The Student Room Group

Oxbridge vs other UK medical schools

Scroll to see replies

Original post by ThVVolf
Lets put it this way: I don't see any Keele graduates starting venture-backed health tech companies and becoming multi-millionaires in the process. I've seen 3 from Oxbridge in one year though.

I always find it kinda sad that a lot of people applying to Oxbridge, desperately want to get in and then when they don't, they pretend that 'all medical schools are exactly the same'. Erm, then why did you want to get into Oxbridge?

Although, that said, I don't think it makes a lot of difference if you want to be a GP in Inverness or a psychiatrist, anywhere really lol


People got to medical school to become doctors not tech multi-millionaires. The fact that you've seen 3 people from Oxbridge go down that route probably says more about their egos than how 'good' a doctor they are.

With regards to the whole Oxbridge makes you somehow better (especially for research) because of the academic rigour of their medical course is a bit bs. I've got a few people in my year who transferred from oxbridge for clinical years and they're no better or worse. (The Cambridge ones had done a **** ton of anatomy but that's hardly a useful thing to know for going into research).
Tangible differences:
- Different teaching styles
- Different atmosphere/$$ that's flowing around at Oxbridge for various things
- Arguably being taught by better/more famous staff (in theory) for possibly some of the subjects, particularly in pre-clinical, basic sciences years than say a smaller, less well-known institutions (i.e. compared to some of the newer medical schools)

- Not particular to Oxbridge per se, but certain places have different rules for intercalation/degrees (i.e. Nottingham has an additional degree integrated -> fewer points, UEA only does Masters intercalation AFAIK)

- Better connections for non-medical stuffs. Considering the wealth/social disparity at Oxbridge, you would be far more likely to meet more (future) bankers, politicians and aristocrats there than at say, at HYMS. Connections are what you make of them.

- Partner universities for electives. General rule of thumb: similarly ranked unis have partnerships with each other. Useful to note if you want to go to Harvard or something for your elective I suppose (disclaimer: no idea which ones are partnered, but that's usually the case)

- Placement locations - though this is pot-luck + not terribly relevant for undergrad, but among the more "rural" towns, Oxbridge has more specialised tertiary hospitals where you may see interesting things. That being said, King's is meant to be a great liver centre, but I couldn't care any less about the complex things here. It's pointless at undergraduate level.

Non-tangible, more debatable points:
- Better outcomes? Yes, but also no. Better pass rates, but even then, it's not a great difference per se. Furthermore, the way recruitment works at the moment is by looking at outcomes by university cohorts (for foundation & the distinction bits in further training). Hence even if a guy in the bottom 20 at Oxbridge is an absolute genius compared to the 1'st place student in King's, the guy at King's would get more points. That being said, if the UK ends up going like the US (and a lot of other countries with national exams), it'd definitely be interesting to see objectively which medical schools are better, at least for exams.

- Smarter docs? Meh. Even at the moment, the Medical Schools Council has its members use common questions in finals. So the paper sat at any institution across the UK has common questions.

- Academic prospects? Meh. Unless you go abroad, at which point, it may be of benefit perhaps.

tl;dr
Does it matter if you're gonna become a doctor? No, except for some very fine points
Does it matter if you're not gonna be a doctor? Probably to an extent. But that begs the question: why go to med school. Go get a PPE degree...


NOTE: used random med schools to serve as examples. Please do not read anything into it. Nor reply saying HYMS is great you @!#%/ or UEA is better than Manchester etc. I'm sure they're all great.
(edited 6 years ago)
Original post by hslakaal
- Arguably being taught by better/more famous staff (in theory) for possibly some of the subjects, particularly in pre-clinical, basic sciences years than say a smaller, less well-known institutions (i.e. compared to some of the newer medical schools)

I think the bigger difference is that you get more very senior people doing the routine, small group teaching. Anecdotally, its more middle-grade docs and PhD students who do the bulk of teaching at some other institutions.

Hard to quantify and know for certain.

- Partner universities for electives. General rule of thumb: similarly ranked unis have partnerships with each other. Useful to note if you want to go to Harvard or something for your elective I suppose (disclaimer: no idea which ones are partnered, but that's usually the case)


I don't know much about this either. What i do know (i guess more in line with my interests) is that for many years Oxford medical students were pretty much the only people worldwide allowed into Bhutan without significant access restrictions, a result of an elective exchange program! That still runs, although Bhutan is kind of opening up now.

More generally, elective funding opportunities seem to be more available and the med school seems somewhat less restrictive in terms of destinations.

- Placement locations - though this is pot-luck + not terribly relevant for undergrad, but among the more "rural" towns, Oxbridge has more specialised tertiary hospitals where you may see interesting things. That being said, King's is meant to be a great liver centre, but I couldn't care any less about the complex things here. It's pointless at undergraduate level.


Yeah not sure how much difference that makes.

I thought you were going to touch on the fact that Oxbridge seems to send people to DGHs less than elsewhere. Again, anecdotal and hard to know for sure. Also probably no longer true of Cambridge given they recently doubled the medical school's size.

That being said, if the UK ends up going like the US (and a lot of other countries with national exams),


It definitely is doing just that. From 2022 (so current cohort will be studying for it).

...it'd definitely be interesting to see objectively which medical schools are better, at least for exams.


Pretty sure we already know. No reason to think it will be any different to postgrad exams taken just a couple years later!
Original post by Someone123123
However, one could argue that the medical school you study at indirectly affects your future in medicine. See links above posted by others about how studying at certain medical schools is likely to improve your chances at postgraduate exams for example.


Perhaps this may be an indication of the kind of people that Oxbridge tend to select rather than the results being credited to their teaching style? Successful medical applicants at Oxbridge, in general, tend to have higher grades on average than other medical school offer-holders. If there's already an academic distinction between these students before medical school, surely this gap will widen, or at the very least remain constant, through and at the end of medical school, leading to the results you have mentioned?
Original post by Stanspam
Perhaps this may be an indication of the kind of people that Oxbridge tend to select rather than the results being credited to their teaching style? Successful medical applicants at Oxbridge, in general, tend to have higher grades on average than other medical school offer-holders. If there's already an academic distinction between these students before medical school, surely this gap will widen, or at the very least remain constant, through and at the end of medical school, leading to the results you have mentioned?


Yep, definitely also a possibility. Perhaps it's a mixture of the two.

Quick Reply

Related discussions

Latest

Trending

Trending

Articles for you