Graduate Entry Medicine

Graduate entry medicine is a four-year degree that you are eligible for with a prior degree. So typically, you would be looking at needing a 2:1, which is the grading system for degrees. It goes first, which is the top sort of level, then 2:1, 2:2 and then third. There are 18 medical schools in the UK that offer GEM courses. Ten of these will consider applicants with non-science degrees. So you either apply with a science degree, which is something like biochemistry or biology and then some places will view you as eligible if you have a non-science degree. Which can be anything from English to music or things like that. Some universities require specific A-level, like chemistry A-level or biology A-level, or other various things like that. It depends absolutely on the specific universities.

The aptitude test that is used is either the UKAT or the GAMSAT, but there are, I think, two in the UK which use the BMAT. These are all just different varieties of aptitude tests.

Graduate medicine is absolutely as competitive as undergraduate courses, it's not necessarily an easier way to get into medicine. As with every medical degree, they're totally oversubscribed for the number of places they have.

Now, just to talk about the GAMSAT, which is quite a popular aptitude test used by UK universities, it's made up of three different sections. These are reasoning in humanities and social sciences, written communication and reasoning in biological and physical sciences. The reasoning in Biological and Physical Sciences is basically the content of A-level of biology, chemistry and physics. Written communication is made up of an essay that is based on being persuasive and showing essay writing skills. reasoning in Humanities and Social Sciences, This is very much based on sort of wider reading and there are lots of resources online around kind of what the GAMSAT is, whether this is well suited to you.

The UCAT is slightly different and is used quite a lot in undergraduate medicine applications. The GAMSAT costs around £268 to sit in the UK and you can sit it in either March or September of each year.

Further requirements for graduate entry medicine are relevant work experience. So as with undergraduate applications, work experience is very dependent on which medical school you apply to. Different medical schools will have different criteria for what counts as work experience as some will say it's anything that you volunteer your time for, and some will say it has to be patient-facing, so it has to be kind of in a healthcare setting. But as with everything, there's no one rule for all of it. And some universities actually have a specific number of hours, so some places say you have to have at least 70 hours of work experience over the last two years for the application.

You need strong references and a compelling personal statement. This is very similar to any sort of application.