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How is Medicine at Oxford each year?

As it is a 6 year degree, and from what I have heard, the first 3 are non clinical while the latter years are mostly clinical, are there any years any Oxford students for Medicine particularly enjoy more than the others?

(I'm basically trying to get a bit more detail on how each year is in Medicine at Oxford as I have seen brief descriptions of them online but I really want to hear it from a current or used to be student as I think it would be less bias, haha :smile:

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Reply 1

alleycat393

Original post by XxxvatxxX

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You may want to have a look through the medicine forum and particularly this thread.

Reply 2

nexttime

Original post by XxxvatxxX

1st year is hard as although the work is not actually too bad you are just getting into the swing of things and learning to work independently without someone always watching over you. You are also just learning to live independently and (slowly) learning how to be and adult! It can be a bit overwhelming for some, but you are well supported.

2nd year is probably the hardest year as you are cramming a year's worth of content into 2 terms, in order to make way for 4 terms of intercalation.

3rd year (plus end of 2nd year) is intercalation and is much lower contact time. Hence, it is easier to do less work and is generally viewed as an easy year if you want it to be.

4th year is great as its your first clinical year and finally what you signed up for as a med student. Exam pressure is also much lower than any previous year

5th year you get a set of exams every 8 weeks for 48 weeks, although that's probably not actually as bad as it sounds as you just get numb to it after a while.

6th year is split in half - first half is preparing for finals which can be quite stressful (even though actual pass rates are ~99%, higher than all 5th year exams!). Second half is fantastic - a stress free no-requirements elective for 11 weeks, some optional placements based on your intersts with the aim being to find out about areas of interest and build CV a bit, and some preparing for placement rotations.

... as I think it would be less bias, haha :smile:

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Students can still be biased :wink:

Reply 3

XxxvatxxX

Original post by nexttime

Wow! Thanks so much for all this insight! So does that mean you have no clinical experience at all in the first 3 years? Also for the exams in the 6th year, where the rate of a pass is 99 percent, is the the proper finals that all med schools do or an Oxford one?

Haha, yes students can be biased too, just give a much more honest insight into how Oxford truly is :smile:

(so thanks again!)

Reply 4

nexttime

Original post by XxxvatxxX

Wow! Thanks so much for all this insight! So does that mean you have no clinical experience at all in the first 3 years?

You do 5 afternoons across the first 2 years. It is very much token to please the GMC.

However, it is of note that from what i hear on TSR, that is also true of even the 'early clinical contact' med schools. Whilst applicants think that means being on the wards 5 days per week, it actually more commonly means an afternoon per fortnight, an afternoon per week at most. So differences are smaller than some think.

Also for the exams in the 6th year, where the rate of a pass is 99 percent, is the the proper finals that all med schools do or an Oxford one?

Currently it is the Oxford finals which is the only final exam you do.

By the time you qualify it will be a newly introduced national finals exam, starting in 2022.

There is no reason to think the pass rate will be lower though. By the time you reach that far you've had so many resources invested in you that failing is a disaster for the med school as well as you. Not to mention Oxford's graduates doing significantly better than other med schools in every post-graduation exam probably being a good predictive factor for doing better in that too :wink: