Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery
Medical degrees differ from other undergraduate degrees in that they are professional qualifications that lead holders to enter a particular career upon receipt. This is not the case with most other undergraduate degrees, so whilst the Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery are undergraduate or graduate degrees (depending on the institution), they are perhaps more accurately conceptualised as a so-called first professional degree. Other professions whose qualifications follow a similar pattern include:
Graduate diploma
Graduate diplomas should not be confused with a postgraduate diploma, which is a master's degree-level qualification. Historically, this has not always been the case, with postgraduate diploma and graduate diploma used interchangeably, but the Quality Assurance Agency now makes a clear distinction between these titles. Some institutions have renamed courses as a result, e.g. The College of Law renamed the official title for its law conversion course from "Postgraduate Diploma in Law" to "Graduate Diploma in Law" as, although the law conversion course is studied postgraduately, the contents of the course are only undergraduate in nature.