Best universities for medicine 2024

Top 10 universities in the world for medicine 2024

Scroll down for the full list of best universities in the world for medicine and health sciences.

Clinical sciences rank 2024	Clinical sciences rank 2023	University	Country/region
1	1	University of Oxford	United Kingdom
2	3	Harvard University	United States
3	2	University of Cambridge	United Kingdom
4	4	Imperial College London	United Kingdom
5	6	Stanford University	United States
6	11	Johns Hopkins University	United States
7	8	UCL	United Kingdom
8	9	Yale University	United States
9	7	University of Toronto	Canada
10	15	University of Pennsylvania	United States

The study of medicine varies greatly around the world. In the US, medicine is studied in graduate school after the completion of an undergraduate degree that is not directly related to medicine.

Elsewhere, such as in the UK, students can enrol for undergraduate clinical degrees.

Wherever you study, almost all clinical degrees span a good number of years – more than non-clinical courses.

So it’s best to ensure that you make a wise choice when you commit yourself to a lengthy course of study.

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Times Higher Education has published a ranking of the top 1,059 universities for clinical, pre-clinical and health studies, featuring colleges in more than 50 countries worldwide.

The ranking uses the same methodology as the THE World University Rankings, but with more weight on citations and slightly less on teaching and research metrics. The full methodology can be found here.

Scroll down for a full list of degrees included in the clinical subject ranking of top universities, and a guide on what you can do with them.

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Best universities in the United States for medicine degrees
Best universities for medicine degrees in Canada
Best universities in Australia for medicine degrees
Best universities in the UK for medicine degrees

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Top five universities for clinical studies and health sciences

5. Stanford University

The graduate school at Stanford University provides master’s and PhD programmes to students who wish to further their medical training.

Six Nobel prizewinners, 31 members of the National Academy of Sciences and 42 members of the Institute of Medicine are among the current faculty at the school.

Researchers at Stanford Medicine are undertaking research across a number of different areas, including cancer, immunology, genetics and neuroscience.

The school also provides healthcare for adults and children, with a dedicated centre for children.

4. Imperial College London

The medical programme at Imperial College London offers a range of teaching approaches, from traditional theoretical classes to innovative and hands-on experience.

From the very first term, students have direct contact with patients, unlike at other universities in the UK.

The six-year undergraduate qualification in medicine also includes a bachelor of science, in addition to the MBBS.

Imperial’s courses are heavily scientific, with an emphasis not only on clinical practice but also on research techniques.

Entry requirements are high; most accepted students will have top grades in chemistry, biology and a third subject, and will achieve a high score in the BMAT exam. The application process also includes an interview.

Imperial is one of the most international institutions in the UK, but only a few overseas students are accepted on the medical programme each year.

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3. University of Cambridge

Students can enrol in an undergraduate medicine degree at the University of Cambridge.

Graduates also have several options to study medicine, either on an accelerated graduate programme or a condensed version of the pre-clinical and clinical courses.

Half the graduates of Cambridge’s medical degrees become general practitioners, and almost all will work in the NHS in the UK.

Entrance to the medicine degree requires excellent secondary qualifications and high scores on the BMAT test.

Cambridge students, particularly medical students, have a busy schedule, juggling studies, college social events and a variety of recreational activities.

2. Harvard University

Founded in 1782, the medical school at Harvard University is the third-oldest medical school in the US.

Faculty of the school also teach in other science departments at Harvard, as well as working in clinical departments at some of the hospitals affiliated to the university.

There are four main teaching hospitals across the Boston area.

Harvard has introduced problem-based learning to the curriculum. There is also a specialised programme, accepting only 30 applicants each year, that focuses on biomedical research.

Medical students at Harvard belong to one of five societies named after alumni. Students work in small groups within each society, compete in sports competitions and attend social events.

1. University of Oxford

Medicine at the University of Oxford is a traditional course, split into pre-clinical and clinical stages.

About 150 students are admitted to the course each year, and another 30 to a graduate course that condenses medical studies into just four years.

In the first few years, students are taught theoretically with little patient contact. In the course’s later years, they move to the clinical phase, spending much more time at the John Radcliffe Hospital.

The university has two main libraries for medicine and clinical studies, one providing resources for the pre-clinical elements of the course and another focusing on healthcare.

In addition to its distinctive course, Oxford offers students the experience of college life, where social events and small tutorials take place.

