The Student Room Group
Reply 1
I thought I'd take a little time to wish you well. I don't know how much contact you have already had with 'Stockton'. I did a couple of computer courses - short part time - so I know it a little.
It's actually in Thornaby and that's 'the part of Stockton that's south of the Tees and used to be in Yorkshire, not Durham'.
They got a new boss about a year ago I had a chat with the old one - Professor Hamilton - before he left.
In his estimation the department was set up to train GPs to work in the local area so the emphasis is on community medicine and the books in the library are about evidence based medicine and about community medicine - The Barefoot Doctor is a title that sticks in my mind, but things change and you will do rotations ain Newcastle and have the option of electives there too. So far as I know you would still have to go to Newcastle for around half of your training - the latter half.
There's a student union called The Rocket Union and it serves both colleges Snow and the other one.
I suspect that you will have more contact with Newcastle than Durham as your course unfolds.
It's a fairly quiet life out there but the train station - Thornaby not Stockton - is between the college and the union so you can get to Middlesbrough in about five minutes and Darlington or Newcastle without any trouble.
Reply 2
Now, you have probably read the prospectus but for the benefit of anybody else...
Durham university is semi collegiate. At Oxford and Cambridge students are taugh both by the university and by colleges - I'm not an expert on Oxbridge, me brother went to BNC but me I went To Cuth's in Durham.
At Durham there is no college teaching, all teaching is in departments and colleges are 'glorified' halls.
Snow is not named in honour of Jon or Peter of telly fame but in honour of the GP who removed the pump handle in the east end of London and proved the spread of disease by contaminated water supplies.
Reply 3
I 've remembered. The other college is called Stephenson in honour of George and Robert -railway engineers.
All other colleges are at Durham. I doubt you will need to visit Durham but I do hope that eventually like me you'll get to have your degree confired in Durham Castle - opposite Duham Catherdral on Place Green. University College is called Castle I think and all Durham students should get to go there for their degree ceremony but some have not over the years. Some have had their degrees presented in Stockton.
Don't ever forget that in the deep dark years we never mention Queen's campus was set up as a joint venture between The University of Durham and Teesside Polytechnic. The University of Teesside has absolutely NO links with Queen's now.
Small note long long ago Armstrong College in Newcastle became King's College Durham. In the 1960s King's College Durham became The University of Newcastle.
So you will start at Queen's Campus and move on to King's College - as was.
Reply 4
On the other hand, the local hospital to Snow/Queen's is the James Cook University Hospital in Marton Road Middlesbrough and it is currently the largest new build general hospital in Europe - both a sub regional general hospital and containing regional specialist unit - such as spinal injuries - for the whole of the North East of England and it's crawling with University of Teesside student, graduates and tutors 'cos for U of T got a big contract to train nurses and professions allied to medicine and that 'department ' of Teesside Uni is virtually a separte uni in its own right...
Reply 5
Details, mere details. And oh I forgot the same hospital traust runs the Friarage Hospital at Northalerton and that's the garrison hospital for Catterick army 'camp'.
If you've seen tham helipads on the roof of London hospitals... welll.. the helipad at James Cook is on top of a heap of clay about the size of a football pitch and four metres high and slap bang outside the doors of A & E and it can probably accomodate three or four seakings at once 'cos it designed to to the evavucation of a North Sea Oil rig.

The trust is a district general hospital for:

around 270,000 people living in Middlesbrough and the local authority area of Redcar and Cleveland;
122,000 people in an area stretching from the North Yorkshire Moors to the central Pennines, the borders of York District in the south and the borders of Darlington in the north.
Our 6,800 workforce also cover a range of highly specialist services extending to 1.5 million people in Teesside and parts of Cumbria, Durham and North Yorkshire - with leading expertise in heart disease, cancer, trauma, neurosciences, renal services, and spinal injuries.

A multi-million pound redevelopment on The James Cook University Hospital site is one of the Government's Private Finance Initiative hospitals and is the largest hospital - with a wide range of specialties on one site - of its type in Europe.

