The Reading Lists · Medicine & Health Sciences
Studying medicine in London
London trains more doctors than any other city in Europe. Its medical faculties are wired directly into teaching hospitals of world consequence — King's has its own at Denmark Hill, UCL sends students across the Marlborough Wing, and Queen Mary's students walk to class through Whitechapel.
The city's special advantage is the patient mix: rare conditions that a district hospital might see once a decade walk through the doors of Barts or the Middlesex in a week. For the health sciences beyond the ward — public health, epidemiology, tropical medicine — the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine is a world institution unto itself.
The houses that teach it — 8 of 36
Est. 1733 · Charter & Court
City St George's, University of London
City St George's · Clerkenwell & Tooting
An unusual 2024 marriage: a Clerkenwell civic college known for journalism and business, united with a medical school whose lineage runs to 1733 and the teaching wards of St George's Hospital.
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Est. 1791 · Charter & Court
Royal Veterinary College
RVC · Camden & Hawkshead
The oldest veterinary school in the English-speaking world, founded in Camden Town in 1791. Its graduates have attended the royal stables, the Queen's corgis and the average London fox with equal professionalism.
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Est. 1826 · Charter & Court
University College London
UCL · Bloomsbury
Founded on principles of secular, inclusive education — the first university established in London, and the first in England to admit students regardless of religion. Its Bloomsbury quadrangle conceals the Petrie Museum and the Grant Museum, both free.
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Est. 1829 · Charter & Court
King's College London
KCL · Strand
Chartered as the established church's answer to godless Gower Street. The Strand campus faces Somerset House across the world's most learned street; its medical schools descend from Guy's and St Thomas' hospitals.
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Est. 1887 · Charter & Court
Queen Mary University of London
QMUL · Mile End
Began as the People's Palace, a philanthropic venture in the East End. The only Russell Group university on a self-contained campus in central London's east — its grounds stretch between the Mile End Road and the Regent's Canal.
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Est. 1899 · Charter & Court
London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
LSHTM · Bloomsbury
Patrick Manson's school for the medicine of hot places — founded 1899, when the empire's doctors kept dying of what they were sent to cure. Research-only, postgraduate, and arranged around one of Bloomsbury's landmark interwar buildings.
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Est. 1907 · Charter & Court
Imperial College London
Imperial · South Kensington
A STEM-only institution seated in the Prince Consort's cultural quarter beside the Royal Albert Hall. The Queen's Tower is all that remains of the Imperial Institute; the labs quietly carried much of Britain's penicillin and radar history.
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Est. 1892 · Civic & Campus
London South Bank University
LSBU · Southwark
The Borough Polytechnic opened at the Elephant & Castle in 1892 on a site that had trained teachers since the 1810s. Its National Bakery School, founded 1894, was the first in Britain — and is still running.
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Faculty listings reflect the guide's editorial reading of where each discipline is principally taught — many houses teach more than appears here. Always consult the official course pages before applying.
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