University College London - Medicine

• Duration of the degree is 6 years (for those with bachelor degree can complete the degree in 5 years as year 3 will be waived)
• Do not score GCSE or personal statements but only UCAT when shortlisting for interviews
• UCAT SJT will only be used when candidates achieved a tied
• UCAT needs to be taken in same year as application year
• 18 years old at start of program but deferred entry will be considered should underage applicants are accepted

Subjects required: Biology and Chemistry

GCSE: English Language and Mathematics at grade B or 6.

• A Levels: A*AA
• International Baccalaureate (IB): 39 @ 19 points in three higher level subjects including 6 and 7 in required subjects. No higher level score below 5.
• HKDSE: 5 in English Language and Mathematics (compulsory unit). Level 5* will be required in one elective subject, and 5 in 2 further elective subjects.
• USA: 5,5,5,5,4 in five distinctive AP subjects (5 in the required subjects) or 5,5 in AP on the required subjects + SAT 1470 or ACT 33 taken in the final three years of high school
• Canada: 93% average with 93% in required subjects
• ATAR 96
• Bachelor degree holders:
  • o 2:1 degree holders or those at final year in any discipline from UK universities are eligible to apply; and
  • o Degrees from out of UK aren’t eligible; and
  • o A level ABB or IB 36 with 16 (6,5,5) for High levels & need to have high school required subjects as well
  • o Can consider re sat A level if this happened before degree or can sit A level / IB Chem and / or Biology during or after degree if these weren’t taken and will need A* or A or IB 7 or 6

English Language Proficiency

• IELTS: Overall score of 7.5 and a minimum of 7.0 in each component
• TOEFL: Overall score of 109 with 27/30 in reading and writing and 23/30 in speaking and listening.
• PTE: Overall score of 80 with a minimum of 76 in each Communicative Skill
• GCSE / IGCSE First language: Pass at 6 (or grade B) with Distinction in spoken component (where applicable) (IGCSE English first language from AQA: Pass at grade 8 with Distinction in speaking and listening component)
• IB English Lang A Literature or Language and Literature: Grade 6 at higher level or grade 7 at standard level
• IB English Lang B HL: 7

Retake and Predicted Grade Policies

• Retake will not be allowed
• Predicted grades are used as part of the selection process.

Interview Shortlisting Requirements: UCAT

As long as GCSE minimum requirement is met, University Clinical Aptitude Test (UCAT) in the same calendar year as submission of the UCAS application will be used as only means for interview shortlist

• Domestic applicants invited for interviews: almost 80^th percentile 2800
• International applicants invited for interviews: over 90^th percentile 3060

a. Where is it going to take place?

The clinical placement will take place in many other prestigious Foundation Trusts, Associated University Hospitals, District General Hospitals, and in a range of general practice and community settings. Some are listed as below:

• University College London Hospital
• The Royal Free London Hospital
• Whittington Health
• Barnet & North Middlesex (BMX)
• Barnet Hospital
• Basildon University Hospital
• Lister Hospital
• Luton and Dunstable University Hospital
• North Middlesex University Hospital
• Watford General Hospital

b. What is University College London Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (UCLH) like?

• UCLH provides acute and specialist services to a hugely diverse local population and to patients from across England and Wales, balancing the provision of nationally recognised specialist services with delivering high quality acute services locally.
• UCLH has one of the country’s five comprehensive biomedical research centres.
• It retained its position as one of England’s 20 Biomedical Research Centres (BRCs) in 2022, and is a founding partner of UCLPartners, one of the UK’s first Academic Health Science Centres (AHSCs).

c. How is clinical placement going to be for undergraduate students?

For the undergraduate students, the clinical placement will take place from Year 4 to Year 6 with its own focus as below:

• Year 4: three long placement-based modules based in hospitals and associated community and GP settings with the focus on community based care, ward based care and emergency care.
• Year 5: three twelve-week integrated modules of clinical placements by covering a wide range of topics relevant to the life cycle and specialist practice and a patient-based patient pathway
• Year 6: 20-week DGH and Primary Care assistantship, an eight-week elective placement anywhere in the world

For the graduate students, the clinical placement will take place from Year 3 to Year 5

d. What is the course structure?

The MBBS at UCL is a six-year integrated programme of study. Each year is comprised of a number of themed integrated modules with Clinical and Professional Practice modules running vertically through the programme and Student Selected Components in Years 1, 2 and 6.

• Year 1-2
  • Fundamentals of Clinical Science
• Year 3
  • Intercalated Year - Scientific Method in Depth
• Year 4
  • Integrated Clinical Care
• Year 5
  • The Life Cycle and Specialist Practice
• Year 6
  • Preparation for Practice

e. What is the teaching style in University College London?

The MBBS programme aspires to educate the 'UCL Doctor': a highly competent and scientifically literate clinician who is equipped to practise patient-centred medicine in a constantly changing modern world and has a foundation in the basic medical and social sciences.

