The curriculum at the University of Birmingham Medical School incorporates a range of learning opportunities, including:
You can find example timetables showing what a typical week of learning at Birmingham Medical School looks like here.
Birmingham offers community based medicine placements as early as week two in your first year and these continue throughout your course. Full-time clinical placements begin in year 3, but prior to this you'll complete a hospital orientation day in year 1 and a two-day hospital placement in year 2.
The following is a breakdown of the clinical placements you'll experience at Birmingham Medical School:
You can find more information here.
Within its teaching of anatomy, Birmingham offers experience of prosection as part of its small group teaching. You will also have opportunities to explore human anatomy on a “large touch-screen under the guidance of anatomy tutors and demonstrators”.
Currently, Birmingham Medical School has clinical placement arrangements with the following:
Gain access to a recording of our free webinar and find out what a day in the life of medical student Helen looks like. There's also videos covering all aspects of medical school applications and the UCAT.
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Within your fourth year, you’ll have the opportunity to complete a month long elective placement, undertaking clinical research of your choice, either at Birmingham Medical School or another centre in the UK or abroad.
The curriculum at Birmingham Medical School also provides the opportunity to explore topics of your choice through Student Selected Components (SSCs).
Outside of the curriculum, Birmingham Medical School has a large MedSoc with over seventy societies, sports teams and charities.
With its diverse population and partnerships with GP surgeries in a mixture of “inner city, suburban and some rural settings”, Birmingham Medical School boasts “maximum exposure to a range of patients and conditions”.
The University of Birmingham Medical School uses the Multiple Mini Interview (MMI) format for its interviews.
For 2024 entry, ‘home applicants’ will attend face-to-face interviews. These MMIs will comprise of six or seven eight-minute stations (each including 2 minutes of reading time), with a mixture of interviews, role play and calculation tasks. These stations are likely to include a combination of the following:
Interviews took place in January and February 2024. You can find more information about the interview process, including details of the online interview for ‘international applicants’, on Birmingham Medical School’s website here.
Most medical schools require you to pass an admissions exam before you’ll be invited for interview.
Admissions exam for Birmingham: University Clinical Aptitude Test (UCAT)
The UCAT aims to assess the characteristics, attitudes and professional behaviours required for medical school. The exam includes 5 subtests: Abstract Reasoning, Decision Making, Quantitative Reasoning, Situational Judgement (SJT) and Verbal Reasoning.
Your score for the UCAT is combined with your GCSE results and any contextual score (if relevant) to determine if you’ll be invited to interview. Places to study at Birmingham are offered based on interview performance and SJT scores only. Therefore, performing well in the UCAT is crucial for your Birmingham Medical School application.
To help you to prepare effectively for all sections of the UCAT, we’ve developed the free Medibuddy UCAT question bank, which uses artificial intelligence to carefully select questions based on your strengths and weaknesses. This means that you’ll be focusing on the areas of the syllabus which you need to improve, rather than aimlessly answering random UCAT questions.
The question bank dashboard (below) also makes it easy to see how you’re performing in each section. For example, for SJT (which is used to determine if you’ll secure a place at Birmingham) you can see your calculated skill level, the total number of questions you’ve answered and the number answered correctly, as well as your response time. This allows you to see at a glance whether you’ve “mastered” the section or need to dedicate more time to it.
You’ll find guidance on how to prepare for the UCAT and more information on the exam on our website.
