Medical schools in London

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London has been a centre for medicine for hundreds of years. DNA, penicillin and the use of robotics in keyhole surgery are just some of the major medical breakthroughs discovered in the capital's medical schools.

Today, the city continues to push the boundaries of science. There are a staggering 40,000 doctors, researchers and medical professionals trained in London each year and the city undertakes 70 percent of all NHS research in the UK.

Five medical schools are at the forefront of inspiring the next generation of doctors. Between them, the schools have links with all of the city's major hospitals and three of the schools have recently been selected as Academic Health Science Centres (AHSCs). There are only five AHSCs in the whole of the UK, creating a stronger link between hospitals and the cutting-edge teaching and research within universities.

For a student, there is no substitute for clinical practice. Trainee doctors in London's medical schools have access to millions of patients. Such unrivalled patient access attracted Sarosh Khan from Saudi Arabia to study medicine at St George's, University of London, whose campus is located on the same site as one of the UK's busiest hospitals and is set to merge with Royal Holloway, University of London in 2010.

“Medicine is brilliant, but at St George's the way it's delivered makes it even more enjoyable. With the hospital on-site we get to see a lot of patients.” Sarosh also gets to improve his clinical skills with placements in other hospitals as well as working in laboratories where he can use the latest patient dummies.

Continue reading this article to find profiles of London's five medical schools in insight magazine (p20).

Posted: Wednesday 24 February 2010