| Program start date | Application deadline |
| 2025-09-01 | - |
Program Overview
The MBBCh Medicine program at Cardiff University is a five-year, innovative spiral curriculum that prepares students for a rewarding career as a foundation doctor in the NHS. The program emphasizes clinical skills, professional attitudes, and a deep understanding of both people and the environment they live in. Students benefit from world-renowned researchers and clinicians, a broad spectrum of clinical exposure, and outstanding teaching facilities.
Program Outline
Medicine (MBBCh)
Degree Overview
Overview:
This MBBCh degree, also known as 'C21', is designed to prepare you for a rewarding working life as a foundation doctor in the NHS and beyond. Spanning five years, C21 utilizes an innovative spiral curriculum to steadily build upon your knowledge, clinical skills, and professional attitudes. This integrated approach ensures continuous development, with the overall aim of producing well-rounded individuals who deeply understand both people and the environment they live in. This is achieved through classroom sessions, practical classes, lectures, and utilization of the virtual learning environment. As you move forward, the curriculum emphasizes applying knowledge in the clinical environment, spanning both hospital and community settings. C21 recognizes the significance of learning science within a clinical context and underscores the central role patients play within a doctor's work. As a central tenet, you'll be introduced to real patients from the first year onwards. You will encounter common medical conditions through the experiences of real patients and their attending doctors, all within realistic and impeccably equipped facilities. The program progressively emphasizes acquiring and perfecting clinical skills. You will hone these skills initially in a simulated setting before transitioning to extended clinical placements, with steadily increasing responsibility as you move through various hospital and community locations throughout Wales. Throughout your journey through the program, you are expected to embody the professional attributes of a doctor in training. By graduation, you will have demonstrated that your primary focus is the well-being of your patients. Through full engagement, you will develop the ability to apply knowledge and skills competently and ethically while exercising leadership, adeptly analyzing complex and uncertain scenarios. Ultimately, you will achieve all learning outcomes and clinical competencies set by the General Medical Council, outlined within 'Outcomes for Graduates'.
Distinctive features:
- Innovative spiral curriculum: This curriculum is grounded on evidence gathered globally, ensuring a unique and comprehensive learning approach.
- Teaching from world-renowned researchers and clinicians: Benefit from instruction and guidance by esteemed professionals at the forefront of their fields.
- Entire Wales as your classroom: Experience a broad spectrum of clinical exposure, ranging from small, rural GP practices and community hospitals, to fast-paced urban A&E departments and complex surgical specialties.
- Smooth transition into your first doctor role: The program is meticulously designed to prepare you for the challenges and demands of your first year as a doctor.
- Outstanding teaching facilities: You will benefit from a modern and well-equipped learning environment.
- Option for intercalating: Take a one-year break to complete a medically related BSc in a subject that piques your interest.
Outline
Course Structure:
Your C21 program is divided into three distinct phases.
Phase 1 (Years 1 and 2):
This phase lays the groundwork for your clinical practice and scientific knowledge. Year 1 concentrates on building essential skills and knowledge expected of a doctor, incorporating the basics of anatomy, biochemistry, physiology, cell and molecular biology, immunology, microbiology, and pathology. Additionally, you will develop core communication, clinical skills, and professionalism required for success as a doctor. The remainder of Year 1 revolves around engaging clinical scenarios linking the fundamental sciences with common clinical conditions, such as musculoskeletal injuries, heart disease, diabetes, and gastrointestinal problems. This interactive approach equips you to tackle medical problems from the ground-up and refine scientific reasoning skills. Small group sessions are complemented by lectures, seminars, access to life science and clinical skills resources. Each week, you will spend a day engaging with patients in local hospitals, general practices, and other community-based services throughout the south-east region of Wales. This early clinical exposure affords opportunities for patient interactions, aligning with your ongoing Case Based Learning. Year 1 concludes with an introduction to research, preparing you to conduct and critically analyze research papers, a valuable skill critical to ongoing medical study and practice. Year 2 continues the Case Based Learning format, delving deeper into 11 diverse clinical scenarios. This year's key scientific highlights include:
- Community-Based Learning: Reinforcing the importance of engaging patients within their own communities, you will participate in the Community Clinical Learning program. Each placement will involve task-oriented learning, allowing you to curate a rich portfolio showcasing clinical learning experiences. This will serve as a vital link between "real people," the cases you are studying, and long-term goals like professional attitudes, understanding health service delivery, and leadership skills.
- The Student Selected Components (SSC) Programme:
- C21 Conference: Dive into a range of themes concerning medical school experiences and medical ethics.
- Year 5 C21 Conference: Interact with older peers as they embark upon internship experiences and share their insights. Participate in poster presentations based on first SSC experience projects, receiving valuable feedback from academics.
Phase 2 (Years 3 and 4):
This phase marks a shift towards increased clinical exposure, deepening your understanding and application of critical medical principles and diagnostic reasoning. Year 3: This year delves deeper into integrated clinical care, focusing on clinical method and diagnostic reasoning, always in conjunction with scientific underpinnings of medicine. Year 3 incorporates:
- Three clinical placements across Welsh hospitals and primary care, punctuated by bookend weeks on the Heath Park Campus in Cardiff.
