Warwick medical school

Thank you.

What is parking like at the medical school?

Where do most placements tend to be? Coventry??

Parking for students on the med school campus during normal working hours is normally not possible (unless you have a blue badge etc).

Parking for students on the med school campus during normal working hours is normally not possible (unless you have a blue badge etc).

Hospital placements are based at UHCW, George Eliot Hospital, Warwick Hospital, St Cross Hospital in Rugby, and Alexandra Hospital in Redditch.

Community placements (GP etc) are generally in Coventry or Warwickshire, but may also be in outer Birmingham, Worcestershire, or Northamptonshire.

Having access to a car is advisable.

With regards to placements - are you allocated to one trust/area for the duration of the degree or would someone for example have one placement in Nuneaton and the next in Coventry and the following in Redditch?

They rotate you around the different trusts.

Thank you for your response. That must be really hard trying to plan where to live etc. Do they give you allocations fairly far in advance? If you have children who are in school etc would they take that into consideration when allocating placements?

Rotations are a feature of all medical degrees. Warwick's aren't even too far out, compared with some other medical schools. In general, most placements aren't more than 45 minutes drive away - even in traffic. If you live in Leamington and have a placement at Warwick Hospital, that's literally a ten minute drive or a four minute train journey. Redditch is the furthest hospital placement, but it's not somewhere you'd be sent frequently - many students manage to avoid it altogether. If you live in Coventry or Leamington and have a car, you're pretty well placed for wherever they decide to send you.

From what I recall, allocations came out a few weeks in advance via the online portal. I don't have any personal experience of trying to manage placements with kids, but certainly there were students in my cohort who had children, so I think some sort of compromise can be achieved

Thank you that’s so helpful! When you get allocated do you know where you will be for every rotation (years2-4) or do they allocate them to you each year? Also can I ask roughly how much holiday there is each year?

You'll be lucky

You get told about each placement a few weeks before starting. You don't have your placement locations assigned a year (or more) in advance.

The only placement which is clearly defined in advance is A&E, which is four weeks at UHCW and two weeks in Warwick Hospital.

NB: I am a WMS graduate. Things may have changed in the few years since I was a student, so I think a current student may be better placed to answer your questions about holidays etc. For what it's worth, in my first year we had two weeks at Christmas, two weeks at Easter, and ten weeks over the summer. Then from years 2-4 it was two weeks off for Christmas and summer.

That’s good to know - thank you! Would you recommend Warwick Medical School to others? And what would you say they did well/not so well?

Yes for sure I enjoyed my time there and I found the course to be well designed and well taught.

The course format and structure was completely overhauled for the cohort that followed mine however, so I was in the last year group to experience the traditional old style course. I think one of the current students can give you a better idea of the pros and cons of the current course.

I found the consultants who were involved in clinical teaching (particularly the ones at George Eliot and the GP tutors) to be really excellent and very enthusiastic.

Overall I wouldn't say I had any major complaints about the course. There were the usual grumbles about distant placements, not enough parking permits for students, some placements being less structured than others, not enough exam feedback or opaque marking, etc but I think med students all over the country share these frustrations. I think the medical school was generally open to listening and changes were made based on student feedback.

I lived on campus, in Leamington and also Coventry during my time there, so I had the full experience. It's a nice part of the country to live in - there are big cities close by and also very rural areas if you want to go somewhere green. The campus itself is very pleasant and peaceful. Rent and cost of living isn't expensive and there are good transport links. So yes, I would definitely recommend.

Yes for sure I enjoyed my time there and I found the course to be well designed and well taught.

The course format and structure was completely overhauled for the cohort that followed mine however, so I was in the last year group to experience the traditional old style course. I think one of the current students can give you a better idea of the pros and cons of the current course.

I found the consultants who were involved in clinical teaching (particularly the ones at George Eliot and the GP tutors) to be really excellent and very enthusiastic.

Overall I wouldn't say I had any major complaints about the course. There were the usual grumbles about distant placements, not enough parking permits for students, some placements being less structured than others, not enough exam feedback or opaque marking, etc but I think med students all over the country share these frustrations. I think the medical school was generally open to listening and changes were made based on student feedback.

I lived on campus, in Leamington and also Coventry during my time there, so I had the full experience. It's a nice part of the country to live in - there are big cities close by and also very rural areas if you want to go somewhere green. The campus itself is very pleasant and peaceful. Rent and cost of living isn't expensive and there are good transport links. So yes, I would definitely recommend.

Thank you for all your help, it’s really appreciated

Procrastinating instead of finals revision (Monday!!) so I'll weigh in
Pretty much still the same - organisation (at least for our year, I believe it has been improved) is/was the major flaw with the course but it's something you get used to! The hospitals are all very accommodating to students and I can count on one hand the number of negative experiences I've had with clinicians. For the most part it's great.

Definitely get a car if you have that option - I did it without and George Eliot and Warwick (if not living in Leamington) are a ballache to get to otherwise - especially for surgical block where you're there for 8am at the latest.

The overarching structure now is pretty much 1 year of preclinical (with elements of introductions to clinical practice, eg one afternoon a week in hospital seeing patients). Year 2 is then the bulk of clinical medicine - you get much better at learning the way to take good histories and do good examinations and suggest relevant investigations. Year 3 is about focusing on management. Year 4 is a bit of a misnomer - it's a continuation of year 3 but you start worrying more about finals!

Overall all med schools have their pros and cons but I'd definitely say Warwick is a good school if you're self-motivated to make it work! You won't be spoon fed much.

What proportion of medics stay in halls in first year? And do most of them go to Tocil?