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Best universities for medicine 2024

Click each institution to view its World University Rankings 2024 profile

Clinical sciences rank 2024	Clinical sciences rank 2023	University	Country/region
1	1	University of Oxford	United Kingdom
2	3	Harvard University	United States
3	2	University of Cambridge	United Kingdom
4	4	Imperial College London	United Kingdom
5	6	Stanford University	United States
6	11	Johns Hopkins University	United States
7	8	UCL	United Kingdom
8	9	Yale University	United States
9	7	University of Toronto	Canada
10	15	University of Pennsylvania	United States
11	=19	University of California, Berkeley	United States
12	12	Columbia University	United States
13	10	King’s College London	United Kingdom
14	5	Tsinghua University	China
15	16	University of California, Los Angeles	United States
=16	=19	Karolinska Institute	Sweden
=16	14	National University of Singapore	Singapore
18	=17	University of Washington	United States
19	13	University of Hong Kong	Hong Kong
20	=17	University of Melbourne	Australia
21	22	University of Michigan-Ann Arbor	United States
22	23	Duke University	United States
23	21	University of Edinburgh	United Kingdom
24	24	Peking University	China
25	28	The University of Chicago	United States
26	=32	McGill University	Canada
=27	29	University of California, San Diego	United States
=27	26	Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin	Germany
29	=32	Monash University	Australia
30	31	The University of Tokyo	Japan
31	=35	New York University	United States
=32	42	University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill	United States
=32	27	Washington University in St Louis	United States
34	37	University of British Columbia	Canada
35	=38	Universität Heidelberg	Germany
36	25	McMaster University	Canada
37	44	Chinese University of Hong Kong	Hong Kong
=38	45	Fudan University	China
=38	=35	University of Sydney	Australia
40	30	Northwestern University	United States
41	48	Boston University	United States
42	43	KU Leuven	Belgium
43	=32	Yonsei University (Seoul campus)	South Korea
=44	=38	Emory University	United States
=44	41	Seoul National University	South Korea
46	52	University of Amsterdam	Netherlands
47	47	Erasmus University Rotterdam	Netherlands
48	=38	Kyoto University	Japan
49	50	University of Manchester	United Kingdom
50	46	LMU Munich	Germany
51	51	ETH Zurich	Switzerland
52	53	Shanghai Jiao Tong University	China
53	49	University of Glasgow	United Kingdom
54	56	The University of Queensland	Australia
55	64	Maastricht University	Netherlands
56	58	Sichuan University	China
57	=54	University of Southern California	United States
58	57	Vanderbilt University	United States
59	=54	University of Bristol	United Kingdom
60	74	University of Zurich	Switzerland
61	=77	University of Groningen	Netherlands
=62	=60	Brown University	United States
=62	70	Leiden University	Netherlands
64	71	University of Copenhagen	Denmark
65	=60	Technical University of Munich	Germany
66	62	University of Pittsburgh-Pittsburgh campus	United States
67	85	University of Minnesota	United States
68	69	Queen Mary University of London	United Kingdom
69	82	Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU)	South Korea
70	73	University of Bern	Switzerland
71	59	University of Adelaide	Australia
72	=75	National Taiwan University (NTU)	Taiwan
73	=75	University of Alberta	Canada
=74	66	University of Birmingham	United Kingdom
=74	65	UNSW Sydney	Australia
76	86	University of Barcelona	Spain
77	79	University of Nottingham	United Kingdom
78	72	Sorbonne University	France
79	126–150	University of California, Davis	United States
80	101–125	Osaka University	Japan
81	=77	University of Cape Town	South Africa
82	=90	Zhejiang University	China
83	=67	Huazhong University of Science and Technology	China
=84	99	Lund University	Sweden
=84	63	Wuhan University	China
86	101–125	Aarhus University	Denmark
87	81	Tufts University	United States
=88	84	University of São Paulo	Brazil
=88	93	Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam	Netherlands
90	101–125	University of Montreal	Canada
91	101–125	University of Basel	Switzerland
92	101–125	University of Florida	United States
93	80	Newcastle University	United Kingdom
94	=94	Ohio State University (Main campus)	United States
95	101–125	Medical University of Vienna	Austria
96	98	University of Tübingen	Germany
97	=100	Ghent University	Belgium
=98	92	Case Western Reserve University	United States
=98	=90	University of Freiburg	Germany
=100	89	Nanyang Technological University, Singapore	Singapore
=100	=94	University of Ottawa	Canada
101–125	101–125	University of Antwerp	Belgium
101–125	101–125	University of Auckland	New Zealand
101–125	=100	Australian National University	Australia
101–125	101–125	University of Bologna	Italy
101–125	126–150	University of Calgary	Canada
101–125	97	Dartmouth College	United States
101–125	126–150	University of Gothenburg	Sweden
101–125	126–150	University of Helsinki	Finland
