UCLan Medical School: Overview

The University of Central Lancashire or UCLan is one of the newest medical schools in the United Kingdom. However, that doesn’t mean it’s any worse: In fact, in 2021 UCLan was ranked as the Top Medical School in North West England! Unlike most medical schools, UCLan accepts many international students and just a small number of UK students.

UCLan is located in the centre of the charming city of Preston, Lancashire in the North West of England. The city has over 110,000 inhabitants, and thus has a lot to offer, yet may be less overwhelming like large metropolises, such as London or Manchester.

UCLan Medical School offers a 5-year MBBS programme, but also a Foundation Entry Programme. Medical students at UCLan will benefit from an integrated teaching style, offering a blend of lecture-based teaching and clinical placements. If you feel like you could develop better as a doctor from having patient contact from Year 1, then UCLan may be the right choice for you.

You can read more about the UCLan medicine course here.

📤 When does UCLan send out interview invitations?

Since UCLan is a unique medical school that doesn’t require any admissions tests like the UCAT or BMAT, the admissions officers will start the selection process right after the UCAS application deadline (15th of October).

This means you can expect interview invitations from UCLan as early as early November.

However, no need to stress out if you didn’t hear back from UCLan by that time; interviews run until the end of January, so some interview invitations may be sent out as late as the first half of January.

🔢 How does UCLan select candidates for interviews?

UCLan has a selection procedure, unlike any other medical school, as they don’t take into account UCAT or BMAT scores.

UCLan selects for interviews based only on your Personal Statement, A-level/IB grades (or equivalent) or your degree if you are applying as a graduate. Moreover, if you are applying from the UK for 2023 entry you must have lived in the North West of England for at least 5 years and then moved out of the area. For more information check UCLan’s website.

UCLan requires at least a predicted AAB, with both A’s being in science subjects (one of which has to be Chemistry) or 36 International Baccalaureate Points. UCLan also accepts A-levels equivalents from almost any country in the world. You can find the entire list of entry requirements by country here.

🗓️ UCLan Medicine Interview dates:

UCLan usually interviews candidates from early December until the end of January, but that may change from year to year.

💬 What’s the interview format at UCLan?

For 2022 entry, UCLan held online panel interviews via Microsoft Teams.

The interview began with a 3-minute introduction, where candidates were told how the interview will proceed and their IDs were verified. This was followed by a series of questions asked by two interviewers, which formed the panel.

In total, the interview lasted around 40 minutes.

Before interviews were moved online, however, UCLan conducted MMI interviews. The format for the 2024 entry (2023) hasn't been yet confirmed, so before you start preparing make sure to visit UCLan’s website or email their admissions office for the latest information regarding the interviews.

👨‍👩‍👦‍👦 How many candidates get interviewed for Medicine at UCLan?

For 2020 entry a total of 1634 candidates (UK + International) applied to study medicine at UCLan, out of which 707 were interviewed. After interviews, UCLan made 316 offers (and 188 of these were accepted).

If we do the maths, that means the acceptance rate for medicine at UCLan is around 19.3%, placing it towards the less competitive side of the spectrum.

🏆 How likely is it I’ll be given an offer after an interview at UCLan?

In the 2019/20 application cycle, 707 interview invitations were sent out and 316 offers were made.

This means that if you’ve received an interview invitation your chances to receive an offer from UCLan have just increased from 19.3% to 44.7%! Congrats!

💅 What to do before the interview at UCLan Medical School?

UCLan clearly states that your ID will be verified at the beginning of your interview, so make sure you find your ID in advance. Moreover, in the 2021/22 application cycle UCLan required UK applicants to fill out a short survey, sent out with interview invitations.

Sending back the survey at least 24 hours before the interview was a necessary condition, so check your invitation email carefully if something similar isn’t required this year too.

💡 How To Prepare for Medicine Interviews at UCLan?

Preparing for medical school interviews requires more than just reading an article or doing a mock interview. It requires intentionality, structure and commitment. Luckily, with Medfully it is simpler and more efficient than ever:

🧠 UCLan Medicine Interview Questions: 

UCLan stated on their website that questions in their medicine interviews will revolve around topics such as communication skills, work experience, ethics, professionalism, problem-solving and team working.

