Graduate Medicine Course
Directors of Studies: Dr Vian Azzu (pre-clinical), Dr Kevin Loudon (pre-clinical), Dr Ben Challis (clinical) & Dr Anna Spathis (clinical)
The Graduate Course in Medicine is an accelerated four-year programme. The emphasis is the acquisition of clinical skills by direct patient contact in hospital and community environments, and the integration of core medical science with clinical medicine.
Please note that this course is only open to applicants who would be eligible for Home fee status at the point of application. International graduates may apply for affiliated entry to the Standard Course (A100). Home fee status candidates can apply to both the standard (A100) and graduate-entry (A101) courses but must apply to the same college for both.
Please note that you must complete a separate Graduate Course in Medicine application form in addition to your UCAS application to apply for this course. You will be given access to this form once you have applied via UCAS. The form will ask for more details about you and your educational history. You will also be asked to upload a Healthcare Experience Log documenting your work experience and to give details of a second referee in addition to your UCAS referee. Instructions on completing the form are provided.
The deadline to complete your Graduate Course in Medicine application for 2023 entry is 22 October 2022. The deadline for receipt of your UCAS application is 15 October 2022.
Due to the competitive nature of the course, it is important that you make sure you meet or will meet the below pre-medical requirements and that you have appropriate healthcare experience before you apply for the course.
Course Requirements
There are two sets of academic requirements for this course. The first is your academic performance to date, based on A levels (or equivalent) and your first degree. The second set relates to the subject requirements which must be met before studying medicine at Cambridge.
Academic requirements
Academic requirements must be met in order for your application to be considered – you must have contextualised A level results of:
- A*A*A (if you graduated with a 2.i or have yet to complete your first degree)
OR
- ABB (if you have graduated with a 1st class degree).
If you didn’t take A levels we will consider your performance in equivalent qualifications such as the IB, BTECs or Access courses.
Our contextualisation of A level results (or equivalents) will take account of personal circumstances and any educational disadvantage you may have experienced. This is done on a case-by-case basis taking all the available information provided in your application into account.
If you took pre-degree qualifications outside of the UK the please see the University website for equivalencies.
We would expect contextualisation of degree outcomes to have been undertaken by the awarding university: owing to the competitive nature of this course we cannot accept a final degree award of less than a 2.i (or equivalent).
Where universities classify degrees differently, we would usually follow the equivalencies given on the University website.
Dentists with a distinction will be considered to have a first-class degree; merit is considered equivalent to a 2.i.
Postgraduate qualifications are not considered. Please note that all pending qualifications must be completed by 30th August. For current PhD students this means completion of all examination and corrections and the submission of the final thesis.
Applications
Applicants should apply online through UCAS as well as by completing the separate Graduate Course in Medicine Application Form, which can be found on the course page on the University website.
UCAS applications received without the form will be regarded as invalid.
Applicants to the graduate course are required to register for and sit the UCAT (University Clinical Aptitude Test).
Applicants meeting the academic requirements are scored on the duration and variety of their work experience, reflection, and references. Applicants are scored by at least 2 assessors in parallel to minimise bias. The top scoring 90 or so candidates are then invited to interview.
We strongly recommend obtaining some healthcare experience as a paid or volunteer worker, since we particularly value experience in a caring role. Typically, students who are made offers for this course have varied and consistent hands-on patient care experience, over a number of years. Applicants whose experience is largely based on shadowing are unlikely to be competitive. Where applicants are already qualified healthcare workers, it is essential that they have a range of experience outside of their own discipline.
The interview is in the multiple mini interview format (normally 10 stations), with each station lasting 5 minutes. The interviewers include clinicians, medical sciences experts and lay academics.
Further information on the course can be found on the Clinical School and the University of Cambridge websites.