The following teaching methods are adopted in the course:

• Lectures
• Small Group Activities
• Self-paced Learning
• Computer-assisted Learning
• Practical Work
• Patient and Community-based Learning
• Private Study
• Clinical Placement

MBBS students are required to attend all timetabled activities and self-directed or online preparation from 9am-5pm on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays and from 9am-12.50pm on Wednesdays.

f. Can the students study for an intercalated degree at University College London?

• The Intercalated BSc (iBSc) is a compulsory part of the MBBS programme for UCL medical students who do not already hold a UK undergraduate degree. The intercalated degree will take place in Year 3 and s series of iBSc programmes are offered as below:
  • Faculty of Brain Sciences
    • Clinical Neurology and Brain Sciences
    • Psychology
  • Faculty of Engineering Sciences
    • Medical Physics & Biomedical Engineering
  • Faculty of Life Sciences
    • Anatomy, Cell & Developmental Biology
    • Neuroscience
  • Faculty of Mathematical and Physical Sciences
    • History & Philosophy of Science & Medicine
    • Sociology and Politics of Medicine
  • Faculty of Medical Sciences
    • Clinical Sciences
    • Immunology, Infection and Cell Pathology
    • Maths, Computers and Medicine
    • Oncology
    • Sports & Exercise Medical Sciences
    • Surgical Sciences
  • Faculty of Population Health Sciences
    • Cardiovascular Science
    • Global Health
    • Paediatrics and Child Health
    • Primary Care Research and Clinical Practice
    • Women's Health
  • Faculty of Social and Historical Sciences
    • Medical Anthropology

The interview will take the format of multiple mini interviews (MMIs). The MMIs consist of up to eight stations that the interviewees will rotate around and each station will be 5 minutes in length (including one-minute preparation). The MMIs will be a mix of roleplay and data interpretation and 2-3 questions will be asked during each station. Each station is marked individually and independently by a different interviewer. The interviewers from a wide range of backgrounds such as clinical staff who work in the local hospital and community sites, academic members of staff and current medical students will score the candidate for the following qualities:

• Academic curiosity and interest in healthcare
• Motivation for and understanding of a career in medicine (including robustness for the course)
• Problem solving and reasoning ability
• Professional attitudes and values (factors such as flexibility, integrity, empathy, honesty, conscientiousness and compassion)
• Team work, leadership, resilience and individual strengths
• Communication skills (including verbal ability, listening skills, eye contact)

An NHS values-based approach is adopted in the interviews, asking the interviewees about their knowledge and understanding of core themes of working in a healthcare setting such as:

• Putting patients first
• Respect and dignity
• A commitment to quality of care
• Compassion
• Improving health and wellbeing
• Everyone counts

• Academic Curiosity and interest in healthcare

1. Where do you see medicine going in the next 20 years?
2. Data interpretation: here is a graph on sugar and diabetes - answer questions on the correlation, confidence intervals etc. What is it showing? Why does it show this?
3. Primary care access is under pressure nationally. What practical steps could improve continuity and access without compromising safety?
4. Digital health is expanding rapidly. When does technology enhance, and when might it hinder, patient-centred care?
5. An Integrated Care System is trying to reduce hospital bed days. What upstream changes would you prioritise?
6. Strikes have affected NHS services. How would you balance doctors’ rights with duties to patients?
7. Health inequalities persist across London. What actions can clinicians take within their sphere of control?
8. Given a simple risk chart, translate relative vs absolute risk for a patient.
9. A vaccination poster underperforms. How would you improve it?

• Motivation for and Understanding of a Career in Medicine

1. Why medicine?
2. Why UCL? Why have you applied here?
3. What makes you suited to Medicine?
4. Have you ever doubted whether you want to do medicine?
5. What do you know about the UCL Medicine course? How is it taught?
6. Why do you think you will be well suited to this course?
7. Why medicine and not dentistry or nursing?
8. Tell us about your volunteering
9. What are your hobbies?
10. What do you understand about what a career in medicine entails? How will the UCL course help you towards this?What are the negatives of a career in medicine? How did you overcome these thoughts?
11. UCL places a strong emphasis on scientific inquiry and research-driven practice. Can you discuss a recent medical advancement or project affiliated with UCL that inspired you, and explain why?
12. The diverse patient population in central London exposes you to a range of cultural and socioeconomic contexts. In what ways do you expect this environment to shape your communication style and empathy?
13. UCL encourages interprofessional collaboration. What do you hope to gain from working closely with students in other healthcare disciplines, and how might this influence your future practice?
14. Reflecting on your personal values, why do you believe UCL’s blend of academic rigor and clinical excellence aligns with the doctor you aspire to become?
15. If you struggle adapting to the demands of UCL’s training, what strategies would you use to maintain motivation, resilience, and professional growth?

