The Swansea (GEM) Medicine course

Teaching in Years 1 and 2 is organised around eight body systems: cardiovascular, endocrine, gastrointestinal, immunology and microbiology, nervous, renal, reproductive and respiratory. Each system brings its common conditions, such as heart failure, diabetes, stroke or asthma. It also brings the clinical skills that go with it, such as examining the abdomen or reading an ECG (a tracing of the heart's electrical activity).

Four strands run through every system. Anatomy covers the structure of the body. Therapeutics covers how medicines work and how to prescribe them safely. Integrated Clinical Method (ICM) teaches examination, communication and clinical reasoning, and Medicine, Health and Society covers ethics, law, public health and the social side of illness.

In practice, the spiral means the same body systems and similar patient cases come round again later in Year 1 and again in Year 2. Each week covers a new case in full, from what has gone wrong in the body to tests, diagnosis and treatment. Over time you meet each topic several times and build on what you learned before.

A large part of your learning is self-directed. The GEM team does not set any reading before you start, but expects you to find and use resources yourself once the course begins. Staff and fellow students run extra sessions for anyone who feels they need more support in the basic sciences, which helps if your first degree was not in science.

The balance shifts over the four years. In Years 1 and 2 about half your time is on campus and half on placement. In Years 3 and 4 most of your learning happens on placement, with some teaching still at the university.

In Years 1 and 2, each learning week is built around one patient case, which a clinician introduces. The case changes every week, and most of the week's teaching links back to it.

Lectures cover the science behind the case, such as anatomy, physiology, biochemistry and pathology, along with the medicines used to treat it and its social and ethical side. Anatomy is taught in small-group practical sessions, and clinical skills in small-group practicals led by clinicians.

Tutorials and other practical sessions fill out the week, and a clinical forum brings its learning together. Structured self-directed study and online resources support the teaching. Alongside all this, roughly half your time in these two years is spent on placement.

Anatomy is one of the four strands that run through the course. In Years 1 and 2 it is taught in small-group practical sessions, and in most weeks it links to that week's patient case.

Swansea says it makes extensive use of donated human tissue to teach anatomy, to medical students and to students on several other courses. The donors are people who chose to leave their bodies to medical education. In April 2026 the university unveiled a memorial to them outside the Grove Building, where its anatomy labs are. A second-year GEM student spoke in the announcement about learning from donors.

The Anatomy Lab in the Grove Building is used for teaching and for independent study. It has a 3D computer model of the human body for looking at fine detail, and it is shared with physician associate and applied medical sciences students. The Clinical Anatomy Lab focuses on anatomy as you will use it with patients, taught by specialists in smaller groups.

Anatomy starts in induction week, with a session on the regulations that govern anatomy teaching, an introduction to anatomy and small-group sessions in the Clinical Anatomy Labs.

Your first placement comes within the first weeks of Year 1. The last day of induction week includes an introduction to clinical placement, and scrubs are fitted and ordered that same week.

In Years 1 and 2 roughly half your time is on placement, in health board settings and GP practices. Early contact comes through one-day community placements, clinical apprenticeships and the self-chosen sessions called LOCS.

In Years 3 and 4 most of your time is clinical. Year 3 normally means eight five-week hospital attachments, covering surgery, emergency medicine, general medicine and cancer care, children, mental health, frailty, women's health and other specialties, plus a community block. Year 4 brings three junior assistantships, your elective and a final Senior Student Assistantship.

Each module has several assessment parts, and you must pass every part to earn the module's credits. A good average cannot make up for one failed component. Pass marks are not fixed percentages: each is set through a formal standard-setting process that takes account of how hard the exam is. Professionalism is formally assessed too, and it counts towards whether you pass each placement.

Knowledge is tested through progress tests and single best answer (SBA) questions, where you pick the one best option from a list. Practical and workplace assessments build up year by year, as set out above. Case studies and a written clerking start in Year 1, OSCEs in Year 2 and mini-CEX in Year 3.

The MLA has two parts, both in Year 4. The AKT is shared by all UK medical schools: two computer-based papers of 100 questions, each lasting two hours, on consecutive days. It is pitched at a doctor in their first week of Foundation Year 1. Swansea told the GMC that students normally get up to two attempts within the academic year.

The CPSA is Swansea's own clinical exam. When the GMC approved it in April 2024, it was an OSCE of three circuits of five stations over three days. Each station lasted 12 minutes, with two minutes' reading time, and most included marks for professionalism. Examiners could issue a yellow card for clearly unprofessional behaviour or poor clinical skills, and each one was followed up with the student. At that time the school also ran a practice CPSA each September, with four sample stations and detailed feedback.

Each module is graded Pass, Pass with Merit or Pass with Distinction, depending on where your average falls against the 50th and 80th percentiles. A merit earns one point and a distinction two. Your final award is a Pass (7 points or fewer), a Pass with Commendation (8 to 12) or a Pass with Honours (13 or more).

Clinical placements take place at NHS sites: hospitals, GP surgeries and community health services. Swansea says this mix is meant to show you first-hand how social conditions affect health, and why primary care and prevention matter in tackling health inequalities.

