Facing the foundation years: your questions answered

iStock.com/ sturti

By Dr Ollie Burton

Dr Ollie Burton tackles member questions about foundation training – including coping with disappointment over placements, preparing for exams and starting to build a portfolio.

How do you prepare for exams while in training?

How did you plan your timeline when preparing for Membership of the Royal College of Surgeons (MRCS) exams?

Huge amounts of the content are essentially trivia that are not useful for day-to-day practice

One of my many regrets is not getting MRCS exams out of the way sooner. My opinion is probably coloured somewhat by the specialty I’m now training in, but at least for Part A, I would recommend sitting it as close to your medical finals as is feasible – because huge amounts of the content are essentially trivia that are not useful for day-to-day practice and will be forgotten as soon as you pass it.

This becomes much harder to stay on top of if you are actively trying to learn your own specialty at the same time, and magnified further if your specialty only represents a very narrow slice of the MRCS curriculum!