The Liverpool Medicine course

In years 1 and 2 each teaching block covers one body system. Physiology, biochemistry, pathology, microbiology, immunology, pharmacology, anatomy, genetics, and cell and molecular biology are taught together within it. Year 1 opens with a Foundation block on the principles of medicine, then moves to a new system every three to four weeks.

In the first two years the whole year group follows one lecture timetable, then splits into smaller groups. Their size depends on the activity: 6 to 8 for communication skills, 15 to 20 for case-based learning, and about 40 for pre-placement teaching from specialists in the clinical years.

From year 3 most learning happens on placement. The academic week before each block brings the lectures, case-based learning, clinical skills and simulation for that specialty, so the teaching arrives just before you need it on the ward. Simulation grows through the clinical years. The course also teaches you to use digital health records and AI tools safely and to understand their limits.

Year 1: a typical week mixes pre-recorded lectures with three or four face-to-face seminars, plus small-group sessions in clinical skills, anatomy or communication, and unscheduled time to prepare and consolidate. In 2025-26 year 1 had 30 weeks of term, from late September to the end of May. Years 2 to 4 started in early September and ran into July; year 5 ended in June.

Hospital placement, years 3 and 4: the school's 2022-23 guidance for placement clinicians describes four and a half days a week at the site. Wednesday afternoon is kept free for sport or self-study. Days fill with ward rounds, clinics, theatres and bedside teaching, and in each hospital placement you do one long day, working until 9pm to see the hospital out of hours.

GP placement: you are in the practice for seven sessions (half-days) a week, leave on the same day each week for community clinical teaching, and keep the remaining half day for your own learning. In years 3 and 4 that means three or four sessions leading consultations, two or three observing, and one or two with other members of the practice team.

Anatomy is taught in the Human Anatomy Resource Centre, known as HARC. Liverpool teaches medical students with prosections rather than dissection. The school's anatomists prepare specimens from donated bodies in advance to show the structures for the body system you are studying. Your time goes on understanding what is in front of you rather than searching for it.

Alongside the specimens you use anatomical models and Anatomage tables, large touchscreens that let you move through real cadaveric images slice by slice. Trained demonstrators teach the sessions, and online videos of the practicals and a drop-in learning zone support revision.

In the early years anatomy follows the body-system blocks. In the later years it moves on to the anatomy you need to read scans and to understand specialist procedures. If you want to go further, intercalating in anatomy at Liverpool is a popular choice.

There are no formal NHS placements in year 1, but you are working with people from the start. Communication classes with simulated patients begin in year 1, and on-campus clinical skills teaching covers history taking and first examination skills. A day in a community setting, such as a health charity, is usually timetabled in the second semester.

Year 2 brings your first hospital placements, spread across the year and totalling about three and a half to four weeks. You complete set hospital-based tasks and record them in your e-portfolio, the online record of your placement activity, skills and feedback that follows you through the course. The tasks are designed to ease you safely into clinical settings.

From year 3 placements take up most of the year: 28 weeks in each of years 3 and 4, and 32 weeks in year 5. In general practice you lead consultations from year 3. By year 5 you are triaging patients, which means deciding how urgently each one needs to be seen, and assisting the on-call GP, always under supervision.

Liverpool separates assessment for learning from assessment for progression. Assessments for learning, such as the self-check tests after each system block and practice OSCEs, give detailed feedback but do not count. Assessments for progression come at the end of each year and decide whether you move on.

Written exams are applied knowledge tests, sat on computer at the end of years 1 to 4. Questions are clinically framed and mix subjects rather than testing, say, anatomy on its own. OSCEs also count at the end of years 3 and 4. Liverpool calls them Clinical and Professional Skills Assessments (CPSAs), with stations on consultations, examinations and practical procedures.

Year 5 brings the Medical Licensing Assessment (MLA), which the General Medical Council (GMC), the UK regulator for doctors, has required in every UK medical degree since 2024-25. Its knowledge test is two two-hour computer papers of 100 single best answer questions on consecutive days, supplied nationally by the Medical Schools Council. The school runs a practice paper in December.

The MLA's clinical part is Liverpool's final CPSA, run in the sequential format described in the highlights, with 11-minute stations. Because of that format there is no separate resit later in the year. The GMC confirmed in December 2023 that the exam meets its licensing requirements.

Your e-portfolio also records workplace-based assessments: skills and procedures a qualified practitioner watches you perform and signs off. Before the final CPSA a progression review checks your attendance, engagement, portfolio and professionalism. To graduate you also need a completed SAMP and a test of your prescribing skills.

• Clinical exams are held at Aintree Racecourse, and the school provides transport there for the final CPSA.
• If you fail a year's assessments you get one further attempt, and you would not normally be allowed to repeat more than one year.

Placements are provided by NHS trusts, GP practices, hospices, and specialist and community services. Most are in Merseyside, but the area reaches north to Blackpool, south to Chester and, to a lesser extent, into North Wales. Over the course you are normally expected to work in different hospitals and teams across the whole area.

