THE University of York was holding a double celebration today as the first Hull York Medical School (HYMS) students started arriving on campus.

The medical students were arriving the day after the university was named Sunday Times University Of The Year.

The influx of medical students comes after almost three years of work to establish the medical school - a partnership between the Universities of Hull and York, and the NHS.

North Yorkshire, the East Riding and Northern Lincolnshire was previously the largest area in England not to have a medical school.

The medical school is a crucial part of national efforts to increase the number of doctors and to modernise medical education, all of which aims to have a positive effect on healthcare in the region.

The 69 students based in York, and the 68 based in Hull, will have clinical placements at GP surgeries and hospitals in or near the two cities.

Students will work in the community from the start of their course and there will be an emphasis on evidence-based treatments, efficient use of resources, developing communication skills and problem-based learning.

This approach will include "patient simulators" - people who undertake role-plays as patients - to help medical students develop skills in diagnosis and patient-doctor dialogue.

Professor Bill Gillespie, dean of the medical school, said: "HYMS will be providing a world-class opportunity to study an exciting and forward-thinking curriculum.

"Many things will be done for the first time over the next five years, but the input of the very first students will be invaluable in getting the details right."

The award of the title, Sunday Times University Of The Year, comes after years as one of the most consistent performers in the paper's university league tables.

In the University Guide, published in the Sunday Times yesterday, the Heslington-based institution was said to have forged "a modern approach to higher education".

The guide said: "It has managed a difficult balancing act between a traditional setting and subject mix and a slightly alternative attitude."

The university was commended for recruiting more than its target proportion of students from state schools, for its graduate unemployment rate of only 5.5 per cent, and for the opening of HYMS.

Updated: 10:52 Monday, September 15, 2003