We are also nearing completion of a £21 million redevelopment at the Friarage Hospital, which hosts the Ministry of Defence Hospital Unit (MDHU).

We are building on our links with the universities of Teesside, Durham, and Newcastle, and have a purpose-built academic centre with medical students doing their clinical placements on site. The trust is committed to training, life-long learning, and research, and the academic centre will help us attract and retain the right calibre of medical staff to the area.
wow u know more than me. I'll be a second year at stockton this year. It really is a fantastic campus - and everything is so close and easy to get to.
Reply 7
Yeah well I came back because I guess I have to add that although the University Hospital of North Tees isn't a 'teaching hospital' like James Cook it is quite big...
The University Hospital of North Tees is a general hospital with 446 beds, serving 198,000 people living in North Tees (Stockton area) and parts of Sedgefield (178,000 for Stockton and 20,000 for Sedgefield).

It provides a wide range of specialties, including accident and emergency, general medicine, surgery and urology, orthopaedics, rheumatology, obstetrics and gynaecology and paediatrics. The hospital is also one of the regional centres for breast screening and neonatal intensive care.

There is also a wide range of high quality support services intensive care/high dependency unit, radiography and pathology services.

The name of the hospital was changed in May 2001 in recognition of the Trust having been awarded University Hospitals status by Newcastle University's Medical School. Prior to this it was known as North Tees General Hospital.

It became part of the newly formed North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Trust on 1 April 1999 following a merger between North Tees Health NHS Trust and Hartlepool and East Durham NHS Trust, which employs the equivalent of 4,500 staff.

The hospital first opened in 1966 and has expanded over the years.
Reply 8
Two more. I should say thatmental health care is provided by a separate NHS Trust called something like Tees Wear and Esk NHS Trust and that has a mental hospital on the Marton Road site which will be demolished by 2009 I'll check but the idea is that at present St. Luke's mixes up patients with different mental problems - like the biploars anre in with the shizophrenics and each disease will get it's own separate building over a two or three year build period.
The other is Hartlepool..... so problems over merge/not merge with North Tees...
The University Hospital of Hartlepool has 334 beds, serving 147,500 people living in Hartlepool and the southern part of East Durham. It provides a wide range of specialties, including accident and emergency, general medicine, surgery and urology, orthopaedics, rheumatology, obstetrics and gynaecology and paediatrics.


There is also a wide range of high quality support services intensive care/high dependency unit, radiography and pathology services. The hospital commissioned the first open system MRI scanner in the Northern and Yorkshire region in 1999 and has one of only two new state of the art Philips CT scanner in the UK.

It was one of the few hospitals in the region to have two dedicated day surgery theatres, with the opening of the Heortness Unit in May 1995. Both units provide very high standards of care in comfortable and relaxed surroundings designed to put patients at their ease. Day case work now accounts for 80% of all planned operations in Hartlepool.

The name of the hospital was changed in May 2001 in recognition of the Trust having been awarded University Hospitals status by Newcastle University's Medical School. Prior to this it was known as Hartlepool General Hospital.

It became part of the newly formed North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Trust on 1 April 1999 following a merger between North Tees Health NHS Trust and Hartlepool and East Durham NHS Trust, which employs the equivalent of 4,500 staff.

Originally opening as Hartlepool District General Hospital in 1972 the hospital has developed over the years. In 1987 a new paediatric wing, psychiatry wards and day hospital was built. In 1984 the hospital became part of an NHS Trust, Hartlepool and Peterlee Hospitals NHS Trust and in 1996 merged with the Hartlepool Community Care NHS Trust to become Hartlepool and East Durham NHS Trust. In the same year a new main entrance and concourse was opened at the hospital. In 1997 the Accident and Emergency Department was refurbished to provide better facilities including a dedicated children's area and a new mortuary, post-mortem facility and chapel of rest also opened that year.