Medicine with Foundation Year

Medicine at the University of Keele is a six-year programme that includes a foundation year, making a medical career accessible to motivated students who may not meet standard entry requirements but have the potential and commitment to succeed. Keele's medical curriculum is built around the three core themes identified by the General Medical Council: professional values and behaviours, professional skills, and professional knowledge, producing graduates who are not just technically capable but compassionate and professionally accountable practitioners.

You will develop the clinical knowledge, diagnostic reasoning and practical skills needed to work as a doctor across the full range of medical settings. The curriculum integrates scientific knowledge with clinical practice throughout, meaning you begin to think and work like a clinician from an early stage rather than spending years in purely academic study before encountering patients. The foundation year prepares you academically and professionally before you move into the main five-year medical degree, and you will develop your professional identity and clinical confidence progressively through the programme.

Registered doctors work across the full spectrum of medical practice, from general practice and emergency medicine through to hospital specialties spanning surgery, medicine, paediatrics, psychiatry, obstetrics and gynaecology, oncology, radiology and many others. Junior doctors progress through foundation training and specialty training programmes towards consultant or GP positions, with ongoing professional development throughout their careers. Medicine also opens routes into public health, medical research, global health, medical education and health policy.

The foundation year pathway at Keele is specifically designed to ensure that students who might otherwise be excluded from medicine have a supported and properly resourced pathway into the profession.