University of Edinburgh Medical School

The University of Edinburgh Medical School (also known as Edinburgh Medical School) is the medical school of the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and the United Kingdom and part of the College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine. It was established in 1726, during the Scottish Enlightenment, making it the oldest medical school in the United Kingdom and the oldest medical school in the English-speaking world.

The medical school in 2022 was ranked 1st in the UK by the Guardian University Guide,^[1] In 2021, it was ranked 3rd in the UK by The Times University Guide,^[2] and the Complete University Guide. It also ranked 21st in the world by both the Times Higher Education World University Rankings and the QS World University Rankings in the same year.^[3] According to a Healthcare Survey run by Saga in 2006, the medical school's main teaching hospital, the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, was considered the best hospital in Scotland.

The medical school is associated with 13 Nobel Prize laureates: 7 in the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine and 6 in the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.^[4] Graduates of the medical school have founded medical schools and universities all over the world including 5 out of the 7 Ivy League medical schools (Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Pennsylvania and Dartmouth), Vermont, McGill, Sydney, Montréal, the Royal Postgraduate Medical School (now part of Imperial College London), the Cape Town, Birkbeck, Middlesex Hospital and the London School of Medicine for Women (both now part of UCL).

As of 2017^[update] the school accepted 184 medical students per year from the United Kingdom, 5 students from the European Union and an additional 14 students from elsewhere.^[5] However, since 2020, admission numbers have spiked, with more than 300 students enrolled in the 2022/23 academic year. Admission is extremely competitive, with an acceptance rate of 2.5% in the 2021-2022 admissions year.^[6] The yield rate, the percentage of people who are accepted who choose to attend, is 71% for the 2012–13 admissions year.^[7] The school requires the 3rd highest entry grades in the UK according to the Guardian University Guide 2014.^[8] Moira Whyte has been head of the school since 2016.^[9]