1. What makes the University of Sheffield School of Medicine and Population Health unique?
+A: It combines a 190-year medical teaching history with a compact, single-city, patient-focused MBChB.
At present, Sheffield's Medicine programme has become a part of School of Medicine and Population Health within the wider Faculty of Health. The older University brochures may refer to School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, but the actual Medicine course has not been affected by the restructuring.
The University of Sheffield is among the institutions in the UK with truly historic medical schools. Teaching of medicine has started in 1828 with the private anatomy school of Hall Overend which then became Sheffield Medical Institution in 1829. It then combined with Firth College and Sheffield Technical School to form the University of Sheffield in 1905. Its research achievements include Edward Mellanby's contribution to preventing rickets and the development of Krebs cycle by Hans Krebs at Sheffield who was then awarded the Nobel Prize.
The structure of the MBChB course in Sheffield includes four stages instead of simple five academic years. In Year 1, the focus lies on various body systems including cardiovascular, respiratory and gastrointestinal medicine. Also, the students engage in Community Attachment Scheme and Patients as Educators program involving repeated visits to patient families. In Year 2, there is a six-week research attachment followed by the move towards growing clinical practice via general practice and community placements.
The Years 3-5 become highly clinical, featuring both hospital and community placements together with an elective and the fourth year student assistantship. At this stage, the students shadow a Foundation Year 1 doctor and thus see firsthand what the postgraduate doctors have to do. One of the unique features of teaching here lies in anatomy. Since 2020, Sheffield no longer performs complete dissection and uses prosections, plastinated specimens and medical imaging instead.
The competition for international admission to Medicine in Sheffield is exceptionally fierce. There are only around 18 international places offered on the A100 Medicine programme compared to 273 home places available. This means that the international applicants compete for a very small number of spots rather than enter a large overseas recruitment programme.
One of the advantages of Medicine at Sheffield is the provision of the fixed-fee guarantee for the international students. Thus, the tuition fee quoted at the entry stage remains applicable to the entire five-year duration of the degree rather than being increased each year.
However, Medicine and Dentistry programmes are excluded from the standard international tuition scholarships provided by the University of Sheffield. It means that the international applicants should not expect that the Medicine tuition discount, which is typically quoted for other international applicants, will apply to the Medicine course. The initial tuition figure becomes especially relevant when considering its cost.
The clinical education is provided through Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. Key sites include the Royal Hallamshire Hospital, which is situated next to the Medical School, and the Northern General Hospital, which is a major trauma centre. The students may also receive their placement in a number of hospitals and other healthcare facilities in Rotherham, Doncaster, Barnsley and Chesterfield.
Differently from a number of other recent UK medical schools, Sheffield does not require the relocation to another city in the middle of the programme. Most teaching, clinical placements and student activities remain based in Sheffield, allowing the student to enjoy relatively stable five-year experience.
Finally, Sheffield becomes another advantage. Sheffield is substantially cheaper than London and even cheaper than several other large UK student cities. The university accommodation in Sheffield may cost below £100 per week, partially compensating for the high international tuition fee. Together with the fixed-fee guarantee, it makes the total five-year commitment predictable.
For an Indian student, Sheffield can be considered a university with a good historical reputation, strong NHS clinical placement, good research opportunities and relatively stable five-year location. The disadvantages of Sheffield for Medicine include its extremely small intake of the international students, high tuition fee and the absence of the standard international tuition scholarships for Medicine.
