Choosing a medical school.
Authors: P Richards
Journal: BMJ (1983)

The 29 university medical schools in the United Kingdom (see table), of which 10 are in London, are similar in quality but differ in environment and in the emphasis of their courses. In respect to formal education it probably does not matter very much where you study, but in respect to attitudes it is important to find a place that suits your personality and outlook because you are likely to learn best there; self learning is important throughout the course, and is the essence of clinical training. The choice of a medical school may seem arbitrary and difficult. The information given by a prospectus is often sketchy and difficult to evaluate. Far reaching decisions are made on slender evidence, often on the opinion of a single friendly doctor who, as like as not, is as fiercely loyal to his old school (perhaps experienced many years ago) as he is ill informed about others. Careers teachers often find it difficult to keep up to date with the changing courses in medical schools and often continue to plough furrows which have yielded a good crop in the past. Many considerations enter the equation, most of them matters of individual preference rather than differences of intrinsic merit. Some are geographical, some academic, some cultural, and some strategic. Some students prefer to study near home; many like to go far away. Doctors tend to settle in the vicinity of their medical school so if you are determined to settle in Northumberland it makes more sense to apply to Newcastle than to Bristol. It is also wise to note that the universities of Scotland and Northern Ireland predominantly admit Scots and Irishmen respectively, although this may simply reflect patterns of application rather than bias in acceptance. Geographical considerations are sometimes less sophisticated. There may, for example, perhaps be an element of truth in the rumour that many Welsh students apply to St Mary's Hospital Medical School because it is situated close to Paddington Station, the terminus of the south Wales railway line. A more predictable reason this than that of an applicant who presented herself one September day at St George's Hospital Medical School years ago when it was at Hyde Park Corner. When asked by the dean the reason for her late, personal application she replied that Hyde Park Corner was on her way to Harrods. The size of a university city influences many applicants: some deliberately choose to study in the largest industrial cities such as London, Manchester or Glasgow, where the most complex interplay of medical and social needs is to be found; others prefer smaller university cities such as Cambridge or St Andrews, where the university is not so dominated by the city. A third group combines the cloistered abstraction of basic medical sciences in Oxford or Cambridge (not to mention the uncloistered extracurricular activities) with clinical studies in a large city, usually London. The size of the medical school or the university itself is another consideration. Many prefer the more personal atmo? sphere of relatively small classes and the friendliness of relatively small societies and clubs; on the other hand, larger institutions may offer a greater diversity of teachers and a wider range of activities. Most medical schools admit between 100 and 120 students each year (see table). The potential disadvantage of the large Cambridge intake is offset by the personal environ? ment of life and tutorials in individual colleges.