2004 and regulated by the Human Tissue Authority. The teaching depends on people who chose to donate their bodies after death so that doctors can learn.

The anatomy suite also has a resource room for self-study. It holds prosections, models, bones, microscopes with histology (tissue) slides, pathology pots and computer-aided learning material. You also get online access to an anatomy learning package called Acland's Anatomy.

You start clinical placements in Year 1, and you are taught the skills to make the most of each type of placement before it begins. In Years 1 and 2 they are half-day placements in general practice, in hospitals and with third-sector organisations, meaning charities and voluntary groups. The indicative Year 1 timetable has one early clinical placement each week.

Both years include a longitudinal GP placement, which runs through the year rather than in one block. There a GP tutor gives you personal support as you build your consultation skills.

Early placements are not only in medical settings. Keele uses community services such as schools, pharmacies, workplaces, residential homes, gyms and drop-in centres to show you where people's health and care are shaped. This links to a thread that runs from Year 1: thinking about the community and social side of illness, not only the biology.

Year 2 adds regular clinical skills sessions at Royal Stoke University Hospital. From Year 3, placements become most of your week: 56% of your study hours in Year 3, rising to more than 70% in Years 4 and 5.

Keele assesses all three course themes in every year. Some assessments are formative, meaning they are for practice and feedback only. Others are summative, meaning they decide whether you progress. Written exams use single best answer (SBA) questions, where you pick the best of several options, and short-answer questions, where you write a brief answer.

Practical skills are tested through OSCEs and workplace-based assessments (WBAs), which assess real tasks you carry out on placement. From Year 2 you are typically assessed on practical skills two or three times a year. Coursework includes written reviews, case reports, presentations and posters, and tasks that test how you appraise research data and reflect on your practice.

You also keep a learning portfolio with reflective summaries and appraisals, and your professional behaviour is assessed through the Team Assessment of Behaviour (TAB). In Years 1 and 2 your Academic Mentor goes through your assessment feedback with you at regular meetings. Full attendance is required throughout the course.

The Applied Knowledge Test is your final written exam, taken at the end of Year 4. It is set nationally through the Medical Schools Council. Keele's Year 4 module specification describes two two-hour papers of 100 SBA questions each, worth half of the Year 4 mark. In the format the GMC approved in 2024, they are computer-based and sat on consecutive days. Since the 2024-25 academic year, every UK medical degree must include a pass in both parts of the MLA.

The Clinical and Professional Skills Assessment (CPSA) is your final OSCE, sat in an assessment week after the Year 5 assistantships. In the design the GMC approved in April 2024, it has 14 stations of nine and a half minutes, seven a day over two days. It is held in the clinical education centres of Keele's two main teaching hospitals, with one day at each. You must pass at least 11 of the 14 stations and also score above an overall pass mark.

Stations use real patients, actors and high-fidelity manikins, which are computer-controlled patient dummies that breathe and react to treatment. One is a teaching station where you help a junior colleague. In the same design, you first sit a practice OSCE of the same length and difficulty, with marks and audio feedback.

• Year 1: three knowledge tests, in January, March or April, and May, using SBA and short-answer questions, make up 90% of the year's mark. The Academic Mini Review counts for 9% and its five-minute presentation for 1%.
• Year 2: knowledge tests in November, January and May or June carry 65% of the mark. They have 275 marks of SBA questions and 75 of short answers, sat on computers under exam conditions. OSCEs carry 25%, and the Community Partnership Placement portfolio and poster 10%.
• Year 2 OSCEs have 4 stations in January and 8 in June. To pass you need at least 8 of the 12 stations, and your total score must beat the combined station pass marks plus a small margin for measurement error. Keele says this is the same double rule the CPSA uses.
• Year 3: three written papers of two and a half hours, each with 125 SBA questions, make up half the mark. The other half is a 14-station OSCE, where you need to pass at least 10 stations and clear the same total-score rule.
• Year 4: a 14-station OSCE over three days makes up half the mark, and you need to pass at least 11 stations and clear the total-score rule. The AKT makes up the other half.
• Years 3 and 4 also have a portfolio of workplace-based assessments, sign-offs for each placement block and for skills, and an appraisal. It carries no marks, but you must complete it.
• Year 5: the CPSA carries the whole mark. You also need a complete portfolio. It includes the Practical Procedural Skills assessment, supervised learning events, which are workplace-based assessments, and multi-source feedback, where peers and supervisors comment on your work.
• Year 5 also includes the national Prescribing Safety Assessment (PSA), a test of safe prescribing. Keele says passing it is not currently a condition of graduating, but you must pass it during FY1 to move on to FY2, the second foundation year.
• Years 1 and 2: each assessment has a pass mark, but your weighted marks also count towards a distinction in your final degree. Keele says they may also be used for ranking in later decisions about foundation placements.
• Resits: if you fail a component, you resit it in the university reassessment period. Any attempts you still need after that come through repeating the year.

Keele's placements are mainly in Staffordshire and Shropshire, with a few in neighbouring counties. The sites range from Royal Stoke University Hospital, a very large teaching hospital and tertiary referral centre, to busy district general hospitals, specialist psychiatric hospitals, small community hospitals and general practices. A tertiary referral centre takes patients sent on from other hospitals for specialist care.

In Years 3, 4 and 5 you are given a hospital base for each year, and Year 3 is at UHNM. In Years 4 and 5 your base is either UHNM or SaTH. Under current arrangements you should expect to spend one of those two years based in Shropshire and the other in Staffordshire. Keele's course pages say all students do this, while the programme specification says most do. Even within a base, you move between hospitals to see services that are delivered in different places.

