The St Andrews Medicine course

St Andrews describes its course as an integrated spiral curriculum. Integrated means science and clinical practice are taught together rather than in separate years. Spiral means the course keeps coming back to the same topics. Year 1 lays the foundations, and the honours modules in years 2 and 3 revisit each body system in much more depth.

Each system module follows the same order: normal structure, then function, then disease and finally treatment. Clinical cases tie this together. In semester 2 of year 1, for example, cases on trauma and deep vein thrombosis, a blood clot in a deep vein, usually in the leg, link straight to the limb anatomy you dissect.

Themes run through every year alongside the body systems: medical ethics, communication skills, professionalism, public health, health psychology and infection. In the year 2 module on the gut, kidneys and reproductive system, they include alcohol-related harm in Scotland, the global burden of disease and the ethics of assisted reproduction. A research skills strand trains you to critique published studies and write scientifically.

The style shifts as you progress. Years 1 and 2 are built around lectures, laboratory practicals, dissection and small-group tutorials. Year 3 introduces flipped-classroom teaching: you work through an interactive guided study on a platform called Nearpod, and a linked lecture then clears up the difficult parts. Clinical Reasoning, in the final semester, is taught entirely in small groups, mainly by clinicians, including some who are not university employees but hold honorary posts to teach there.

In years 1 and 2 and the first semester of year 3, a typical week has about 10 lectures and around 6 hours of seminars, tutorials and practicals, including dissection. Clinical case studies and skills sessions run alongside, with placements fitted in. The school also sets up to 6 hours a week of directed self-study, or up to 8 in the year 2 heart and lungs module.

Most teaching is in person, and class times and rooms are posted on Galen, the school's own online learning system. Practicals, workshops and tutorials are compulsory. If you miss three days in your first semester, the module leaders invite you to a supportive meeting to check how you are and help you catch up.

Semesters have about 12 teaching weeks, with a week in the middle set aside for independent study. In the 2026/27 first-year timetable, this was week 6. A mid-semester test followed in late October, and exams ran in December after a revision week.

In the second semester of year 3, a Clinical Reasoning day comes round every two weeks. It starts with a three-hour morning of simulated patient scenarios and skills sessions. The afternoon, of two or three hours, usually opens with a case discussion. Attendance is compulsory, and falling below 80 per cent removes you from the module's OSCE. Around these days you work on your research project.

You learn anatomy by dissecting whole human bodies donated for medical teaching, guided by demonstrators. The dissecting room has 16 dissection tables, space for hundreds of models and specimens, and technology at each table for calling up teaching resources. Technicians and medical staff are on hand to help.

Dissection follows the body systems you are studying. In your first semester you get an overview of the major systems and learn to use dissection instruments while dissecting the back. The upper and lower limbs follow in semester 2. In year 2 you dissect the thorax (the chest), then the abdomen and pelvis. In year 3 you study the head and neck by dissection, including neuroanatomy, the structure of the brain and nerves.

The year 2 modules link dissection to clinical imaging, and year 3 covers aspects of radiology. In the final semester, anatomy is revised as it applies to examining patients and reading scans, including cross-sectional anatomy of the kind seen on CT and MRI images.

A first-year student writing on the school's news site in March 2026 said the embalming chemicals that preserve the bodies smell strongly at first. One task was carefully removing part of the spine to expose the structures beneath it. He also noted that the donors are local people who chose to give their bodies to help train doctors.

You begin working with patients in year 1, but early contact mostly happens inside the medical school. In your first semester you learn core skills such as handwashing and measuring blood pressure, and talk to volunteer patients who live with long-term health conditions. Some of these patient partner sessions may be held online.

In semester 2 of year 1 you have your first placement outside the school: one day at a general practice or a community hospital. Year 2 brings a series of attachments in primary care, meaning GP surgeries and other community services where most patients are first seen. These run alongside clinical case studies on a two-week cycle, and are a mix of face-to-face and virtual placements.

Year 3 moves you into secondary care, meaning the hospital services that patients are referred on to. The first-semester module on the nervous and endocrine systems includes a range of hospital attachments. In the final semester, a ward simulation has you managing acutely unwell patients alongside other health professionals.

The 60-credit modules are assessed in a similar way. Midway through the semester there is a 72-minute test of 60 multiple choice questions (MCQs). At the end you sit another 60-question MCQ paper, a short written answer paper of about two hours, and a 10-minute anatomy practical exam using real specimens, models or images. The mid-semester test counts for a quarter of the marks from these papers.

In each OSCE you must pass a minimum number of stations and reach an overall pass mark. The number of stations grows each year.

