University of St Andrews School of Medicine

Famous alumni include small pox vaccine pioneer Edward Jenner, revolutionary journalist Jean-Paul Marat, and inventor of beta blockers and H2 receptor antagonists, Nobel Prize in Medicine winner Sir James Black.

From the 17th to the 19th centuries, medical degrees from St Andrews were awarded by an early version of distance learning.

In 1898, University College Dundee - which had been created in 1891 - became affiliated to the University of St Andrews,[3] and it was this that enabled a full undergraduate medical degree to be offered by St Andrews, as the City of Dundee had a large population and contained several hospitals where students could receive clinical teaching.

Further curriculum changes took place in 2004, with a reduction in the amount of teaching but the introduction of a research project into the final year, allowing for an honours degree to be attained after three years' study, and therefore since September 2005, the University of St Andrews has offered a Bachelor of Science with honours in Medicine (BSc Hons Medicine).

Partner medical schools include Aberdeen, Barts, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Manchester.

The school also runs the Scottish-Canadian Medical Programme jointly with Edinburgh and the University of Alberta Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry for Canadian students.

Students also commence communication and clinical skills training, alongside patient interaction, which continues throughout all three years.

[6] The Honours programme, which runs through both second and third year, focuses in detail upon the normal function and dysfunction of specific physiological systems.

Semester 2 is focused on a significant student-selected Honours research project, as well as the application of medicine and developing clinical skills.

From September 2025 onwards, a five-year MB ChB will be offered to students with clinical training conducted in hospitals and healthcare settings across NHS Fife.

[7] ScotGEM is an intensive four-year graduate entry medicine programme run by the universities of St Andrews and Dundee in collaboration with four health boards: NHS Fife, Tayside, Highland and Dumfries and Galloway.

The School, which has been built at a cost of £45m, contains research laboratory space, as well as teaching facilities and a lecture theatre.

The Bute Medical Society was founded in 1915, by its first president Margaret Shirlaw, with the support of Miss Mildred Clark, Calum McCrimmon, Clive Mackie Whyte, Cecily Thistlewaite, Mary Ellison and W.G.

The initial aim of the society was to hold clinically oriented lectures that the students could attend voluntarily.

Since then, a multitude of lectures, skills workshops and anatomy revision tutorials have been run by the society and it continues to grow in size.

He remains an Honorary Consultant Pathologist in Lothian University Hospitals Division and Director of the Breakthrough Research Unit, Edinburgh.