History
The school was formed following the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Medical Education (1965–68) (which issued its report, popularly known as the "Todd Report" in 1968). The Commission estimated that by 1994 the UK would need to train more than 4500 doctors a year,[6] and that this would need to be achieved by both increasing the numbers of medical students at existing medical schools, and by establishing a number of new medical schools. It recommended the creation of new medical schools at the Universities of Nottingham, Southampton and Leicester.[7]
In 2000, Leicester Medical School assisted the University of Warwick in the foundation of the Leicester-Warwick Medical School, combining Leicester's own school with a new institution based at the University of Warwick.[8][3] The project was successful, and in 2007, the two institutions separated, creating Warwick Medical School, and recreating Leicester Medical School.[9]
In 2012, it was announced that Leicester Medical School was to be rebuilt.[10][11] The £42 million new build began in 2013, and was completed in 2015.[12] The building will be used by its first cohort of medical students in September 2016.[13] Professor Stewart Petersen said that the reason for this rebuild was "We want to attract the best medical students. We’re also acutely aware that students want the best facilities and value for money when being charged £9,000 fees."[11]
Widening participation
Leicester Medical School encourages widening participation with their MedReach[14] programme that reaches out to young people from widening participation backgrounds in the East Midlands to get into Medicine. The Medical School also offers students from widening participation backgrounds who (because of their circumstances) do not have sufficiently high grades to enter medical school. They do this via a Foundation Year. The Foundation Year provides them with the knowledge and skills to enter medical school after a year of additional basic science and communication skills education.
Innovations: Longitudinal Empathy Curriculum
Medical student empathy often declines throughout medical school.[15] The University of Leicester Medical School has a Centre for Empathic Healthcare who develop and deliver an evidence-based and unique empathy-focused curriculum that runs throughout all five years of medical school. The empathy curriculum is formally assessed and includes advanced, evidence-based communication skills training, getting patients into the lecture theatre during the teaching of pathophysiology, having students "walk a mile" in patients' shoes, and using creative reflection (including narrative medicine and medical humanities).