MB ChB - Year One

Year One will be delivered primarily through university-based teaching, complemented by integrated clinical exposure across a range of settings. Your learning will be organised into five five-week blocks. Using a case-based learning approach, you will bring together scientific and medical knowledge to explore and solve clinical problems, working collaboratively with your peers in small learning groups. This flexible approach encourages active participation and helps you develop confidence and personal responsibility in your learning.

You will remain in the same learning group throughout your first year, allowing strong peer relationships to develop. The example Year One timetable shows that alongside scheduled teaching you are expected to dedicate time to independent study, an essential part of preparing for the demands of professional practice.

You will benefit from cutting-edge anatomy teaching using plastinated specimens, alongside a range of innovative learning approaches. From an early stage, you will learn how to take patient histories and perform physical examinations, developing essential clinical skills through hands-on teaching at our campus facilities and supervised bedside learning within our NHS Partnership Trusts.

We believe gaining exposure to lived experience, hearing directly from patients and carers about what it is like to live with illness adds a vital dimension to clinical learning. During each block you will be introduced to our patient of the week where you will gain first-hand insight from people with a medical condition or disability. You will also meet patients in community settings, helping you understand healthcare from the patient’s perspective.

These themes are interwoven into the curriculum, allowing you to progressively build your knowledge, skills and experience as you move through the programme.