Surgery

Due to the limited number of attempts for MRCS Part B, RCSI offers a two-day intensive course designed to prepare surgical trainees for the MRCS Part B (OSCE) exam. This course is run three times a year in Ireland and once a year in Bahrain and Penang, and covers the core content of the exam through mock OSCEs, interactive workshops, and group discussions in applied surgery/critical care, clinical/procedural skills, anatomy/surgical pathology, and communications.

Please note that our MRCS Part B prep course has a limited number of places so we advise candidates to submit their applications as soon as possible. 

Pastest

RCSI also partners with Pastest – a leading provider of revision resources for the MRCS exams – to offer discounted access to their resources. All applicants sitting MRCS Part A and Part B with RCSI are entitled to a 20% discount off the Pastest online subscription. You will receive a discount code once applications have closed.

• The MRCS Part A subscription provides access to over 3,600 MRCS Part A SBA practice questions, helpful media resources and a free app
• The MRCS Part B subscription offers helpful detailed lectures, demonstration videos and case studies

Regulations for the MRCS exams can be found on the intercollegiate exams website. You can also view our Facebook page for details.

Applications for the next MRCS Part A Examination on 11 January 2022 will open at the end of August 2021.

The closing date for completed applications is Friday, 22 October 2021.

With effect from the October 2020 examination diet, the MRCS Part B examination will feature the following changes:

• Reduced number of physical examination stations from four to three
• Thus, reduced number of stations contributing to a candidate’s result from 18 to 17
• Routine inclusion of a Pilot station (which will not contribute to a candidate’s result) in all OSCE diets, thus keeping the total number of stations at 18
• Incorporation of ‘Health Promotion’ into the ICBSE MRCS syllabus. This is in response to the introduction of the GMC’s General Professional Capabilities (GPCs). This will be added to the communication skills element of the exam over time as new scenarios are developed.
• Incorporation of ‘Patient Safety’ into both Anatomy and Procedural Skills sections of the exam. This will not be an additional domain on which to be tested; instead, MRCS Part B (OSCE) scenarios have been reviewed to ensure that this topic was already being tested within them.

The consequences of making the changes above have been modelled and found to yield a very similar pass rate to that previously achieved by candidates. The changes have been approved by the General Medical Council. Candidate guidance will be updated to reflect these changes.