The medical school's local health board is Swansea Bay University Health Board, which worked with the university to bring the Wales graduate-entry course to Swansea. It serves around 390,000 people in Swansea and Neath Port Talbot, with three main hospitals and 45 GP practices. Two of the medical school's teaching facilities are in its hospitals: an Education Centre at Morriston Hospital and the Singleton Teaching Unit at Singleton Hospital.

The second partner is Hywel Dda University Health Board, which serves about 384,000 people in Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion and Pembrokeshire. Since medical school places in Wales were expanded in 2018, Swansea has been working with Hywel Dda to create more learning in Mid and West Wales. The aim is for students to learn in community settings as much as possible, in line with Welsh Government policy on care close to home.

Where you go depends partly on your choices. Rural-track students spend more time in rural GP practices, district hospitals and hospital care in Aberystwyth and Haverfordwest. Primary Care Academy students are placed with West Wales GP practices, alone or in pairs, and the school aims to group them near each other.

In the final year, the module descriptions place most of your time in health boards around Wales and in GP practices. The Welsh-language version of the Doctor as a Professional module goes with Welsh-speaking placements.

The elective is a placement you choose and organise yourself in the final year. It might mean more experience in a specialty, a research or audit project, or seeing healthcare in another country. Many Swansea students go abroad, while others stay in the UK, and afterwards you write an elective report reflecting on what you learned.

Choice runs through the rest of the course too. LOCS let you pick clinical sessions from Year 1. Student selected components (SSCs) are pieces of work on a topic you choose, and research projects and audit let you follow an academic interest. An audit checks whether care on a ward or in a clinic meets an agreed standard.

The rural track has set placement requirements. You complete at least two LOCS with a rural or remote focus and at least two clinical apprenticeships in rural or remote places. You also take at least one community placement and one Year 4 junior assistantship in a rural or remote location. Your elective in Year 4 must be rural-related, and the track page says these are usually overseas.

The track asks for more than placements. You do at least two rural-focused SSCs and link one of your year-long case studies to rural health. You keep a track e-portfolio of your rural learning, which you must complete to finish the track, and you are invited to quarterly meetings with outside speakers. Swansea strongly advises taking its Welsh for Medicine course, though it is optional.

To join the rural track you attend an introductory meeting in Year 1 and then put your name forward, or you can join in Year 2. If too many apply, you write a short reflective application, and preference goes to students committed to rural practice after graduating, especially in Wales. The Head of GEM decides, and you hear within six weeks of the deadline.

Intercalating means taking an extra year of study, usually for a separate qualification, in the middle of your medicine course. At Swansea it is optional, but the medical school encourages every student to consider it. For graduate-entry students it recommends taking the year between the end of Year 2 and the start of Year 3, which adds a year to your time at medical school.

Swansea offers nine master's courses as intercalated degrees. Five are Diabetes Practice, Education for the Health Professions, Genomic Medicine, Health Data Science and Health Informatics. The others are Healthcare Management, Public Health and Health Promotion, Medical Education, and Nanomedicine.

You apply through the university's Learner Gateway portal with a transcript and a letter from the medical school confirming it will release you for the year. If you pay your own fees, you also pay them for the intercalated year, and each course sets its own fee.

The Grove Building on Singleton Park Campus is the founding home of the medical school and the base for anatomy and clinical skills teaching. Besides the anatomy labs and the ward-style ICM Suite described above, it has a lecture theatre and a computer suite for quiet study and group projects.

Simulation runs through the course. Years 1 and 2 use simulated patients in clinical skills teaching, Year 3 has three compulsory half-day sessions, and the Year 4 Transition to Practice block includes simulation. Separately, the university has a general simulation centre, SUSIM, serving its clinical, health and social care courses from the main campus and its West Wales site.

The medical school also has teaching space in two hospitals, described under placements. Its research buildings on Singleton Park include the Institute of Life Science and the Data Science Building.

You are given a personal tutor, drawn from the medical school's academic staff or from clinicians in the local health boards. Your tutor is your first contact for anything affecting your wellbeing, attendance or progress, and can help with personal development planning and careers advice. They can also point you to welfare services.

The medical school has its own Student Life Officer, who identifies students who may need help and works with them on a welfare plan, from homesickness to more serious concerns. A Student Information and Education Office handles academic queries. The GEM team also includes a Student Support and Guidance Lead, a Senior Academic Mentor and a Year 1 lead.

Before you start, the student medical society, MedSoc, emails new students its own introduction to GEM, written by students who have done the course. No reading is required in advance. If you want to refresh your anatomy and physiology, the GEM team suggests two introductory books.

When the GMC reviewed Swansea's finals in 2024, the school described feedback sessions after the AKT with the AKT lead or your academic mentor, and extra tutorials for anyone resitting. Anyone who failed the CPSA got a one-to-one feedback meeting and an academic mentor. Welsh speakers can have a Welsh-speaking personal tutor and one-to-one academic skills support in Welsh.