MBBS in University of Nottingham School of Medicine

UK medical schools rankings tend to reward age, so Nottingham comes as a surprise because this is the first medical school opened in England in the twentieth century. The idea of establishing Nottingham Medical School was officially announced in Parliament by the Minister of Health on 27 July 1964, and this decision was taken because of the real lack of doctors in the East Midlands after the war. Nottingham first batch of students started their learning process in October 1970 being 48 persons, with only six professors as founders. The learning process at the very beginning of the school took place in what the university archive shamelessly describes as 'cowsheds and a caravan' located behind the Portland Building on University Park.

From this improvised start came a discovery that is more than could be expected from a young medical school. Peter Mansfield, who was working in Physics department alongside with Nottingham Medical School since early 1970s, invented the technology of magnetic resonance imaging which earned him a part of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2003. Currently MRI is one of the standard diagnosis tools which all Nottingham medical students should learn to interpret. Since then Nottingham Medical School grew slowly but steadily: the intake was increased from 48 in 1970 up to about 330 today, including a satellite group of graduate entry medical students, who study at another campus in Derby established in 2003. This way Nottingham got two teaching facilities in East Midlands instead of one crowded one.

The five-year BMBS programme (UCAS code A100) was recently redesigned. It is unusual for the medical school but Nottingham says that the programme was designed by collaboration with current students, teaching faculty and practising doctors, not imposed from above. The course is organized according to the spiral model based on three stages called 'Art of Medicine', 'Science of Medicine' and 'Practice of Medicine': Year 1 is dedicated to the development of consultation skills and basic knowledge about clinical medicine; in Year 2 students get deeper into the science and get additional one-day a week of placement in general practice; Years 3 to 5 shift the focus towards practical studies.

All students automatically receive an integrated Bachelor of Medical Sciences during this five-year period, and Nottingham doesn't provide an additional intercalation year because BSc-level studies are included into five years of studying rather than added to them.

Clinical placements take place in Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, including Queen's Medical Centre, which is one of the biggest and busiest hospitals in the UK, Royal Derby Hospital, King's Mill Hospital, Chesterfield Royal Hospital and general practices in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. During Year 3, the students are placed for three ten-week placements in Medicine, Surgery and Integrated Specialties; in Year 4 they get four more placement blocks in different hospital specialties and in general practice; Year 5 provides placements in medicine, surgery, perioperative medicine and general practice in three six-week blocks followed by Assistantship block which involves working alongside with resident doctors.

The first question that arises is why anyone would prefer such a young medical school as Nottingham to Oxbridge or any of English Victorian medical schools, even taking into account the relatively high international fee (£47,000 a year). The reason lies in the fact that Nottingham Medical School was designed exactly for this: rather than designing a curriculum based on departmental boundaries, the school could create a system-based programme from the very beginning. Another point of interest is the ranking evidence that Nottingham has really fulfilled its founding ambition – Nottingham is ranked in the top 15 among the UK universities and in the top 100 in the world (QS World University Rankings by Subject 2026) in Medicine, and the ranking position of the school without an ancient history has been achieved purely because of the programme quality and research output.

Nevertheless, the cost of five years of studying in England cannot be erased. Nottingham itself is one of the most affordable UK university cities, it is clearly cheaper than London and noticeably cheaper than Leeds or Bristol on rental and living expenses, so that takes the edge off the figure of tuition fees which is going to become the sum of hundreds of thousands of pounds. So, the deal Nottingham offers to a family is a curriculum designed around teaching hospitals rather than the history of the institution in one of the cheapest university cities in the UK.