Placements are first allocated at random. After that, the School tries not to send you to the same placement twice and takes account of how far you have already travelled. You cannot choose your own placements. In Years 3 to 5 you can ask for a particular area for your general practice placement to help with travel or accommodation, and you can propose a swap with another student.

The School can take account of special circumstances, such as caring for a child or a disabled relative, or a medical condition that needs follow-up in a particular place. You need to provide evidence every year. Most placements can be reached by public transport, and students who say they have a car may be sent to the harder-to-reach sites.

Travel is a real part of this course. Among 2025 graduates, placement travel across Years 3 to 5 averaged about 4,189 miles, and the highest total was 7,781 miles. Keele measures these figures from each student's base hospital. They leave out student-selected component placements and travel between UHNM's own hospitals, such as from Royal Stoke to County Hospital in Stafford.

You mostly pay for placement travel yourself. Keele cannot promise help, but when outside bodies agree travel funding, usually year by year, the School shares it out at the end of the year. This funding does not currently go to students in Years 1 and 2. Students receiving an NHS bursary may be able to claim back extra travel and, where needed, extra accommodation costs. Student accommodation is available at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital site.

Student-selected components (SSCs) are parts of the course where you choose the topic. They let you study an area of medical science, clinical medicine or public health in more depth and see how medical knowledge is built through research. You choose a component in several years of the course, and each one has its own objectives and assessment.

In Year 1 your component is the Academic Mini Review (see Year 1). In Years 2 and 3 you rank the SSC options on offer and are allocated using your ranking. The Year 3 SSC is compulsory and marked pass or fail. It does not count towards your marks or ranking, but you must pass it, in Year 3 or if needed in Year 4, before you can start Year 5.

Near the end of Year 5 you take an eight-week elective, a placement you organise yourself, in the UK or overseas. It comes after the 30 weeks of assistantships and the CPSA assessment week. Your Year 5 portfolio includes your elective plan, a risk assessment and a poster about your elective project. You then present the project to other students in Student Elective Presentation Week.

Keele's programme specification says the course has no Study Abroad options because of GMC accreditation rules. At Keele, Study Abroad means spending a semester or a year at a partner university overseas. The rule does not stop you taking your elective abroad.

Intercalating means taking a year out of medicine to study one subject in depth and earn an extra degree, then returning to the course. At Keele it is optional. You can take a bachelor's degree after Year 2, or a bachelor's or master's degree after Year 4. The break from the MBChB lasts 12 months.

You need permission from the School of Medicine and an offer of a place on the course you choose, at Keele or at another university. Permission comes after a short interview with an intercalation panel, which looks at your academic record and your motivation. You send an expression of interest by 31 October of the year before, and you lose permission if you do not pass that year's end-of-year exams at the first attempt. For a course elsewhere, you apply to that university yourself.

Keele's own bachelor's options are a BSc in Medical Humanities, which looks at medicine through literature, film and history, and a BSc in Natural Sciences. The Natural Sciences degree has named routes in Neuroscience, Biochemistry and Studies in Biomedical Sciences.

Its taught master's options are MScs in Clinical Education, Biomedical Engineering, and Cell and Tissue Engineering, and MAs in Medical Ethics and Law, and in Medical Ethics and Palliative Care. Three MSc Biomedical Science pathways are offered too: Blood Science, Medical Microbiology and an online route. For research, there is a Clinical or Laboratory MPhil.

Keele points to research skills, the chance to publish papers and present at conferences, and a possible boost to your Foundation Programme application as the main benefits. The main drawbacks are time and money: it adds a year to your training. Students who intercalate at Keele are preferred for any funding support the School can arrange.

On campus, the David Weatherall building has a large lecture theatre, seminar rooms, the anatomy suite, three multi-user laboratories and an IT lab with more than 50 networked PCs and extended opening hours. In the labs you also practise sterile technique, drug delivery, and examining the eye and ear with an ophthalmoscope and otoscope. The main campus library is open 24 hours a day during semesters.

At Royal Stoke there are two teaching buildings: the School's hospital campus building and the Clinical Education Centre. The Centre's clinical skills labs include resuscitation and paediatric areas, intermediate and advanced skills labs and SimMan, a computer-controlled patient manikin. It also houses the Health Library, open seven days a week, which you use in Years 3 to 5. Doctors in postgraduate training share the building.

Other sites have their own space. Royal Shrewsbury Hospital has seminar rooms, a clinical skills lab, a student common room and a health library. Harplands Hospital has a student common room with computers, seminar rooms and a small skills lab.

The Keele Anatomy and Surgical Training Centre, opened in 2013 as an extension to the anatomy suite, has two wet labs with nine surgical workstations. It is used mainly for surgical training and postgraduate courses, but can be used alongside the undergraduate dissecting room.

Each student has a Professional Development Tutor (PDT), who acts as your personal tutor across the course and appraises your professional development. In the early years you also have an Academic Mentor for academic and personal support. On placement, clinical tutors support you, and a year lead handles academic issues for each year.

Students in later years act as peer mentors for those in earlier years. A team of pastoral tutors sees any student confidentially and runs workshops on study skills and managing your health. There is particular support for disabled students and those with long-term health conditions.

Student representatives from all five years sit on the Student Staff Voice Committee, and the Medical Student Council gives students a say in how the curriculum develops. Through the course you build a portfolio to support later job applications.