Sydney Medical School

Sydney Medical School (SMS) is the graduate medical school of the University of Sydney. It is currently ranked as the top medical school in Australia and among the top 20 universities for medicine on an international level by US News and the QS World University Rankings.

Established in 1856, Sydney Medical School is the oldest medical school in Australia.It has a large and diverse faculty to support its missions in education, research, and health care. Each year, it has over 1,100 medical students and 2,000 postgraduate students undertaking coursework and research-training programs.

Sydney Medical School was established in 1856 as The University of Sydney Faculty of Medicine by a group of University of Edinburgh Medical School graduates, Thomas Peter Anderson Stuart, Charles Nicholson and Alexander McCormick.

Sydney Medical School offers a four-year graduate medical program. Key course features include a hybrid problem-based learning model, early clinical exposure, online learning resources, and a focus on evidence-based medicine, which were modelled on aspects of the New Pathway Doctor of Medicine (MD) program at Harvard Medical School.The curriculum has won numerous teaching awards and is licensed to universities in the UK, South Africa and the Middle East and to other universities in Australia.

First introduced in 1997, the graduate medical program originally led to the degrees of Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) for historical reasons. Since 2014, the MD has replaced the MBBS as the title of the medical degree conferred by the Sydney Medical Program.

Entry into the Sydney Medical Program is on the basis of a satisfactory grade point average, the Graduate Australian Medical School Admissions Test score, and performance in a multiple mini-interview. Each year's cohort has approximately 300 students enrolled, an appreciable proportion of which are international students.

The School also offers an undergraduate-entry, "combined medicine" pathway, in which a provisional place is held in the Sydney Medical Program for students until they complete one of the following three-year undergraduate degrees at the University:

-Bachelor of Commerce
-Bachelor of Economics
-Bachelor of Medical Science
-Bachelor of Music Studies
-Bachelor of Science (Advanced)

Securing such a place is highly competitive, as only ten to thirty such places are offered each year. Entry is on the basis of the Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR) or equivalent, and a semi-structured panel interview. For Music Studies-Medicine only, an additional audition at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music is required.

Since the introduction of this admissions pathway in 2005,the ATAR cut-off or equivalent has consistently been 99.95 (except for Music Studies-Medicine, which has been 99.50),the highest cut-off of any undergraduate-entry program offered in Australia.

In 2009, an alternate pathway consisting of five additional places in Medical Science-Medicine and Science (Advanced)-Medicine was introduced specifically for Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander (ATSI) high school graduates.