Newcastle University

Medicine and Surgery (Accelerated Programme) MB BS Honours
UCAS Code: A101 (4 Years)

• Course Overview
• Course Content
• Entry Requirements
• Careers
• Finance

This four-year accelerated programme is designed for graduates of any discipline who wish to train as a doctor, and others whose prior professional experience qualifies them for entry.

It provides a general medical education for all types of doctor, which will serve as the foundation for later career specialisation.

Medicine at Newcastle is consistently one of the most highly regarded medical degrees in the UK.

The excellence of our programmes has been confirmed by both the General Medical Council (GMC) and the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA).

In Phase I (which spans 45 weeks), we adopt a case-led approach with clinical cases introduced as the ‘trigger’ to ensure a problem-first, task-based focus to your learning.

You will be organised into a small study group and the group will be allocated a senior medical tutor who will provide academic support throughout the year. He/she will also facilitate a number of your weekly teaching sessions. You will also be allocated a personal tutor for further support.

As with the five-year programme, you will spend time in general practice and in community and hospital settings.

In Phase II, you are integrated into a single common pathway alongside undergraduate students on our five-year course.

We recognise the increasingly difficult scenarios that doctors may encounter, so medical ethics is a particularly strong theme in the curriculum. You will also develop the key skills of communication, information handling, reasoning, judgement, reflective practice and decision making.

Quality and ranking

The quality of the medicine study experience at Newcastle is recognised with an overall satisfaction score of 95% in the National Student Survey 2013.

We rank among the best British universities for medicine in:

• The Times/Sunday Times Good University Guide 2014
• The Guardian University Guide 2014
• The Complete University Guide 2014

Medicine at Newcastle also ranks in the top 150 universities in the world in the QS World University Rankings by Subject.

Professional accreditation

Our curriculum is aligned to the General Medical Council (GMC) standards for the knowledge, skills and behaviours of undergraduate medical students and for the delivery of teaching, learning and assessment, as outlined in Tomorrow’s Doctors (2009).

Student-selected components

You have the flexibility to choose which topics you study through the student-selected component (SSC) programme. Given the prior experience of entrants to this programme, this strand is omitted from Phase I of the accelerated programme, beginning in Phase II (Stages 4 and 5).

In Stage 4 you complete three SSCs, each lasting six weeks. Some examples of student-selected topics available in Stage 4 include:

• care of newborn babies
• neurosurgery
• medical law
• complementary medicine
• tropical diseases
• accident and emergency medicine and paramedic attachment
• wilderness and survival medicine

These SSCs are followed by an eight-week elective period (see below).

In Stage 5 your SSC focuses on consolidating your understanding of ethical principles and applying ethical reasoning to a case or problem you have experienced.

Elective

At the end of Stage 4 you undertake an eight-week elective placement as part of the Stage 4 SSC strand. This gives you the opportunity to study anywhere in the world and gain hands-on experience of a different health care system.

Find out more about outgoing electives on the Medicine at Newcastle website.

Clinical placements

You spend Stages 3 and 5 in one of four Clinical Base Units in the region. You will be based in a different regional Base Unit in Stages 3 and 5, as we believe that it is important that you experience the wide range of clinical opportunities available throughout the region. These are:

Northumbria Base Unit

• Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust
• North Cumbria University Hospitals NHS Trust

Tyne Base Unit

• Newcastle Hospitals NHS Trust
• Queen Elizabeth Hospital Gateshead NHS Trust

Wear Base Unit

• City Hospitals Sunderland NHS Trust
• South Tyneside NHS Trust
• University Hospital North Durham University

Tees Base Unit

• South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
• North Tees & Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust
• Darlington Memorial Hospital

Find out more about our Clinical Base Units on the Medicine at Newcastle website.

Medicine at Newcastle

The Medical School at Newcastle is a Regional Medical School and has partnerships with Durham University and the Northern Region NHS. This gives you access to excellent clinical training opportunities offered by the large patient population (3.5 million) and the region-wide infrastructure of acute hospitals, general practices and public health units.

The Medical School at Newcastle is part of the city-centre University campus. Specialist facilities here include an extensive library, a Clinical Skills and Anatomy Laboratory, and dedicated computer clusters with online study guides that include interactive assessment tools.

You also have access to Anatomy and Clinical Skills Centres, in Newcastle and throughout the region, which include patient simulators, dissecting rooms and clinical skills laboratories for practising basic skills.

We have a comprehensive network of support in place to support you during your studies, including a peer-parenting system, partnering new students with a 'family' of more senior students who can offer advice and support. We also have a very active student society, MedSoc, to help you settle in and meet students from all years on an informal basis.

You will also receive specialist careers advice from undergraduate level through to foundation training, to help you make the transition from student to doctor.

• Take a virtual tour of the Medical School on the Newcastle University website
• View videos about the first two years of study, clinical experience, research and the city of Newcastle