As doctors progress in their career in a surgical specialty, they may consider undertaking the FRCS Specialty exam. Information on eligibility and application to the FRCS exam is available on the JCIE website.
Although the FRCS exam is not listed as essential for CESR, success in this exam is the accepted way to demonstrate knowledge for the CESR exam and it is recommended as the route to successful CESR application. FRCS exams are designed to test the knowledge of candidates as day one consultants. The exams evaluate both knowledge and clinical skills.
General Rules
Here are some tips on the examination process from the writer’s experience.
- Start to prepare for the exam early and review material regularly. Make certain time every week for reading or revision.
Write down the important subjects and make your own notes for the final revision of the exam. - Test yourself on regular bases by using available MCQ books or online question banks. Mark the questions that you find difficult in answering to put more effort to study the subjects.
- As all of us study while working, it will be difficult to create an effective learning environment, so make the maximum benefits from your spare time and weekends to study and prepare for the exam
- Improve memorization with mnemonics
- Find online videos and courses for exam preparation. Watch them daily if possible. This will help your brain to store the information passively
- An effective way to prepare for the exam is recording certain subjects in your own voice as if you are teaching someone. Listen to these subjects before sleeping, while you are driving or on public transportation. This way will save a lot of effort and help you revise if the optimum studying environment is not available.
- Consider forming a study group: contact colleagues who are sitting the exam and form a studying group. This can be virtual on weekends. For the clinical part, it is very useful to practice
Section One
- Before the exam, make sure that you practice answering MCQs as much as possible and get familiar with the exam format and the software used for answering questions. You will find the software on the exam website to familiarise yourself with and use it before sitting the exam.
- It is always beneficial to ask colleagues who just finished the exam about their experience.
- During the exam, if you don’t know the answer, choose the most appropriate answer and flag the question to revise the answer if time permits at the end of the test. Never leave a question without an answer to the end.
- Divide the total time by the number of questions and revise your time every 30 minutes to make sure that you are good with timing. For example, if you have 180 questions and 3 hours, you should answer question number 30 in the first 30 minutes.
Section Two
During the viva exam, make sure you give yourself five seconds before answering to prepare the right answer. Make sure that you understood the question before answering. Maintain eye contact and proper body language during your answer. If there is more than one examiner, try to look at them all and not focus on the one who asked the question.
You must practice clinical examination and history taking before doing the clinical part. For this, you need to write down your own history sheet and practice taking medical history at the time of the bay. Make sure that you focus on the important history according to your speciality.
Practice examining the patient in a short time to be able to finish your examination in the timeframe during the exam. To achieve this, you need to practice history taking and examination on one of your colleagues (preferably one who sat the exam or is sitting the exam).
Safe Answer
Always remember to be safe in your answer, do not do harm to the patient. There is no shame in saying:
this patient needs so and so, but I am not an expert in this, so I will refer him to a senior colleague who can perform the procedure.
Remember ‘I don’t know’ is an answer. Remember to check the date of investigation provided especially in cancer patients.
Group Study
It is very useful to study for the exam in a group. This is applicable for both parts. If you are practising clinical examination, one person will do the patient’s rule, one will be the examiner and one will be the candidate.