University of Buckingham opens the UK’s first independent medical school

The country’s first independent medical school is being launched at Buckingham and its central focus will be on teaching medical students to deliver the highest level of care to patients.

The first phase of the four-and-a-half year MB ChB course will start in Buckingham and will offer a mix of clinical and biomedical science teaching over two years. The second, clinical, phase will be centred at Milton Keynes Hospital NHS Foundation Trust over the remaining two and a half years.

The University will work with other national partners – the first collaboration for psychiatric education and clinical placements will be with the UK’s leading mental health charity providing specialist NHS care, St Andrew’s, Northampton.

The MB ChB is designed to appeal to a global market as, unlike other UK medical schools, its international student numbers will not be capped. However, the current intake, 70 students, is almost 60% home students and 40% overseas.

Narrative Medicine, where students learn first hand the issues faced by patients with chronic illnesses, is one of the features of the course.

Professor John Clapham, Chief Operating Officer at The University of Buckingham Medical School, said: “The ethos at Buckingham has always been to put the student first and at the Medical School we will add to this by making the patient the central focus. Small group sessions and one of the smallest medical school courses in the country mean that Buckingham students will get all the help and expertise they need to become first class doctors.”