- Applied Clinical Sciences modules throughout the year.
- All-year Student Selected Component for venturing beyond core learning and diving deeper into a subject of personal interest.
- In-depth experience with an Oncology Project, following a patient's journey through investigations and treatment, fostering understanding of the patient experience and gaining valuable NHS insight. Year 4: This year mirrors Year 3, but your time commitment shifts towards increasingly specialized cases. You will refine and apply the core skills honed in Year 3 within diverse clinical settings. Year 4 includes:
- Student Selected Component, delving into a subject that captures your interest. Year 4 highlights include:
- Women, Children and Family: Gain proficiency in caring for women and children. Develop skills to assess problems, formulate care plans, and witness multi-disciplinary collaboration in both community and secondary care settings.
- Clinical Neuroscience, Psychiatry and Ophthalmology: Gain exposure to a specialized field while recognizing how fundamental clinical skills underpin diagnostic and clinical reasoning, crucial for all doctors.
- Chronic Disease 2 - Geriatrics, Musculoskeletal Disease, and Dermatology: Address the growing challenges presented by aging populations and chronic diseases, recognizing the critical needs within the NHS.
Phase 3 (Final year):
Your journey culminates in the Harmonization Programme, converging the program's diverse elements. Here are the main features:
- Year-round increase in responsibility within clinical teams and patient care, transitioning into your role as an NHS doctor and postgraduate studies.
- Primary focus on managing acute and chronic clinical presentations.
- Eight-week clinical placements, one in a hospital setting, the other within the community (general practice), with increasing responsibility for patient care under supervision.
- Learning primarily in the workplace, supplemented by sessions in the simulation center and small groups, refining clinical thinking and decision-making.
- Elective opportunity for eight weeks in a global location of your choosing, exploring aspects of medicine that ignite your passion.
- Core learning blocks in "Preparing for Practice", "Changing Practice", "Science in Practice" and "Practice for Practice", offering crucial insights into your future as an NHS doctor.
- Culmination in the Senior Student Assistantship, where you work as an integral member of a clinical team, directly managing patients under supervision in the hospital where your first foundation job is, or within Wales if your job is elsewhere. The final year assures your readiness for a career in medicine, solidifying the skills and knowledge required for outstanding performance within the NHS.
Assessment
How important are my summative assessments? Progression to your next year of study hinges upon passing all summative assessments. Some assessments contribute to your ranking, impacting various opportunities during medical school and foundation years. You will gain mastery over an extensive skill set, encompassing discipline-exclusive and broader "employability skills." These include:
- Scientific methods and research approaches.
- Quantitative and qualitative data analysis and interpretation.
- Written and oral communication skills.
- Numeracy.
- IT and verbal presentation skills.
- Problem solving.
- Clinical history taking and examination skills.
- Diagnosis, management, and implementation of clinical presentations.
- Safe and effective execution of practical procedures.
- Emergency medical care, prescribing.
- Leadership, management and teaching. Comprehensively engaging with this curriculum equips you to demonstrate all learning outcomes set for medical graduates as defined by the GMC in "Outcomes for Graduates 2015." These encompass:
- Taking charge of patient care, diagnosis, management, and treatment.
- Prioritizing patient needs and safety throughout the care process, treating them with unwavering respect.
- Taking accountability for your actions and practice.
- Demonstrating inquisitiveness and a commitment to continued learning, teaching, research, and evaluation throughout your career.
- Expanding existing knowledge, deepening understanding, and refining performance through experiential learning.
- Adaptively responding to uncertainty and change.
- Integrating directed, self-directed, and simulated learning methods.
- Showcasing a strong understanding of ethical, legal, and community issues.
- Extracting the importance of physical, psychological, and social determinants of health to medical practice.
- Acting effectively as a multi-disciplinary team member.
- Successfully practicing as a Foundation Programme Year 1 doctor within the NHS.
Teaching
Teaching Approach
The MBBCh Medicine course employs a modern, integrated curriculum, delivered in collaboration with the School of Biosciences at
Your tuition fees and how you pay them will depend on your fee status. Your fee status could be home, island or overseas. Learn how we decide your fee status
Fees for home status
We are currently awaiting confirmation on tuition fees for the 2025/26 academic year. The University reserves the right to increase tuition fees in the second and subsequent years of a course as permitted by law or Welsh Government policy. Where applicable we will notify you of any change in tuition fee by the end of June in the academic year before the one in which the fee will increase.
Students from the EU, EEA and Switzerland
We are currently awaiting confirmation on tuition fees for the 2025/26 academic year. Learn more about the undergraduate fees for students from the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man. We are currently awaiting confirmation on tuition fees for the 2025/26 academic year.
Additional costs
Accommodation
We have a range of residences to suit your needs and budget.
Living costs
We're based in one of the UK's most affordable cities. Find out more about living costs in Cardiff.
