Teaching methods include lectures, seminars and tutorials. Staff use computer assisted learning in specific modules and there are clinical observations in the final year of the degree.

Six distinct areas of study (three from the Sciences and three from the Humanities) are pursued throughout the three year scheme. In each year, candidates study twelve modules (two in each of the six pathways). There is scope in the second and third years for students to choose some elective modules, in consultation with personal and year tutors.

The Biological Sciences modules of the degree scheme explore how knowledge of biological systems at the molecular, cellular and organismal levels underpins clinical medicine. The Physical Sciences modules examine the fundamental physico-chemical principles encountered in human systems.

The Clinical Sciences modules introduce medicine’s own perspective upon the characteristic knowledge base, research methods, skills of presentation and large-scale administration of medical practice in contemporary society.

The Philosophy of Medicine modules explore ethical and conceptual issues that shape the nature and goals of medicine, interrogating problems of life and death, genetic ethics, multiple personality disorder and what has been called the myth of mental illness.

The Social Sciences and Medicine modules are comprised of economic, psychological and sociological dimensions that inform medicine and health care experience and issues of costing and provision across the lifespan.

The History of Medicine modules afford an appreciation of how the symbiotic relations between conceptions of health and health care and their social and cultural contexts have developed over time. They facilitate a critical view of the making of medical theory, practice, and professionalisation, and the overall role of medicine in the creation of modern society since 1500.

The Literature and Medicine module contrasts doctors’ and patients’ views of disease by examining literary narratives of health care and illness.