2. British mode
Students in the UK apply to university after high school, and after 3 years of general undergraduate study they go on to medical school for 4 years of medical study. Or they enter university after high school for 2 years of pre-clinical study followed by 2-3 years of clinical medicine. The final degree is the Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery (MBBS), which is a requirement for physician registration. In the UK, there are medical masters and doctoral degrees, but they are not directly linked to the practice of medicine. After obtaining the MBBS, medical students have to go through several stages of post-graduate medical education, including pre-registration residency, senior residency, chief residency and senior chief residency [26]. In the chief residency stage, physicians can apply for the doctoral degree, which is awarded after a period of full-time research in a research position with corresponding results; surgeons can obtain a master’s degree after 1 to 1.5 years of full-time research work. The master’s and doctoral degrees are not necessarily linked to post-graduate education, but chief residents may not be promoted to senior chief resident until obtaining master’s or doctoral degrees [27].