We're training a different kind of doctor
At St Mary's London School of Medicine, we train doctors who combine clinical excellence with a deep understanding of people, communities and the factors that shape health – and who are committed to serving where they’re needed most.
Explore Medicine at St Mary's
The vision and mission of St Mary’s School of Medicine
Healthcare is changing fast. The NHS 10 Year Health Plan sets out three shifts: from hospital to community, from analogue to digital, and from treating sickness to preventing it. We’re training doctors ready to help make those shifts happen.
Traditional medical training focuses on diagnosis and treatment. Ours does that too, but it also gives you the skills to understand everything else that affects your patients' health. We call this social accountability.
It means that what we teach, research, and do is shaped by the health needs of the communities we serve, and that we're open with them whether we're getting it right.
Social accountability in everything we do
When we designed the course, we spoke with 120 local people across Hounslow, Richmond and Wandsworth, including parents, carers, older people, faith groups, community organisations and NHS staff.
We asked the community one question: when you or someone you love is unwell, what kind of doctor do you want by your side? Their answer was someone clinically excellent but also someone who takes the time to understand them as individuals.
Having this kind of doctor matters, because more than 80% of a person's health is determined by where they live, what they earn, their housing, their education, who they know, and how they’re treated by society and the system.
10-20% of health outcomes are determined by healthcare. Source: The King's Fund. Understanding Health Inequalities.
The five golden threads
Every doctor we train will carry five qualities into their practice:
- Humility: recognising that people know things about their own life and health that we don’t.
- Curiosity: asking about the person, not only the symptom.
- Trust: building connection, so people share what’s really going on at home.
- Emergence: being comfortable not knowing everything, and ready to adapt.
- Pride: respecting the pride and strength in communities facing the greatest inequalities.
Read the framework we co-designed with more than 120 community members, carers and partners.
Meet our Founding Executive Dean
Professor Sonia Kumar’s vision for the School grew from more than two decades in community health and medical education. She leads a team of clinicians and academics from the front line of healthcare.
"I feel honoured to take on this founding role to lead the new School of Medicine. I am immensely proud to be part of this significant moment in St Mary’s history, bringing my shared values, vision and experience to serve in the best interests of our students, colleagues and most importantly our society.
We are advancing the future of medical education by integrating world-leading scientific and digital excellence with core human values and social purpose in new, custom-designed facilities.
Students will be part of an exciting new beginning, a School of Medicine that is transforming medical education, developing human-focused and purpose-driven doctors who lead by example, changing our world for the better, for all of us."
Professor Sonia Kumar, Founding Executive Dean of Medicine
We partner with organisations across the healthcare sector
Working together for healthier communities
Social accountability needs everyone at the table: community members, health partners, policymakers, academics and local government. We work with:
- NHS and care partners: including West London NHS Trust, Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, Practice Plus Group Hospital Ilford, GP practices, and Meadow House, Royal Trinity and Princess Alice hospices.
- Community partners: carers, faith groups, charities and local organisations across Hounslow, Richmond and Wandsworth – starting from the strengths communities already have.
- Global partners: we’re part of THEnet, the international network of health professions schools committed to social accountability, and we collaborate with partners in Australia, Canada, India, Europe and the United States.
A purpose-built home for medicine
Named to mark 175 years of St Mary’s and 100 years at our Strawberry Hill location, the Centenary Building is the home of our School of Medicine. Its Integrated Skills and Simulation Suite mirrors real healthcare settings, with a teaching ward, A&E spaces, assisted living areas and GP consultation rooms, so students practise in spaces like those they’ll work in. In the Anatomage room, they explore the human body through high-resolution 3D imaging.
Our campus is green, calm and in one of London’s safest boroughs. Our placements reach into neighbouring communities facing real health inequalities. Medical students train in both worlds.
Regulation, quality and accountability
Open and answerable
We teach a full medical curriculum approved by the General Medical Council (GMC), the UK regulator for medical education. Like every new medical school in the UK, we’re working through the GMC’s quality assurance process, with annual reviews until our first students graduate. The University of Lancashire is our contingency partner, so students who pass all their assessments will graduate with a GMC-recognised medical qualification.
Being accountable also means reporting back to the communities who helped shape us, and making it easy for anyone to raise a concern.
Explore our Medicine degree
Contact us
- Admissions: med.admissions@stmarys.ac.uk
- Press and media: press.office@stmarys.ac.uk
- International student enquiries: international.enquiries@stmarys.ac.uk