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The privately run Buckingham University is to launch a two-year clinical MD programme in general internal medicine, costing ?16,000 a year. The course, which will start in April 2008, will be run in conjunction with NHS hospitals.

The course is the first from Buckingham's postgraduate medical school and is aimed at overseas graduates who have already qualified in medicine but want to study medical sub-specialities. Karol Sikora, the dean of school, said that in the past these graduates would have come to the UK to work as senior house officers, but changes to immigration rules meant they were no longer able to do so.

Terence Kealey, Buckingham's vice-chancellor, said: "The creation of Britain's first independent postgraduate medical school marks an important step towards a new and better model for postgraduate medical education."