101–125	151–175	University of Illinois Chicago	United States
101–125	126–150	University of Iowa	United States
101–125	101–125	University of Leicester	United Kingdom
101–125	101–125	University of Liverpool	United Kingdom
101–125	126–150	Nanjing University	China
101–125	83	Université Paris Cité	France
101–125	126–150	Université Paris-Saclay	France
101–125	126–150	Radboud University Nijmegen	Netherlands
101–125	126–150	University of Rochester	United States
101–125	101–125	University of Sheffield	United Kingdom
101–125	88	University of Southampton	United Kingdom
101–125	101–125	Sun Yat-sen University	China
101–125	126–150	Uppsala University	Sweden
101–125	101–125	The University of Western Australia	Australia
101–125	176–200	University of Wisconsin-Madison	United States
101–125	87	University of York	United Kingdom
126–150	151–175	Université Catholique de Louvain	Belgium
126–150	151–175	University of Colorado Denver/Anschutz Medical Campus	United States
126–150	201–250	University of Erlangen-Nuremberg	Germany
126–150	151–175	University of Exeter	United Kingdom
126–150	176–200	University of Geneva	Switzerland
126–150	176–200	Georgetown University	United States
126–150	201–250	George Washington University	United States
126–150	251–300	University of Göttingen	Germany
126–150	101–125	University of Hamburg	Germany
126–150	151–175	Hong Kong Polytechnic University	Hong Kong
126–150	151–175	University of Lausanne	Switzerland
126–150	126–150	University of Leeds	United Kingdom
126–150	201–250	Université Libre de Bruxelles	Belgium
126–150	301–400	University of Massachusetts	United States
126–150	176–200	University of Miami	United States
126–150	176–200	University of Milan	Italy
126–150	101–125	Oregon Health and Science University	United States
126–150	126–150	University of Oslo	Norway
126–150	126–150	Queen’s University	Canada
126–150	126–150	Queen’s University Belfast	United Kingdom
126–150	151–175	University of Texas at Dallas	United States
126–150	151–175	Tohoku University	Japan
126–150	151–175	Trinity College Dublin	Ireland
126–150	126–150	Ulm University	Germany
126–150	201–250	University of Utah	United States
126–150	101–125	University of Warwick	United Kingdom
126–150	151–175	Western University	Canada
151–175	176–200	University of Bonn	Germany
151–175	201–250	University of California, Irvine	United States
151–175	176–200	Cardiff University	United Kingdom
151–175	201–250	University of Cologne	Germany
151–175	176–200	Humanitas University	Italy
151–175	=94	King Abdulaziz University	Saudi Arabia
151–175	151–175	Korea University	South Korea
151–175	176–200	La Trobe University	Australia
151–175	201–250	Université Laval	Canada
151–175	176–200	Macquarie University	Australia
151–175	151–175	University of Milan-Bicocca	Italy
151–175	251–300	University of Münster	Germany
151–175	201–250	University of Padua	Italy
151–175	201–250	RWTH Aachen University	Germany
151–175	101–125	St George’s, University of London	United Kingdom
151–175	201–250	University of Southern Denmark	Denmark
151–175	126–150	Stellenbosch University	South Africa
151–175	151–175	University of Technology Sydney	Australia
151–175	251–300	University of Texas at Austin	United States
151–175	176–200	Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU)	Japan
151–175	201–250	TU Dresden	Germany
151–175	151–175	University of Virginia (Main campus)	United States
151–175	126–150	Vita-Salute San Raffaele University	Italy
151–175	101–125	Wageningen University & Research	Netherlands
151–175	126–150	University of the Witwatersrand	South Africa
151–175	126–150	University of Würzburg	Germany
176–200	126–150	University of Aberdeen	United Kingdom
176–200	151–175	Autonomous University of Barcelona	Spain
176–200	251–300	University of Bath	United Kingdom
176–200	176–200	University of Bergen	Norway
176–200	NR	Catholic University of the Sacred Heart	Italy
176–200	201–250	University of Dundee	United Kingdom
176–200	201–250	Indiana University	United States
176–200	201–250	University of Kiel	Germany
176–200	101–125	Lancaster University	United Kingdom
176–200	251–300	University of Macau	Macao
176–200	201–250	Medical University of Graz	Austria
176–200	251–300	Medical University of Innsbruck	Austria
176–200	201–250	Michigan State University	United States
176–200	176–200	University of Newcastle	Australia
176–200	126–150	Northeastern University, US	United States
176–200	151–175	University of Otago	New Zealand
176–200	301–400	Penn State (Main campus)	United States
176–200	201–250	Pompeu Fabra University	Spain
176–200	176–200	Queensland University of Technology	Australia
176–200	201–250	RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences	Ireland
176–200	201–250	University of South Florida	United States
176–200	251–300	Technical University of Denmark	Denmark
176–200	201–250	Tel Aviv University	Israel
176–200	176–200	University College Cork	Ireland
176–200	201–250	University College Dublin	Ireland