From 2026/27, starting with first-year students, the school is moving its semester 2 modules to marking in three domains. Knowledge counts for 75 per cent, clinical skills from the OSCE for 20 per cent, and professionalism, judged through your portfolio, for 5 per cent. You must pass each domain on its own, and if you fail one you resit only that part. The OSCE formats listed at the end of this section come from the 2026/27 handbooks, and those for years 2 and 3 may change as this roll-out reaches later years.

Throughout the three years you keep a professional portfolio recording your personal development and professional behaviour. What matters is completing its tasks satisfactorily: if more than two are not, you go through a formal review and a plan to put things right. The research project is assessed entirely by coursework, and you must pass both the dissertation and the oral presentation.

Modules are graded on the university's 20-point scale, and you must pass every module with at least 7.0 to move on each year. In modules still marked the older way, your graded papers are combined, so a strong paper can make up for a weak one if the weighted total passes. The OSCE must still be passed on its own. Resits are held in July, and resit marks are capped at 7.

The MLA has two parts. The Applied Knowledge Test (AKT) is a computer-based exam of multiple choice questions. UK medical schools write it together through the Medical Schools Council, and the GMC regulates it. The Clinical and Professional Skills Assessment (CPSA) is a practical exam that each medical school runs to GMC standards. Students graduating from the 2024/25 academic year onwards need a pass in both to be awarded a medical degree. Because your medical degree comes from your partner school, you sit both there.

• Year 1, 2026/27 format: a compulsory practice OSCE in December, then 8 five-minute stations over two days at the end of the year, with at least 4 to pass
• Year 2, 2026/27 format: 11 stations over two days, four lasting 10 minutes and seven lasting 5 minutes, marked pass or fail, with at least 7 to pass
• Year 3, 2026/27 format: a graded 12-station OSCE in May that makes up the whole Clinical Reasoning mark. Seven 7-minute stations test clinical reasoning and reading clinical data such as test results, and five 10-minute stations test more complex tasks. You need at least 8 to pass, and the July resit uses the same format

Where you spend years 4 to 6 is decided in stages. When you apply through UCAS you choose one of three routes, each with its own campus code under A100. During year 2 you state your preferred location on your route. Places are then allocated on your preference combined with your results in the first semester of year 2.

If you are classed as an overseas student for fee purposes, you go to Manchester, the only partner school with places for overseas students on this course. Manchester then places each St Andrews student at one of its clinical education campuses at random, during the second semester of year 2. If you are an overseas student who lives in Canada or holds Canadian residency rights, St Andrews also runs a separate route, A990. It has the same three St Andrews years, followed by the MBChB at the University of Edinburgh.

• Scotland route (campus code S): Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh or Glasgow
• England route (campus code R): Manchester or Queen Mary University of London (Barts)
• No Preference route (campus code N): the Medical Admissions Officer puts you on the England or Scotland route, which your offer states and which is then fixed

The main piece of student choice at St Andrews is the Student-selected Component (MD4002), a 40-credit honours research project in the second semester of year 3. You choose an area that interests you. The project is either primary research, in the lab or using data, or a critical review of the published evidence on a question.

A supervisor meets you for up to an hour a week, and there are regular workshops. You learn to search the literature, judge the quality of studies and understand scientific methods, and you get the chance to work alongside staff doing active research.

At the end you submit a dissertation, give an oral presentation of your findings and write a portfolio entry reflecting on a significant learning event.

Many UK medical students add a year to their course to earn a separate science degree, which is called intercalating. On A100 an honours science degree is built into the six years instead, through the honours programme in years 2 and 3.

The School of Medicine moved in 2010 into the Medical and Biological Sciences Building on the North Haugh science campus, purpose-built for its redesigned curriculum. Teaching rooms include a 300-seat lecture theatre, two 50-seat seminar rooms and thirteen 12-seat tutorial rooms.

The clinical skills suite has 7 rooms with 48 beds and a full range of real and simulated clinical equipment. The medical resource centre is equipped to the same standard and works as a self-study space, open 14 hours a day.

A multi-purpose science lab takes up to 100 students at a time for practicals in physiology, pharmacology and histology. When they are not in use for teaching, you can book private study time in the dissecting room or the clinical skills rooms through an online system called Resource Booker.

When you start, you are given a personal tutor, and you normally keep the same tutor until you graduate from St Andrews. Module controllers and year leads deal with general questions about the course.

The Medical School Support Team, known as Medsupport and led by the school's Pro-Dean, offers pastoral support on top of the university's Student Services. The school also has a wellbeing officer. For study skills, the university's International Education and Lifelong Learning Institute offers one-to-one appointments.

The Peer Assisted Learning Scheme (PALS) is a mentoring scheme run by students. It pairs you with a mentor, usually from second or third year, who can advise on study skills, organisation and time management. You can ask for a mentor at any point in the year.