Medicine BMBS

Programme structure

The modules we outline here provide examples of what you can expect to learn on this degree course based on recent academic teaching. The precise modules available to you in future years may vary depending on staff availability and research interests, new topics of study, timetabling and student demand.

Throughout your degree programme you will study in a variety of clinical locations across the South West: in hospitals, general practice and the wider health community.

The core curriculum delivers the essential knowledge and skills for your role as a newly qualified doctor, whilst allowing you a degree of freedom in choosing a wide range of Student Selected Special Study Units that amount to approximately one-third of the programme. Exposure to the clinical environment begins in your first week and hands-on community experience increases throughout the degree. The programme integrates medical science and clinical skills so that your academic learning is applied to clinical practice throughout the five years.

Years 1 and 2 For your first two years you will be based at the St Luke’s Campus, Exeter, and you will experience university life to the full. The curriculum in the first two years is based on the human life-cycle, with emphasis on acquiring core knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviours, and relating this to patients.

Years 3 and 4 The third and fourth years of the programme are delivered in locations across the South West. You will rotate through a series of hospital and community placements in six pathways of care, which provide extensive experience of a wide range of clinical settings.  Your learning is centred on patients and will continue to develop your problem solving skills and increase your experience with the widest possible array of clinical scenarios.

Year 5 In your fifth year, you will learn the job of medicine and start to develop your understanding of principles of practice in the NHS. You’ll undertake a series of apprenticeship attachments in hospitals across the South West. At this stage you will have developed the personal and learning skills required to analyse and evaluate patients’ conditions and to suggest forms of clinical management. You’ll also take a Student-Selected Elective which may involve clinical or research placements, or a combination of both. Many students take this opportunity to see the practice of medicine in another part of the world.

Foundation Year At the end of the undergraduate programme you will receive your BMBS degree, which is a primary medical qualification (PMQ). This entitles you to provisional registration with the General Medical Council. Provisionally registered doctors can only practise in approved Foundation Year 1 posts: the law does not allow provisionally registered doctors to undertake any other type of work. To obtain a Foundation Year 1 post you will need to apply during the final year of your undergraduate degree through the UK Foundation Programme Office selection scheme, which allocates these posts to graduates on a competitive basis.

Intercalated Degree You may wish to interrupt your studies for 12 months to undertake an intercalated programme of study between years four and five. This is where you would undertake 120 credits of another degree programme (usually the final year of an undergraduate degree or a postgraduate qualification). It is up to you whether you study something which is related to medicine or not; the direction in which you choose is up to you.

Year 1

The first year of the programme is based on the human life-cycle, with emphasis on acquiring core knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviours, and relating this to patients.

You will be based at the St Luke's Campus in Exeter.

Compulsory modules CodeModuleCredits MDC1000BMBS Year One 120 Year 2

Year two builds further on the knowledge you learn in year one related to the human life-cycle.

You will be based at the St Luke's Campus in Exeter.

Compulsory modules CodeModuleCredits MDC2000BMBS Year Two 120 Year 3

The third and fourth years of the programme are delivered in locations across the South West. You will rotate through a series of hospital and community placements in six pathways of care, which provide extensive experience of a wide range of clinical settings.  Your learning is centred on patients and will continue to develop your problem solving skills and increase your experience with the widest possible array of clinical scenarios.

Compulsory modules CodeModuleCredits MDC3000BMBS Year Three 120 Year 4

The third and fourth years of the programme are delivered in locations across the South West. You will rotate through a series of hospital and community placements in six pathways of care, which provide extensive experience of a wide range of clinical settings.  Your learning is centred on patients and will continue to develop your problem solving skills and increase your experience with the widest possible array of clinical scenarios.

Compulsory modules CodeModuleCredits MDC4000BMBS Year Four 120 Year 5

In your fifth year, you will learn the job of medicine and start to develop your understanding of principles of practice in the NHS. You’ll undertake a series of apprenticeship attachments in hospitals across the South West. At this stage you will have developed the personal and learning skills required to analyse and evaluate patients’ conditions and to suggest forms of clinical management. You’ll also take a Student-Selected Elective which may involve clinical or research placements, or a combination of both. Many students take this opportunity to see the practice of medicine in another part of the world.

Compulsory modules CodeModuleCredits MDC5000BMBS Year Five 120

The BMBS course structure allows students to develop a biomedical science, anatomy and physiology foundation in Years 1 and 2, which prepares us for clinical medicine in later years, with a good understanding of how the human body should work.

Praveena Deekonda, Year 1 BMBS, St Luke’s Campus.