Placements

Queen Mary's Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry prioritises problem-based learning, aided through early patient contact and early clinical skills. Early clinical exposure is promoted through the Medicine in Society (MedSoc) component of the medical degree.

As a Queen Mary student in Malta, you will be meeting patients early on in your undergraduate medical education, helping you understand patients and how they are affected by their condition. A Primary Care Placement takes place in Year 1, followed by primary and secondary care placements in Year 2.

Clinical Placements are organised within Malta’s major hospitals, including the Gozo General Hospital, as well as Mater Dei Hospital, Mount Carmel Hospital, St Vincent de Paul, and Karin Grech Hospital on Malta.

Here at Queen Mary, Malta we want you to graduate with as much hands-on experience as possible under your white coat. We think placements are the best way to train new doctors, because they allow students to understand what life is like in a working hospital.

But for every placement there are two perspectives. As a doctor, what's it like taking students around the wards? And as a student, how scary are placements and how do they help? We asked Prof Robert Sciberras, Lead Clinician at Gozo General Hospital and Deputy Dean at Queen Mary, Malta Campus, and student Jonathan Morris to share their stories.

Check out One Placement, Two Perspectives

Primary Care placements take place in community clinics in and around Malta. They are led by GP tutors and are aimed at introducing students to patients and patients’ experience of health and ill-health over the course of their lives.

Clinical Foundation years in the UK 

From 2025, all UK medical students will need to pass the Medical Licensing Assessment (MLA) before joining the Medical Register. We will deliver the MLA as part of your assessments and overall qualification. The MLA will set a common threshold for safe practice, giving patients and employers greater confidence in doctors new to working in the UK. Further information can be found here.

As an MBBS Malta graduate, with a degree validated by the UK General Medical Council (GMC), you will be able to apply for a Foundation Doctor position in the UK. However, Queen Mary does not administer the UK Foundation Programme, and cannot control whether, or on what basis, applicants are accepted into the Programme and no-one (including our Queen Mary London MBBS graduates) is guaranteed a post on qualification. The ability to proceed with an application for the UK Foundation Programme depends on multiple factors, including an individual’s immigration status and right to work in the UK, i.e. his or her eligibility, but also on the rules of the employer at the time of application (for the UK Foundation Programme, this is the NHS).  UK immigration rules change frequently and are complex and the NHS employment priorities and rules are also liable to change.  It is the responsibility of the students themselves to determine their eligibility for application since individual circumstances will vary and it is important that students understand their personal situation in relation to their application.

The UK Government announced emergency legislation that prioritises UK medical graduates over International Medical Graduates (IMGs) in the allocation of jobs for the UK Foundation Programme FP and speciality training on 13 January 2026 and it became law in early March. Following the introduction of this legislation, QMUL Malta graduates are now designated as IMGs despite the fact that they undertake an identical course to that taken by QMUL London students, take the same examinations, including UK national qualifying exams, and are regulated by the UK General Medical Council (GMC).

The Government was not prepared to accept any amendment to the primary legislation. We have been told that they are very sympathetic to our students’ cause and that there may be scope for some subsequent modification of this position. However, we do not yet know what that will mean in practice. The Act contains provision for the Secretary of State to include additional groups of students in the prioritised category and we continue to press the case for our graduates.

Our graduates remain eligible to apply for the UK Foundation Programme and we are hopeful they will secure posts as they become available in subsequent allocation rounds. The experience of previous years of declined offers means that this is indeed a reasonable expectation. However, the time frame over which this will happen has not be clarified.

The Maltese Government have confirmed flexibility in the allocation of its Foundation Programme jobs this year. We are working closely with them on how this process is operationalised. Completion of the Malta Foundation Programme is recognised as an equivalent academic experience to completing the UK FP including full registration with the GMC at the successful completion of the two-year programme, but it will not give a doctor the same prioritisation status for UK Speciality Training.

We recognise that the situation is unsettling for our current students and we understand that this will be a concern to people considering applying to the QMUL Malta course. There are still many issues that require clarification and we are pursuing these. We will continue to provide updates on the situation throughout the summer, so that applicants are informed of the most up-to-date information before they are required to make a final decision about accepting their offer to study on the MBBS Programme in Malta.

Clinical Foundation years in Malta

You will be able to apply for Foundation School posts in Malta. The right to work in Malta will depend on immigration rules in place at the time of your graduation.

Right to work in Malta

EU nationals hold the right to work in Malta and are exempt from applying for an employment licence. Since you will be staying in Malta for longer than three months, you will have to apply for a Maltese e-residence card. An EU citizen and family members who have resided legally in Malta for a continuous period of five years may then apply for permanent residency.

Non-EU citizens must apply for an employment licence (Work Permit) to be able to work in Malta. A work permit is issued for third country nationals who wish to work and reside in Malta. The permit will be valid for work with a single employer. Employment licences are generally issued for a period of one year.

The Employment and Training Corporation in Malta screens all third country national applications for a single work permit. The Corporation takes into account labour market considerations, including the national situation with regard to surpluses and shortages in the specific employment sector.

Language requirements to work as an FY doctor in Malta

The Malta Medical Council (MMC) requires that qualified doctors demonstrate fluency in medical Maltese in order to be able to practice medicine in Malta.  Queen Mary Malta has developed a course in Medical Maltese. We have asked the MMC to recognise this as evidence of adequate fluency in the language to be able to practice there.

Residency in the USA and Canada 

US and Canadian students can study on the five-year MBBS (Malta) Programme directly after high school without first undertaking a four-year college undergraduate degree. Students may apply to stay in Malta for their early postgraduate training at the end of the five-year MBBS (Malta) programme or apply for residency in their home (or indeed third) country, without having to undertake a four-year postgraduate medicine qualification.

The Sponsor Note on our listing in the World Directory of Medical Schools (WDOMS) confirms that the MBBS degree, awarded by Barts & The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, Queen Mary in Malta, is acceptable to the Education Commission of Foreign Medical Graduates (ECFMG).  This means that current students and graduates of this medical school are eligible to apply for ECFMG certification. If the USMLE Steps 1 and 2 CK and Step 2 CS requirements are satisfied, graduates may continue and take Step 3. This acceptability by ECFMG also allows our students and graduates to sit Part 1 of the Medical Council of Canada Qualifying Examination (MCCQE).