Hospital Placement Opportunities for Undergraduates

Successful students will have the opportunity to shadow their supporting consultant and allied clinicians within a cardiothoracic surgery department during patient clinics, ward rounds and in the operating theatre. Students will undergo a brief induction at the beginning of the placement.

Students will complete the placement with a signed logbook record (using the Surgical eLogbook) detailing their time spent in the operating theatre and if completed satisfactorily they will also receive a certificate of completion of the placement and a letter of reference from the consultant surgeon they have been attached to.

Applicants will be within two years of graduating from a UK medical school. Applicants will usually have already been actively involved in extra-curricular activities relating to cardiothoracic surgery, for example, attendance at undergraduate or postgraduate cardiothoracic surgery conferences or meetings, involvement in research or active reading in the specialty. The details of these activities should be listed on the application form.

Applicants will be required to write a 500 word essay on why they want to be a cardiac or thoracic surgeon. This essay and the evidence of early years’ interest in the specialty will be considered by a panel of participating cardiothoracic consultant surgeons.  Successful applicants will choose their preferred hospital after being accepted, and not doing the initial application.

Applications can be found and submitted here.

Successful applicants will stay in the hospital residences of their selected hospital. This provides basic hospital accommodation with local supermarkets nearby. The cost of the accommodation and one return journey to and from the assigned hospital will be covered by a small grant from the College up to the value of £300 per student. Students will be required to produce receipts for their accommodation and travel.

Applications closed on 14 April 2025.

RCSEd in collaboration with Vascutek, are proud to support a number of cardiothoracic placements to senior medical students in UK universities. The successful applications will work for 2-4 weeks under the supervision of consultant surgeons at James Cook Hospital in Middlesborough, Royal Papworth Hospital in Cambridge, University Hospitals Bristol and other UK cardiothoracic centres. Each placement will offer successful applicants supervised time in the operating theatre, opportunity to shadow the day-to-day activities of trainees, consultants and allied clinicians and professionals in the department. Cardiothoracic surgery is one of the smallest surgical specialties but offers some of the most exciting and varied opportunities in which to practice medicine and surgery, as such RCSEd are delighted to offer affiliate medical students this opportunity.

Successful applicants will be required to write a short report on their experience of the placement for publication on the College website and potentially the College’s quarterly membership magazine Surgeons’ News (at the Editor’s discretion). Please see below (documents section) for reports written by students who have completed the placement.

One student's update can also be found on the College blog here from his 2023 placement in Bristol.