Help!! UoN or QUB for Medicine as an International.

Received offers from University of Nottingham and Queen's Belfast University to study Medicine. May I hear your thoughts regarding which one I should go for please?

(edited 1 month ago)

Reply 1

artful_lounger

Universities Forum Helper

Well, living in Northern Ireland is probably a bit different to living in England so that would I imagine be a major deciding factor! Have you had a chance to visit both/either?

Bear in mind that as far as continuing to work as a doctor in the UK, all medical schools are considered equal and the NHS (the only provider of graduate medical training posts) prevents those recruiting in specialty recruitment from seeing your medical school to ensure no bias. So neither is better on any general front in that sense.

And so it is likely to be the practicalities of where you would rather live, if one has a specific approach to teaching the course that you prefer compared to the other (e.g. problem based learning, case based learning, prosection or dissection etc). Plus e.g. living costs, facilities/societies at each uni (e.g. if you absolutely need to go to a uni with an olympic diving pool one may have that and the other may not!), etc.

Reply 2

Lightpost.

Thank you for your response! No, I never been to the UK.

Yes, I am aware that the GMC regulates all medical schools with high standards and you cannot go wrong with any for a Medical degree.

I did some research already on the Universities and found that both offer integrated courses, cadavic dissection, many societies and excellent facilities. Northern Ireland indeed has more affordable living costs than Nottingham but that is not a deal breaker for me.

I understand that at the end of the day, university is what you make it to be and both are great options. That being said, I still have to make a decision 😅 so I am trying to consider unique selling points of each.

In terms of student satisfaction, QUB is ranked much higher than UoN. However, I still understand that that is very subjective and also heard UoN is improving in recent years. I am slightly worried about some bad things I read online but then again I cannot think too much about it as it may be just down to individual experience.

Still, I have to make a decision. So, I am trying to gather as many opinions as I can in order to make an informed decision!

Reply 3

noseagullspls

Hey I’m an international first year med student in qub. I think a thing to consider is that our skl only have summative assessments in May, so basically it’s more chill in first year but it may also be a downside if you procrastinate too much.