Lincolnshire’s hospitals welcome first cohort of medical students from Lincoln Medical School

United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust (ULHT) will soon be welcoming the first ever cohort of third year medical students to be studying at Lincoln into its hospitals.

The 80 students from Lincoln Medical School at the University of Lincoln will have hands-on learning across Lincoln County Hospital and Pilgrim Hospital, Boston, whilst also caring for patients.

The Trust will be providing secondary care clinical placements for medical students, in a collaboration between the University of Lincoln and the University of Nottingham, delivering the University of Nottingham’s Medicine and Medicine with Foundation Year degree programmes, enhanced with a Lincolnshire flavour. The initial phase, named Foundations for Practice (FFP), will start at the end of February 2022.

The first phase of Lincoln students will be training alongside the existing cohort of clinical students from Nottingham’s current curriculum. These students will have concluded their training in 2023, after which all student intakes will be from Lincoln Medical School.

It is hoped the new Medical School in Lincoln will address future projected shortages of doctors by offering first class training that will encourage graduates to complete their junior doctor training locally and apply for jobs in the region. The numbers of students coming to Lincolnshire’s hospitals will increase over the next two years as part of the planned increase to the government cap on medical school places.

Paul Dunning, Deputy Medical Director and Director of Medical Education at ULHT said:

“We are really excited to be welcoming the first cohort of Lincoln Medical School students to our hospitals. We pride ourselves on our ‘one Trust’ ethos, our friendly working environment and the exciting, and fulfilling learning and development opportunities we offer our staff. We know that our success in developing and continually improving efficient and financially sustainable services is due to the commitment, skills and compassion of our staff and hope you are all looking forward to welcoming medical students into the Trust for their clinical placements.”

Professor Danny McLaughlin, Associate Dean of Medicine at the University of Lincoln said:

“With our partners at the University of Nottingham, we have created a medical degree programme that provides an excellent student learning experience, an inclusive and caring environment, and an even greater number of outstanding medical graduates for the National Health Service.

“Creating a medical school for Lincolnshire has been an aspiration for many years and we are now realising that goal. It’s something the whole community can be proud of, and which will serve the people of Lincolnshire for generations to come.”

Dr David O’Brien, Clinical Associate Professor of Medical Education, University of Nottingham and Director of Admissions, Lincoln Medical School, said:

“The clinical curriculum is currently being refreshed to take into account student feedback but also to accommodate the new Medical Licencing Agreement (MLA), planned to be introduced for all graduating students from 2024-2025.”

The new curriculum refresh covers all the University of Nottingham Medicine courses and will be taught to every student entering the clinical phase from February 2022.