Surgery
RCSI conducts MRCS exams in Ireland and at numerous overseas locations including Bahrain, India, Jordan, Malaysia, Malta, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. FRCS exams are delivered in Ireland, the UK and internationally, in partnership with the Surgical Royal Colleges of Edinburgh, England and Glasgow.
FRCS exams
The four Surgical Royal Colleges of Great Britain and Ireland (Edinburgh, England, Glasgow and Ireland) offer a suite of Intercollegiate Fellowship Examinations for the surgical community in Ireland, the UK and internationally.
- If you wish to sit the FRCS in Great Britain/Ireland, please view the regulations and apply via the Joint Committee on Intercollegiate Examinations (JCIE) website.
- If you wish to sit the FRCS outside Great Britain/Ireland, please view the regulations and apply via the Joint Surgical Colleges Fellowship Examination (JSCFE) website.
MRCS exams
The MRCS exam aims to assess trainee surgeons in the breadth of both basic sciences and the principles of surgery. It is an intercollegiate exam, hence, the syllabus, format and content are common to all surgical Royal Colleges in the UK and Ireland. The MRCS is fully-recognised by both the Irish Medical Council and the General Medical Council (UK).
- MRCS – Part A is held three times per year, in January, April, and September. RCSI offers this exam in 11 centres: Dublin, Belfast, Malta, Al-Khobar, Amman, Bahrain, Dubai, Kochi, Kuala Lumpur, Kota Kinabalu and Penang.
- MRCS – Part B is held three times per year, in Dublin (February, May, and October); twice per year in Bahrain (March and November); twice per year in Penang (January and August); and once a year in Dubai (June).
Guidance for the remote delivery of the MRCS Part A examinations – September 2020
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.
| Location | Course date | Closing date | Fee |
| RCSI Dublin | 7-8 January 2021 | 10 December 2020 | €615 |
| RCSI Dublin | 15-16 April 2021 | 18 March 2021 | €615 |
| RCSI Dublin | 26-27 August 2021 | 1 August 2021 | €615 |
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 25% discount off the Pastest online subscription. You will receive a discount code once applications have closed.
- The MRCS Part A subscription provides access to +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 are now open for the MRCS Part A Examination taking place on 12 January 2021.
Closing date for completed applications: Friday, 6 November 2020
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.
Results
Exam results are posted here as soon as they become available. The latest results can be found below.