College and Course

Churchill College is located north-west of Cambridge town centre; occupying a forty-two acre campus, making it the largest of the thirty-one colleges constituting the University of Cambridge. A reasonable twenty-five minute walk or eight minute cycle will take you to Downing Site (the centre of preclinical teaching for the Medicine course). Most would agree that this distance allows for college members to escape the busyness surrounding central colleges, whilst not being bothersome for day-to-day commutes. The college is well equipped with faciltities; including a twenty-four hour access gym and library, a near-by bicycle workshop, as well as plenty of on-site space for sports and outdoor events [see more]. Rent is reasonable, and rooms tend to be large and fairly modern. Finally, Churchill College houses a lovely community with an open-minded and modern atmosphere, making it a comfortable place to both learn and live.

The Undergraduate Medicine course at Cambridge has a course duration of six years. This includes two preclinical years (Years 1 and 2), an intercalation year (Year 3) and three clinical years (Years 4 to 6). The Medical Sciences Tripos encompasses Years 1 and 2 (note: Tripos is just another term for ‘degree’). You will be awarded a BA degree in your chosen intercalation after Year 3, after which you are effectively graduated from college, followed by the MB, BChir degree after Year 6.

The course content is outlined below, with minor modules in italics:

• Year 1 – Functional Architecture of the Body (Anatomy), Molecules in Medical Science (Biochemistry), Homeostasis (Physiology) + Social and Ethical Context of Health and Illness, Foundations of Evidence-Based Practice, Preparing for Patients
• Year 2 – Biology of Disease (Pathology), Mechanisms of Drug Action (Pharmacology), Neurobiology and Human Behaviour, Human Reproduction + Head and Neck Anatomy, Preparing for Patients
• Year 3 – Intercalation + Preparing for Patients. Typically this involves transitioning to the Biological Natural Sciences Tripos Part II, which is also taken by the Natural Sciences students in the same year. There are many options in this year, and you will easily find something for your liking – you can see a list here. You can explore options from other Triposes as well, for instance, HSPS is a popular option in this minority. However, students who stay within NST for Year 3 will have their BA degree class derived solely from their third year examination results (disregarding Tripos contributions from Years 1 and 2). This may not happen within other Triposes.
• Years 4, 5 and 6 – These are the clinical years. They respectively cover Core Clinical Practice, Specialist Clinical Practice and Applied Clinical Practice. The Clinical School is largely based at Addenbrooke’s Hospital (Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust), with several links to various partner trusts across the East of England – delivering exposure to community, primary and secondary, and specialist care settings. A more detailed breakdown can be found here. See Dr Jason Ali’s website under Resources for more information about these years.

You are bound to stumble across the terms 2nd MB and Tripos – trying to understand the difference may leave you clueless at the first instance, but its not too difficult. During the preclinical years, you will sit a mixture of different exam formats – MCQ Papers, Practical Papers and Essay Papers. Of these, the essay paper in each subject will not contribute to 2nd MB, thus, the 2nd MB is purely derived from your results from any MCQs Papers and Practical Papers you sit. The 2nd MB scores are later used in regards to calculating your educational performance measure, as part of the Foundation Programme scoring system – the scores of the two pre-clinical years contribute 40% and the scores of the three clinical years contribute 60% to this measure. On the other hand, Tripos results factor in your essay paper performances – typically contributing 50% of the final Tripos score in each subject. The other 50% comes from your MCQ and Practical Papers in the subject, and these latter scores are usually scaled to deliver the correct overall distribution needed regarding the awarding of First, Upper and Lower Second and Third Classes for Tripos. As said above, if you stay within the Natural Science Tripos for Year 3 as most medics do, then the Tripos results from Years 1 and 2 will not contribute to your final BA degree class.

To progress each year as a preclinical student, you need to pass 2nd MB and achieve a pass in Tripos. 2nd MB-exclusive papers, i.e. MCQ and Practical Papers, in a subject can be resit once if you were to fail the subject in the Summer sitting. This means you would re-do the MCQ and Practical Papers in September – the Essay paper cannot be re-sit. Failing a subject is more common than you would think, and the College will give you support over summer should you request it. However, your 2nd MB score will be calculated from the original fail score and your Tripos result won’t change either following a resit. If you fail again, you would have to consult our DoS (see below) and college further to explore your options, this may allow you to do another resit attempt.

The University will provide you with teaching as you would expect – lectures, practical sessions, dissections and so forth. College, on the other hand, deals with the delivery of supervisions. In these, you will be led by a supervisor, in a small group of students (typically 3-4 people), typically discussing the content delivered in a subject for that week. Thus, these supervisions usually occur once a week for each major subject, as well as some supervisions in your minor subjects occassionally. Although supervisions vary in their format between different supervisors, they will all ultimately give you an opportunity to consolidate the content you have learnt in that week, as well as get any questions or queries answered. The Pre-Clinical and Clinical Directors of Studies oversee your studies during these respective phases; these roles are currently served by Dr Elizabeth Soilleux (ejs17@cam.ac.uk) and Dr Jason Ali (ja297@cam.ac.uk).

Finally, the Library will provide you with a skeleton for first year and a skull for second year – these will help you to study and conceptualise the anatomy subjects in the respective years. The Library will also have any textbooks and resources you may wish to use – although the core examinable content is typically given to you in the form of handouts with each lecture.