Preparing for MRCS for MCh (Orth) Dundee Students

Mr Christopher Donoghue (Orthopaedic Registrar, NHS Tayside) gave a talk to the MCh (Orth) students on 12th December about how to prepare for the MRCS (Member of the Royal College of Surgeons) exam and why it is essential for progression in training.

Quite a few of our MCh (Orth) students are keen to sit the exam and have been requesting information regarding MRCS for some years. Hence Mr Arpit Jariwala, Director UDOTS, was keen to get this introduced as part of the course. He kindly requested his trainee, Mr Donoghue to go through the application procedure and preparation for the sitting of the exam.

Mr Donoghue detailed what the MRCS exam is and how it is structured and explained the different exams needed to pass, which consists of a multi-part examination including both theory and practical assessments. He explained that the Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) has 18 different examination stations, each of nine minutes duration. Mr Donoghue then gave valuable tips and tricks about all aspects of the exam. His take-home message was to prepare early, make efficient use of available resources, ask for help and not to be disheartened by failure.

Mr Donoghue is pictured, top right, with Mr Arpit Jariwala, Director of UDOTS.

Mr Arpit Jariwala, Director of UDOTS, stated:

“I’d like to express my thanks to Chris for giving this very helpful talk on preparing for the MRCS exam. Given that sitting the exam can be a daunting exercise, his tips and tricks show the best way to approach the process. The MRCS examination is a crucial milestone in a surgical career as it defines whether a surgical trainee possesses the accurate knowledge, skills and qualities for progression to higher levels of specialist surgical training. Having passed my MRCS in 2006, I learned about the new course format too.”