Based on these topics here are a few examples of UCLan interview questions to give you a grasp of what to prepare for:

Communication skills:

• Why is communication an important aspect of being a doctor?
• What are the three adjectives that best describe you?
• Tell us about a situation when you had to rely on your communication skills.
• Tell us about a situation when you had to overcome a challenge and how you did it.
• A patient weighing 72kg requires a 75mg dose of Ibunapratosan via an IV drip. You have a 0.1L bag with an Ibunapratosan concentration of 5mg/mL. What volume of fluid from the bag should you give to the patient?
• Explain how to tie a shoelace, without using hand gestures.

Work experience & Ethics:

• What steps have you taken to determine if medicine is the right path for you?
• Have you witnessed any examples of teamwork during your work experience?
• What is the single most important lesson you took away from your work experience?
• What do you understand by the term “Gillick’s competence”?
• In your view, should physician-assisted suicide be legal in the UK?
• Imagine you are the head of the surgical department in a hospital. There are two patients, A and B, both requiring an urgent liver transplant, but there is only one viable liver. Patient A is a 32-year old social activist, with a drug abuse history. Patient B is a 78-year old woman, who takes care of 3 children, whose parents died in a car accident. How would you allocate the liver and why?
• When can doctors breach confidentiality, if ever? Can you give a specific example of such a scenario?

Professionalism:

• Can doctors ever lie to their patients? Can you think of any specific example where lying would be justified?
• What are the 3 most important qualities of a good doctor?
• Imagine you are a fully-qualified GP working at a local practice. Thanks to your resourcefulness, you helped save a 13-year-old boy from an unnecessary and risky operation. Boy’s parents are really thankful and handed you a branded bottle of Whiskey as a way of showing appreciation. Since you are a connoisseur, you know that the bottle is worth over £200. What would you do in such a situation?
• What does it mean to act professionally as a doctor, and why is it so important?

Problem-solving:

• What are the largest challenges currently facing the NHS?
• If you were to make a change in the budget of the NHS, how would you allocate the funds?
• You can only take a maximum of 5 items to a deserted island. Which items out of the following would you choose and why? Box of matches, water repellent jacket, hammock, sunscreen, a box of sardines, mirror, cell phone, Encyclopedia, flip flops and a knife.

🧠 TOP Tip: Have a hard time answering any of the above questions? Check our Medicine Interview Preparation Resource, which is guaranteed to help you prepare convincing and structured model answers.

Please note that these aren’t questions that have been asked at UCLan in past years. Publishing such information would be against UCLan’s policy. The above questions are adjusted for the interview style at UCLan and are meant to give you a broad sense of the questions you may face.

✅ UCLan Medical School Interviews: 4 Tips

🏋️ Identify Your Weaknesses

As you’ve seen above, you can be asked about a whole range of topics at your UCLan interview. During your interview preparation, try to identify the topics you feel least confident about.

If you are practising alone, pay attention to the questions you find hard talking long about, questions that make you waffle or one’s where you stutter a lot. If you are doing mocks with a friend, teacher or tutor, ask them directly about what they think is your weakness.

Once you identify your weaknesses, focus on them by exposing yourself to more questions on that topic.

🧠 Learn to Think on Your Feet

You can’t predict exactly what questions are going to come up. When preparing for your interviews, make sure to expose yourself to as many interview questions as possible from a variety of topics. If you find a particular question troubling, don’t memorise an answer to it, as it won’t help you exercise that skill of thinking on your feet. Instead, practise more questions from that particular topic. Check out our comprehensive list of 250+ medicine interview questions.

⚖️ Understand the Four Pillars of Medical Ethics and Know How to Apply Them

The famous four pillars of medical ethics (beneficence, non-maleficence, autonomy and justice) serve as a helpful foundation to answer almost any interview questions related to ethics. You can dissect many ethics questions. Not only will this help you break down the scenario, but will also add structure to your answer. Therefore, make sure you understand what each of the terms means and practice a few ethical questions to learn how to apply them.

🤩 Be Passionate!

Whenever talking about medicine, your motivations to study at UCLan or your work experience exude enthusiasm. Demonstrate how passionate you are through smiling and body language. Remember that actions speak louder than words!

Bonus Tip: Want to save yourself time, stress and money in the process of preparing for interviews at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan)? Prepare with Medfully, the best interview preparation tool for self-paced interview preparation.

🤞 Good luck with preparing for the UCLan Medicine interview! Fingers crossed!