Medicine and Surgery (single-cycle Master’s degree)

About the course

A six-year single-cycle degree in medicine and surgery (360 ECTS), taught entirely in English at Humanitas University near Milan. Clinical training starts in year three, and there is an optional research track (the Virgilio Programme).

Entry requirements for Irish students

• The university assesses the Irish Leaving Certificate individually and does not publish a fixed Irish requirement. Contact admissions to confirm. In general, you need a secondary school diploma after at least 12 years of schooling, accompanied by a Declaration of Value from the Italian diplomatic representation. Students in their final or second-to-last year of school can sit the test. For comparison, UK applicants need 3 A-levels.
• Humanitas runs its own admission test, taken online from home: 60 multiple-choice questions in 120 minutes, in three sections: Scientific Thinking and Academic Literacy (20), Biology and Chemistry (20), and Mathematics and Physics (20). The maximum score is 960, and for 2026 the minimum section scores for Medicine were 88, 64 and 40 respectively. You can sit both rounds, and only your better score counts.
• English: B2 level (CEFR). If you pass the admission test, you do not need to send a separate English certificate.

Working in Ireland afterwards

Because your medical degree comes from an EU/EEA country, the Medical Council of Ireland can recognise it automatically under EU Directive 2005/36/EC, as long as it is listed in Annex V (point 5.1.1). If that listing says the degree must come with an internship or state-exam certificate from your home country, you need to have that too, and you must also show your current professional standing and meet the English-language requirements. Graduates of EU/EEA medical schools may apply to the HSE for Irish intern posts, but only if their home-country degree does not already count as complete training. In older HSE intern guides (e.g., the 2022 guide), only graduates from medical schools in Ireland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Iceland and Slovenia could apply. Graduates from other EEA countries (and Italians holding the ‘abilitante’ degree) were told they are not eligible, because they qualify directly for General registration. Applicants who need no work permit were matched before those who do. Please check the current eligibility list in the HSE intern guide for the year you apply. We could not confirm it for the July 2027 intake because the current HSE guide pages are password-protected.

How to apply

1. Register onlineCreate an account on the Humanitas portal and apply for the admission test. For the 2026 cycle, registration opened on 18 November 2025.
2. Pay and choose a roundPay the EUR 200 test fee by credit card and choose Round 1 and/or Round 2. For 2026, the deadlines were 26 February and 12 March at 12:00 CET.
3. Sit the online testTake the 120-minute test from home (5-6 March and 18-20 March in 2026). Revise Biology, Chemistry, Maths, Physics and scientific reasoning using the syllabus in the call for applications.
4. Check the ranking and enrolRankings were published on 30 March in 2026. If you get a place, enrol and pay the EUR 5,206 first instalment by the deadline (8 April in 2026), and arrange the Declaration of Value for your Leaving Certificate.

Costs

• For 2026/27, EU students pay a fee based on family income (ISEP index): EUR 10,206 (under EUR 30,000), EUR 15,206 (EUR 30,000-55,000), EUR 19,206 (EUR 55,000-80,000) or EUR 23,206 (over EUR 80,000). The figure shown is the top band; your band depends on your ISEP assessment. The university says the fee will not vary significantly across the years of the course, and it does not cover accommodation, food, books or other services. There is also a non-refundable EUR 200 admission test fee (credit card only), and a first instalment of EUR 5,206 must be paid to enrol. As a private university, Humanitas charges these fees to EU students too. For 2026/27, two partial scholarships (reducing tuition to EUR 5,206 in total) were offered to EU citizens not resident in Italy who ranked in the top 30 on the entrance exam.

At a glance