MRCS B OSCE Changes

By Hannah Brown in MRCS B OSCE on Thursday, December 10, 2009 @ 09:09

The MRCS B OSCE exam is changing again.  Despite being only a year old, the Royal College of Surgeons are introducing changes from the 2010(01) diet.

The main changes to the MRCS B OSCE exam are that there will now be 18 OSCE stations (instead of 16), and these 18 stations will be across four broad content areas (four previously).  The weighting of the four 'broad content areas' will also be changed to better reflect basic sciences, including pathology.  It makes sense, because many of the candidates we talk to at our MRCS B OSCE courses and after the exam say that they didn't realise they needed to revise basic sciences until it was too late!  I think people really underestimate the important of going back to basics in this exam, so hopefully now that won't be so much of a problem.

Like the MRCP PACES exam, the domains tested will no longer be pass/fail.  Instead, the feedback from each station will be used to draw together a picture of the candidate and their performance, and they will be marked accordingly. 

One of the big changes is that all of the 18 stations will now be manned.  It used to be that just 12 of the 16 OSCE stations were manned, so this is something candidates attempting the MRCS B need to be aware of so they're not wrongfooted on the day. 

Obviously our MRCS B OSCE course will be updated to reflect the changes and our brand new book will also be in line with the new exam.  Ms Catherine Parchment-Smith, author of our fantastic Essential Revision Notes for MRCS Book 1 and Book 2, and the indispensable Surgical Short Cases for the MRCS Clinical book is authoring the definitive guide to the MRCS B OSCE Exam.  Available in March 2010, MRCS: Part B OSCEs Essential Revision Notes will be the ultimate revision book, and the reviews so far are incredible!