Top medical schools

The recently released QS World University Rankings by Subject features 682 of the top higher education institutes to study medicine. 

The QS University Rankings by Subject are based on five indicators: academic reputation, employer reputation, research citations per paper, the H-index (a way of measuring the productivity and published work of a scientist or scholar) and international research network. You can find more details about the methodology behind the subject rankings here. 

Read on to discover the best medical schools in each region. Alternatively, if you would like to explore the medical schools in further detail, click here to view the full table. 

QS University Rankings by Subject – Top 10 medical schools
Rank	University	Location
1	Harvard University	United States
2	Oxford University	United Kingdom
3	Stanford University	United States
4	Johns Hopkins University	United States
5	Cambridge University	United Kingdom
6	University College London (UCL)	United Kingdom
7	Karolinska Institutet	Sweden
8	Imperial College London	United Kingdom
9	University of California, Los Angeles	United States
10	University of California, San Francisco	United States

Top universities for medicine in the US and Canada

112 of the world’s best medical schools are found in the United States, with five of these making it into the worldwide top ten. Harvard University offers the world’s best medical programme for the eighth consecutive year, achieving a perfect score for academic and employer reputation, H-index citations, and international research network. Also, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a global medical research leader, despite not making the top ten this year, with the highest score in the country for citations per paper. 

Canada has 17 medical schools in the ranking this year, with its top-scoring university, University of Toronto, ranked 15th in the world and earning its highest score in the H-index citations indicator. Also in the global top 50 in Canada are McGill University (22nd), University of British Columbia (28th) and McMaster University (40th). 

Top universities for medicine in Europe

Europe is home to 252 of the top universities to study medicine. Of these, the United Kingdom claims 48 of Europe’s top medical schools, including four of the global top ten. Outside of the top ten, there are plenty of other medical schools which perform very well including King’s College London (13th), London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (18th), The University of Edinburgh (22nd), The University of Manchester (32nd) and University of Glasgow (48th). 

France performs well this year with 18 universities featured, including two in the top 150, Sorbonne University (49th) and Université Paris-Saclay (140th), both scoring well in the research citations per paper indicator. 

Italy also performed well with an incredible 30 universities in the rankings this year including four in the top 150. 

Germany contains a staggering 32 universities in the medicine rankings this year with two of these in the top 50: Universität Heidelberg (36th) and Ludwig-Maximillians-Universität München (43rd). 

Spain is home to 19 featured universities with Universitat de Barcelona in the top 100, placing joint 46th. 

The Netherlands contains nine medical schools in the ranking this year, two of which are in the top 50: University of Amsterdam (30th) and Erasmus University Rotterdam (39th). 

Denmark has five universities in the rankings. University of Copenhagen is 43rd in the world and scored well in the citations per paper indicator. 

Sweden’s eight entries in this year’s rankings include Karolinska Institutet, the only medicine university outside of the UK and the US in the worldwide top ten medical school ranking, achieving a rank of fifth and scoring particularly well for academic reputation, with a near-perfect score. 

Top universities for medicine in Australia and New Zealand

In Australia, there are 26 universities, three of which are in the global top 50: The University of Melbourne (24th), The University of Sydney (25th) and Monash University (40th). 

New Zealand has three entries in the ranking this year with the University of Auckland within the top 150 universities in the world at 122nd. 

Top universities for medicine in Asia

This year’s medicine subject ranking includes 187 of the best medical schools in Asia. Japan contains the most medicine schools in Asia, an impressive 32, including two in the world top 100 – The University of Tokyo (42nd) and Kyoto University (59th). 

Mainland China also performed well with 30 medical schools featured and four universities placing in the top 100: Peking University (38th) Fudan University (74th), Tsinghua University (76th) and Shanghai Jiao Tong University (80th). 

South Korea has 22 universities in this year’s rankings with Seoul National University in 37th. 

India is also home to eleven universities in this year’s rankings with one new entry, SRM Institute of Science and Technology ranking 651-680 for its medical school. 

Malaysia contains ten top medical schools, adding one into the rankings this year. 

Also performing well in the rankings this year is Taiwan with ten universities featuring and National Taiwan University in the top 100 at joint 46th.  

Hong Kong SAR also has many medical schools including The Chinese University of Hong Kong (joint 29th) and The University of Hong Kong (joint 40th). 

Top universities for medicine in the Middle East

The Middle East is home to 48 of the world’s best medical schools. Saudi Arabia contains the highest number of medical schools, seven, closely followed by Israel which has six. Of these King Adulaziz University (joint 126th) and Tel Aviv University (151-200) rank the highest in their respective countries. 

Lebanon has three entries this year with the American University of Beirut coming out on top, ranked 151-200 . 

Jordan has two entries, the United Arab Emirates also have two entries and Iraq, Oman, Qatar, and Kuwait each have one. 

Top universities for medicine in Latin America  

There are 59 medical universities in Latin America featured in the QS University Rankings by Subject this year. Brazil claims the highest proportion of these, 20 in total, including Universidade de São Paulo (64th) in the global top 100. 

Chile has eleven universities in the ranking including its top university for medicine, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (96th) and two new entries, Universidad de Valparaíso and Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Valparaíso. 

Columbia also has eleven medical schools featured in the ranking with Universidad Nacional de Columbia retaining the title of the best university in the country to study medicine. 

Argentina has five entries this year with one new school being added since last year. Universidad de Buenos Aires scores the highest, ranking 151-200 in the world rankings for this subject. 

Mexico has six entries including Universidad Nacional Autonóma de Mexico which has placed in the top 200 globally. 

Top universities for medicine in Africa

Africa also performed well in the rankings this year with 25 university entries. South Africa is home to eight of these, including the University of Cape Town (88th) which ranks in the global top 100. 

Egypt contains nine of these universities, including Cairo University which is named the best medical school in the country and ranks in the global top 250.