King's College London

Cardiovascular disease is the single biggest condition where lives can be saved by the NHS over the next 10 years. Our intercalated Cardiovascular Medicine BSc offers the opportunity to develop an in-depth understanding of cardiovascular medicine and research in a British Heart Foundation Centre of Excellence. Our multidisciplinary course covers emerging and existing topics in underlying physiology, translational research diagnostics and therapeutic intervention relevant to a patient with cardiovascular disease.

This one-year intercalated BSc will provide students with the knowledge and skills relevant to cardiovascular science, clinical cardiology, and vascular medicine. Students will investigate how these are integrated and then applied to the individual patient and populations.

This course will offer a solid foundation in theory and research methods that is linked to real-life clinical cases and taught by practicing clinicians from UK’s leading hospitals. In addition to clinically informed teaching, students will have access to leading cardiovascular clinicians and benefit from mentoring and networking – valuable for future clinical careers.

This course is suited for medical students wishing to develop an in-depth understanding of cardiovascular medicine and research out of personal interest, or as part of career preparation towards specialty training.

The programme is divided into modules totaling 120 credits. There are 5 compulsory modules which include:

Module 1: Cardiovascular Sciences - This module focuses on mechanisms governing normal cardiac and vascular function, and a firm grounding in the basic principles and techniques underlying cardiovascular research.

Module 2: Heart Muscle and Vascular Disorders - This module addresses the underlying pathophysiology, experimental interrogation, clinical consequences, and management of disease processes that affect heart muscles, the coronary circulation and the peripheral vasculature.

Module 3: Cardiac Electrics and Imaging - This module teaches on the main cardiac imaging modalities and interrogation of cardiac electrical activity.

Module 4: Translational Cardiovascular Medicine - This model involves the application of basic and clinical science to patient diagnosis and treatment and learning practical echocardiography.

Module 5: Cardiovascular Research Project - The aim of this module is for all students to carry out research project which will encompass both quantitative big data or laboratory-based research projects, literature reviews or qualitative educational based projects. Students will gain the ability to understand both quantitative and/or qualitative research designs, plan projects and present a written project dissertation and short oral presentation.

Examples of previous Research Projects:
• Identification of a new mechanical force-sensitive molecule in cardiomyocytes
• Monitoring immune cell trafficking in the infarcted myocardium.
• Impact of hybrid closed loop insulin therapy in patients with suboptimally controlled Type 1 diabetes
• Unravelling the dark proteome of atherosclerotic plaques