Oxford medical university

The practice of Medicine offers a breadth of experiences that it is impossible to find in any other subject. Every day brings different patients with different needs. It’s a great choice for scientists who strive to understand and apply research findings to improve the lives of the patients in their care. It offers a meaningful career that is prestigious, secure and relatively well paid. However, practising Medicine can be arduous, stressful, frustrating and bureaucratic and it’s not suited to everyone. You need to be sure that Medicine is the right choice for you. These pages will help you work that out, but there’s no better way to find out for sure than by gaining insight of medical practice by seeing it in action and talking to those who provide healthcare. Studying Medicine because that is what is expected of you is never a good idea: make sure that your motives for choosing to do so are well reasoned.

From becoming a GP to training as a brain surgeon, a vast array of speciality training pathways is available after obtaining a medical qualification: ranging from anaesthesia or emergency medicine through obstetrics or ophthalmology to paediatrics or psychiatry.

Of course, you need not remain confined to the surgery or the operating theatre: the lecture theatre or the laboratory could also beckon. Some of our graduates end up leading the education of the next generation of doctors or directing biomedical research. You don’t need to know right now what you want to do when you qualify: the Medical School organises careers sessions for final-year clinical students and helps students learn about and apply for foundation house officer posts.

BM BCh graduates are entitled to provisional registration with the General Medical Council (GMC) with a licence to practise, subject to demonstrating to the GMC that their fitness to practise is not impaired.

Gordon now works in the field of biotechnology. He says: ‘Although I studied medicine as an undergraduate and qualified as a doctor in 2004, I have not remained working in clinical medicine in the NHS. Instead I have built my career in small high-growth biotechnology companies in the UK, California and France. My time as an undergraduate at Oxford was hugely influential in seizing interesting scientific and business opportunities well outside the boundaries of a typical medical career in the NHS.’