The school shares placements out so that every student has sites close to Liverpool and further away. Under the 2022-23 guidance you stayed at one site for at least two placements a year, rather than moving every four weeks. In year 5 you were based mainly in one area for the acute block, then moved to other sites for the SAMP and the final ward block. Blackpool Teaching Hospitals, at the northern edge of the area, offers accommodation close to the hospital.

Students without other travel funding receive a yearly contribution from the school, set from NHS England funding. In 2025/26 students in years 3 to 5 received 700 pounds, paid early in the year; some use it for public transport season tickets. Students on an NHS bursary may claim travel through the NHS Business Services Authority instead.

Scrubs are compulsory on every placement; you are issued three sets over years 1 and 2. In GP practices you usually see patients in pairs, and the GP reviews every patient you see. You do not go on urgent home visits on your own. A GP may sometimes arrange for you and a fellow student to visit a patient with a long-term condition at home, but only if your GP tutor judges it suitable.

The elective is a four-week placement at the end of year 4, anywhere in the world that the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office advises is safe. Many students go abroad. Each elective needs a risk assessment that meets the university's standards, and you pay the costs, though the school offers some bursaries.

In year 5 the SAMP lets you choose a specialty and a location from a catalogue, in primary or secondary care, or design your own through a school approval process. Most take place in the North West, occasionally elsewhere in the UK. The school's Entry 2027 FAQ (April 2026) describes the SAMP as six weeks, while the course page describes a five-week block.

Hospitals publish their own SAMP options. Liverpool Heart and Chest offers cardiology, respiratory medicine, heart and chest surgery, surgery on the aorta (the body's main artery), anaesthesia and radiology. Warrington's list runs from anaesthetics and cardiology to public health and medical leadership, and Alder Hey also takes final-year students.

The university runs two optional extra years. The Year Abroad is spent at a partner university, with past destinations including Canada, America, Hong Kong, Australia, South Korea and the Netherlands. The Year in China is at Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University in Suzhou. Medicine students usually take one between years 2 and 3. It does not count towards the MBChB and replaces intercalation.

You can also apply for a summer abroad at a partner university in any summer between your first and final year; Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea are listed for this course.

Intercalating means taking a year out of the MBChB to earn a separate degree. At Liverpool it is optional and usually happens between years 3 and 4. The school places it there so you have enough time back on the course to prepare for the licensing exams in year 5. Between a sixth and a third of each eligible year group intercalate.

You can take a science bachelor's degree (BSc), a taught master's degree, or a research master's where most of the year goes on your own research project. Taught options include master's degrees in science, law, business, management and public health. You can study at Liverpool or at another university.

Taught master's courses Liverpool students have chosen include Neuroscience, Global Healthcare Ethics, Palliative and End of Life Care, Clinical Sciences, and Data Science and Analytics for Health. There are also law, public health and management options, such as a law master's in Law, Medicine and Healthcare.

There is an application process. You declare your interest to the school's intercalation team, and each course sets its own deadlines; for the Neuroscience MSc it was in March. The school offers some scholarships as fee waivers.

Cedar House is the School of Medicine's home on campus. Built in 1933 as accommodation for nurses at the neighbouring Liverpool Royal Infirmary, it was refurbished for 5 million pounds in 2019. It now has a student hub, teaching rooms, group study areas and an anatomy revision room.

The Waterhouse building, opened in 1889 as the Liverpool Royal Infirmary and now Grade II listed, houses the school's clinical skills and simulation learning areas. The simulation suites use high-fidelity manikins, augmented reality and fully simulated ward scenarios.

The Learning Zone, in the clinical skills centre, is open every weekday and free to book from year 2. You can practise basic life support, taking blood on models, recording and reading ECGs, urinalysis, catheterisation, examining ears, and measuring peak flow and vital signs.

HARC is a dedicated anatomy teaching facility that also hosts surgical training for qualified doctors. The site of the old Royal Hospital nearby is planned to become a health sciences campus shared by medical, dental, nursing and allied health students.

Every student has an Academic Advisor who meets you to discuss progress and welfare. In years 1 and 2 you keep the same advisor, someone experienced in those years. In the clinical years your advisor is a senior clinician, such as a consultant or a GP tutor.

On each placement an educational supervisor reviews your progress and portfolio; the admissions FAQ says they meet you weekly in the clinical years. In general practice your GP tutor takes this role.

The school has its own Student Support and Wellbeing team with an open-door policy. You can contact them by phone or email or simply drop in, evening meetings can be arranged, and they can refer you to the university's central services.

The Peer Mentor Network pairs each first-year student with a student doctor in a later year. The school has its own careers adviser, and careers fairs bring in consultants and trainees from more than 60 specialties. Disabled students can have a support plan shared with the school's Disability and Dyslexia Contact.