After my undergraduate medical degree at Oxford, I went into clinical practice for a while and later, back in Oxford, I became involved in medical education. I have taught on the pre-clinical, clinical and graduate-entry medical courses. I was largely responsible for setting up the new graduate-entry medical course in 2001, and became its first Director. Now I mainly teach on the pre-clinical undergraduate course.

In Brasenose, I mainly teach physiology and neuroscience to first- and second-year undergraduates, and cardiovascular physiology and pharmacology to third-years. I also offer some clinical case-based tutorials to the fourth-year (clinical) students.

My experience on the graduate-entry course made me appreciate that teaching medical science in the context of clinical applications works very well for many students, and I have tried to bring this technique into my undergraduate teaching, both in the University (where I give lectures and seminars), and in college tutorials for those students who find it helpful.
Oxford’s most obvious distinctive feature is the structure of the course, with separate pre-clinical and clinical sections (three years each). This structure gives an opportunity to spend three years thinking about medical science, including some time spent on original medical research, with a little clinical contact but without the pressure of practical clinical training in these early years. This structure gives a very solid foundation for clinical practice, and many of our graduates comment on how much they appreciated this way of learning medicine. An additional benefit is that the three-year preclinical course gives students a chance to experience three years of normal undergraduate life, without the pressure of hospital training at the same time. This separate preclinical course is not to everyone’s taste, though, and we advise applicants to think carefully about whether the Oxford model is the right choice for them.

Another distinctive feature of Oxford is the college system, which encourages our students to mix with people who are studying other subjects and so helps to broaden their horizons and provide a wider education; and which also fosters a “team spirit” in academic, sporting and social pursuits, again producing a very strong foundation for clinical practice. The college structure also encourages medical students from different years of the course to help and support each other in their studies: for example, senior students can often help newer undergraduates to organize their time effectively and to develop a good approach to their work without allowing themselves to become too stressed about it.