Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry

Sports and Exercise Medicine is now an established medical specialty. With an increasing interest in sports and leisure activities, together with the growing problem of obesity and chronic disease, the importance of treating injuries and preventing illness through exercise has grown considerably. The increasing focus on exercise medicine is reflected in the legacy aspects of the successful London 2012 Olympics, amongst many other initiatives.

Sports and Exercise Medicine (SEM) has been taught at Queen Mary for many years, with the post-graduate MSc programme being the oldest in Europe, and possibly the world. The undergraduate intercalated degree started as a younger sibling to the MSc but rapidly established its own niche as the first UK intercalated BSc in SEM and typically the most popular course at QMUL. Graduates go on to include SEM in their clinical practise as a sub-speciality, for example in general practise, orthopaedics, rheumatology or emergency medicine, or more directly via specialist training in SEM. SEM was finally recognised as a speciality in the run-up to the London 2012 games, with many SEM graduates from QMUL playing critical roles in the games and now the legacy delivery.

The iBSc is a 120 credit undergraduate (level 6), organized in six modules. We encourage applications from QMUL after MBBS year three or four, but also encourage and support applicants from other universities – with the interview and application process being handled equitably. The iBSc SEM syllabus addresses the fields of musculoskeletal injury, medical problems in sport and exercise as a health tool alongside detailed musculoskeletal anatomy teaching, biomechanics and injury rehabilitation.

Further, strong emphasis is placed both on paper based and quasi-experimental research with intercalating students undertaking both a systematic review and a full research project as part of their degree. These projects are supported by a Human Performance Laboratory and expertise in survey methods and clinical trials. Students’ publication rates are exceptionally high – with up to 70% of those who choose to pursue this objective achieving peer reviewed publication. Some recent examples are listed below.

Whilst keeping sight of our vision for excellence in Sports and Exercise Medicine education, the course continues to develop and innovate. In recent years we have amended the course by recognizing the significant amount of teaching delivered, and student work done, outside the core modules by adding a dedicated core module in place of the literature review element of the project. The aim of the Literature Reviewing module is to enable even more focus on structured evidence translation, enhancing the possibility of publication of your review work and augmentingh the transferable skills gained on your iBSc.

Entry requirements

Please note the Intercalated BSc in Sports and Exercise Medicine requires students to have completed at least three years of their MBBS programme or equivalent and so cannot accept applications from students in their 2nd year.
Passes in Parts 1, 2 and 3 MBBS (as relevant to the year of intercalation).

Closing date

Please contact the course provider.