• Problem Solving and Reasoning Ability

1. Discuss the pros and cons of assisted dying. What is the difference between assisted dying and assisted suicide? Reflect on your performance in the group in front of everyone.
2. Discuss the pros and cons of a sugar tax. Each person must summarise their position at the end.
3. Antibiotic resistance. What would happen if they were banned tomorrow?
4. Advantages and disadvantages of free Wi-Fi in schools for 15-16 year olds.
5. A medical student friend is openly talking about patients on a bus that is packed - using their names, what would you do?
6. How might you persuade someone to take a medicine that they don’t want to take?
7. If you notice that a colleague has turned up to work drunk, what would you do?
8. An A&E sees four arrivals at once. Triage them safely and justify your order.
9. You’re given a chart on sepsis-bundle compliance vs mortality. What patterns do you see—and what caveats apply?
10. A GP surgery trialled a new asthma review process. Interpret the before/after data and suggest next steps.
11. You have limited time and conflicting tasks on placement. How would you prioritise?
12. A ward’s discharge delays are rising. What root causes would you explore and how?

• Professional Attitudes and Values

1. Why should patients trust you?
2. What are your best qualities?
3. When have you displayed great teamwork skills?
4. What are good qualities of a junior doctor?
5. Have you ever been in charge of a group of people?
6. How do you manage stress?
7. What are the qualities of a good doctor?
8. Can you provide us with an example of a time when you demonstrated resilience?
9. Give us an example of a time when you demonstrated teamwork.
10. What are your strengths and weaknesses?
11. How would your friends describe you?
12. Tell us about an article that you have recently read.
13. Are you a good teacher?
14. Are you good at taking on advice?
15. Who would you give this organ to?
16. Should doctors be paid to go to pharmaceutical conferences?

• Team Work, Leadership, Resilience and Individual Strengths

1. Who can you escalate concerns to within a hospital?
2. Your team disagrees about how to run a charity event. How would you resolve conflict and move forward?
3. You’ve made a mistake on a project submission. What did you do immediately—and what did you learn?
4. Exams clash with caring responsibilities. How will you protect wellbeing and academic standards?
5. A peer is underperforming in a group task. How will you support them while safeguarding outcomes?
6. You lead a mixed-ability team under time pressure. What leadership behaviours will you use?
7. You felt out of your depth in a clinical setting. How did you seek help, and what changed next time?
8. You were praised for compassion outside medicine. Why is that relevant to clinical practice?
9. Feedback from a teacher felt unfair. How did you process it and improve?
10. You experienced moral distress during volunteering. How did you manage it?
11. You observed exemplary teamwork on placement. What behaviours would you emulate?
12. Sleep fell to 5h/night pre-exams. What would you change next time?
13. You’re overwhelmed during the MMI circuit. How will you reset between stations?
14. A friend wants your revision notes but doesn’t contribute. How do you respond?
15. You lost marks for poor structure. How will you fix that in the answers?
16. Your laptop dies before a deadline. What systems will you set up to prevent repetition?

• Communication Skills

1. Your best friend has lost her pet dog and she is heartbroken - have a conversation with her.
2. Can you describe a time you worked in a diverse team to achieve a common goal, and what you learned about communication and respect?
3. When team members differ on patient care decisions, how would you help resolve the conflict while keeping patient well-being central?
4. Multidisciplinary teams are integral to healthcare. How do you envision collaborating with professionals from other fields to improve outcomes?
5. If you noticed a colleague struggling with their workload, how would you offer support while maintaining professionalism?
6. Reflect on a time you adapted your communication style to meet the needs of varied team members. What did you learn?
7. UCL encourages team-based learning. How do you think these experiences will help you develop leadership skills and manage responsibilities?
8. Your “patient” is anxious about a new hypertension diagnosis. Explain what it means and agree first steps.
9. A parent is upset about delayed test results. Acknowledge feelings and outline what you’ll do next.
10. A colleague repeatedly interrupts you in a handover. Show how you’d assert yourself respectfully.
11. A patient with low health literacy needs to consent for a scan. How will you ensure informed, voluntary consent?
12. You must break bad news about a postponed operation. How will you structure this conversation?

• NHS Values

1. What changes would you make to the NHS if you could?
2. What are the NHS values and why are they important?
3. What is it like to be a doctor?
4. How do you deal with overpopulation?
5. What do you know about the local area here in UCL?
6. Why is it important to be aware of cultural differences when treating patients?
7. What are the main challenges that face the NHS?
8. Would you approve a new drug that costs £100000 per patient to use?
9. How has COVID changed the way the NHS operates?
10. What do you think are going to be the long-term consequences of COVID on the NHS?
11. How does the healthcare system differ here compared to other areas in the UK?
12. What do you see as the most urgent challenge facing the NHS, and how might doctors contribute to a sustainable solution?
13. Primary care is under increasing strain. What measures could support GPs in providing accessible, high-quality patient care?
14. How can the NHS integrate digital health tools while ensuring they enhance, rather than detract from, the doctor-patient relationship?
15. Workforce shortages persist. What strategies might help the NHS retain skilled healthcare professionals and safeguard staff well-being?
16. Preventative medicine is crucial. How can doctors effectively support patients in making long-term lifestyle changes to reduce disease burdens?
17. Consider a recent UK health policy or funding decision. How might it shape patient care, and what role do doctors have in adapting?