Ulster University’s medical school celebrates first graduation

The first cohort of newly qualified doctors has graduated from Ulster University’s School of Medicine in Londonderry.

Prior to the school opening at the university’s campus in Derry, the only medical school in Northern Ireland was at Queen’s University in Belfast.

The inaugural graduation ceremony for the MBBS (Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery) students, who started their training at the Derry school in 2021, took place in the city’s Millennium Forum on Monday.

Laura Hockley was among the school’s first graduates and said it was “amazing” to be able to train at a medical school in her hometown.

“I am really proud that it (the medical school) is in Derry,” she told BBC Radio Foyle’s Twenty Minutes with Mark Patterson programme.

“I couldn’t have afforded to study medicine anywhere else. When they announced the school of medicine opening up at home I thought this was my opportunity to do something I have always wanted to do. It was an opportunity I never thought I was going to get,” she said.

Laura, who had previously studied a degree in biomedical science, is due to start her career at the cardiology department of Altnagelvin Hospital in July.

She is among the first 69 students to graduate from Ulster University’s graduate medical school.