MBChB Medicine

Based on a patient-centred approach, the course is designed around common and important clinical conditions. It relates clinical medicine to the underlying medical sciences. You'll have the opportunity to develop your clinical competencies from the very start.

The course includes clinical teaching on wards in hospitals, clinics (both in general practice and in hospitals), lectures, seminars, tutorials, small group work, dissection and personal development supported by experienced teachers and personal academic tutors. We aim to ensure you're well prepared for a career in medicine.

The medical course at Sheffield offers a broadly-based but extensive education and training incorporating the recommendations of the General Medical Council's report Outcomes for Graduates. The course leads to the professional qualification of Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBChB).

Our MBChB programme has been designed to educate and train you so that you will become a doctor equipped with the clinical abilities, knowledge, attitudes and professional behaviours needed to become a junior hospital doctor. This preparation will also prepare you for your continued professional development after graduation.

Our medical course aims:

The underlying philosophy of the curriculum is that all learning and teaching should be thought of from the perspective of the patient. A medical curriculum should include what a student needs to know, understand and be able to do in response to the problems presented by patients in a range of health care settings. To achieve this the Sheffield medical course is designed around answering the following questions:

To answer these successfully, students must develop skills and understanding in:

The medical course in Sheffield is clinically-led and gives students opportunities to start developing their clinical skills from the very start. It is designed around the common and important clinical conditions and uses an integrated learning and teaching approach that relates clinical medicine to the underlying medical sciences.

The two main themes that run throughout the course, Clinical Competencies and Medical Sciences are linked together by Integrated Learning Activities where students work in teams, and later in the course by themselves, to solve clinical problems. A combination of teaching approaches, including clinical teaching on the wards in hospitals, in clinics both in general practice and hospitals, lectures, seminars, tutorials, small group work, dissection, together with professionalism and patient safety training supported by experienced tutors and personal mentors helps ensure that graduates are well prepared for work in the National Health Service.

At the end of the undergraduate programme you'll receive your degree. The General Medical Council (GMC) approves your university's degree as a primary medical qualification (PMQ). This is important because, provided there are no concerns about your fitness to practise, a PMQ from a UK university entitles you to provisional registration with the GMC for a licence to practise medicine in the UK.

Provisional registration is time limited to a maximum of three years and 30 days (1125 days in total). After this time period your provisional registration will normally expire. Provisionally registered doctors can only practise in approved Foundation Year One posts: the law does not allow provisionally registered doctors to undertake any other type of work. To obtain a Foundation Year One post you will need to apply during the final year of your undergraduate programme through the UK Foundation Programme Office selection scheme, which allocates these posts to graduates on a competitive basis. All suitably qualified UK graduates have found a place on the Foundation Year One programme, but this cannot be guaranteed, for instance if there were to be an increased number of competitive applications from non-UK graduates.

Successful completion of the Foundation Year One programme is normally achieved within 12 months and is marked by the award of a Certificate of Experience. You will then be eligible to apply for full registration with the General Medical Council. You need full registration with a licence to practise for unsupervised medical practice in the NHS or private practice in the UK.

There is some discussion about whether to remove provisional registration for newly qualified doctors. If this happens then UK graduates will receive full registration as soon as they have successfully completed an MBChB (or equivalent) degree. It should be noted that it is very likely that UK graduates will still need to apply for a training programme similar to the current Foundation Programme and that places on this programme may not be guaranteed for every UK graduate.