The application process

Incoming students from the University of Sheffield

Sheffield medical students wishing to complete their 3a SSC/3b elective in Sheffield should initially contact the relevant NHS Trust undergraduate office to determine if an elective is possible in their chosen field. Students should not approach consultants directly.

Education office contacts

• Sheffield Teaching Hospitals – Students at Sheffield Medical School must use this enquiry form

• Sheffield Children's Hospital – scn-tr.medicaleducation@nhs.net 

• Sheffield Health and Social Care – students@shsc.nhs.uk   

If there is space and a consultant able to supervise the placement, the UG office will then advise the student of this. The University MBChB Later Years admin team will then just require a letter/email agreeing to the agreed placement. Students have been advised to allow a lead time of approximately six weeks. Students from Sheffield Medical School do NOT pay any fee (admin or tuition).

Incoming students from other universities

The incoming programme has been reopened in the STH and the STH had directed the medical school that the Trust will accept one student from a UK-based medical school and one student from an international medical school for a period of four weeks in each calendar month. For the other principal NHS Trusts (SCH and SHSC) we will be guided by their own local policies and capacity at the time of placement request regarding how many students they are able to accommodate. 

Each local NHS provider has agreements in place for the number of Sheffield medical students that they can host at a particular time to ensure capacity is not overburdened. In terms of the elective programme, the University medical school does not dictate how many students each NHS organisation can take on to their respective estates. If clinical consultants are approached directly by prospective elective students (be that from Sheffield medical school or elsewhere), the student should be directed to the undergraduate medical education office within a given NHS Trust to ensure there is space to accommodate extra students without affecting the pre-agreed clinical teaching. Education office contacts for the Central hospitals…

Education office contacts

• Sheffield Teaching Hospitals – sth.undergraduatemedicaladmin@nhs.net  

• Sheffield Children's Hospital – scn-tr.medicaleducation@nhs.net 

• Sheffield Health and Social Care  – students@shsc.nhs.uk   

The medical school fields all applicants for this process and this ensures the relevant NHS Trust has a list of all elective students on its estate whilst also giving the students temporary registration with the University while on elective. Prospective medical students should ideally be in the later years of their clinical training (years 4-5, potentially year 3) before they commence any elective. This ensures they have sufficient clinical experience to gain the most from their time in Sheffield. 

Deadlines

This is a rolling programme with no specific deadlines, but we still require time to process your application. We recommend you apply at least four months in advance of your preferred placement date.

Elective attachments

If you have been accepted to do an elective attachment by a Sheffield Teaching Hospitals member of staff, you should state this in your application and include the supervisor's name and email. You will also need to include a confirmation email or letter from that supervisor.

Submitting your application

Once the student has completed the application and uploaded all their documents, it is checked, and if all documents are present and in order, it will be shared with the relevant NHS Trust undergraduate office. In turn, they would contact a consultant in the student’s specific list of interests (three choices are given). If no place is available, the student is advised of this and their application is rejected.

If the student already has a nominated supervisor, this should be made clear in the student’s application form. Again, the relevant NHS Trust undergraduate office would be contacted to confirm this. Please note, if a student states they have a placement agreement with a given consultant, this will be verified by the local undergraduate medical education office to ensure there is space to accommodate the student without detriment to other teaching. 

If students fail to supply all the document at the time of application, their application will be rejected immediately. This is because we will get so many applications for all Trusts that waiting for individual documents becomes a significant admin task. The students are advised of this and are encouraged to adhere to this request.

Once the placement is agreed and an offer made to the student, the student can then either accept that and pay the admin fee or decline it and pay nothing. 

The medical school will then liaise with the student and arrange their OH screening and the induction day with the relevant NHS trust. The student will meet with medical school staff at the start of their placement to facilitate this.

Confirmation of your offer

Providing you meet all of the conditions of your offer, we will then send you a letter of final confirmation detailing appointments for your first day of placement.

This will include

• inductions with the Medical School and the relevant NHS Foundation Trust
• an occupational health appointment (if applicable)
• registration with the University
• meeting your Clinical Supervisor

Inductions

We offer two inductions for our elective students, one for the University and one for the Hospital.

Further information will be provided when you receive confirmation of your offer.

Contact

The Academic team overseeing the incoming medical electives programme are Dr Neil Chapman (n.r.chapman@sheffield.ac.uk) and Mr James Teasdale (james.teasdale@sheffield.ac.uk). 

The MBChB Later Years Team can be reached at mbchb-lateryears@sheffield.ac.uk.