University of Birmingham Medical School

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The University of Birmingham Medical School is one of Britain's largest and oldest medical schools with a yearly undergraduate intake of 450 students. It is based at the University of Birmingham in Birmingham, England.

History

Birmingham Medical School was founded in 1825 by William Sands Cox, who began by teaching medical students in his father's house in Birmingham. A new building was used from 1829 (on the site of what is now Snow Hill Station). Students at this time took the licentiate/membership examinations of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries.In 1836, Earl Howe and a number of prominent local men submitted a memorial to King William IV and on June 22nd that year, a reply communicated His Majesty’s acquiescence to become a Patron of the School and that it should be styled the Royal School of Medicine and Surgery in Birmingham. That patronage continued when Queen Victoria ascended the throne in 1837. There was serious need for a new teaching hospital and in 1839 an appeal was made. There was sufficient money raised within one year and the hospital was built in 1840-41.Queen Victoria granted her patronage to the Clinical Hospital in Birmingham and allowed it to be styled "The Queen’s Hospital". In 1841 Queen's Hospital was first opened, by William Sands Cox as a teaching hospital for the medical school. In 1843 the medical school became Queen's College, and students became eligible to be considered for medical degrees awarded by the University of London.A rival medical school, Syndenham College opened in Birmingham in 1851. This merged with Queen's College in 1868 to form a new combined institution, and later merged with another institution, Mason Science College. In 1897 the Mason University College Act was passed which made Mason Science College (incorporating Queen's College) into a University College, and this, in turn, became Birmingham University in 1900, and MB ChB degrees were able to be awarded by the new university.Janet Parker, the last person to die of smallpox in the world in 1978, contracted the disease while working as medical photographer in the anatomy department.

About the Medical School today

The undergraduate degree courses running there are the five-year and four-year graduate entry course (GEC) medical degrees (MBChB) and three-year bachelor degrees in medical sciences (BMedSc). The best of the first-class BMedSc graduates each year can begin the four-year MBChB course. An increasingly popular option for medical students is intercalated degrees, in which they complete they take a year out from the MBChB degree to complete a BMedSc degree in a year. The College of Health Sciences at the University of Zimbabwe was modelled after the Birmingham Medical School. The two hence share and enjoy a special relationship. University of Birmingham students of dentistry, nursing and physiotherapy use the Barnes Library and computer cluster within the medical school building.

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