Alarm over early exam schedule

26 April 2011

CONCERNS have been raised over moves to make trainee doctors sit royal college exams early.

All applicants for ST3 (specialty training three) posts starting in August 2012 must have passed all parts of the MRCP (membership of the Royal College of Physicians UK) exam by May 2012, when job offers start.

In the past, doctors could apply for and accept an ST3 post before passing and had until the week before posts began to successfully complete their exams.

The move is intended to avoid disruption to services resulting from trainees being unable to take up job offers because they have yet to pass their MRCP exams, which is a requirement for ST3 posts.

The BMA’s Junior Doctors Committee (JDC) joint deputy chair Ben Molyneux said the RCP should alter its exam timetable to avoid the problem. He said: “We are alarmed that the proposed solution is for trainees to begin taking their postgraduate exams earlier in their careers.”

The JDC also highlighted an apparent conflict in guidance over whether trainees should be encouraged to take exams in their foundation training years. They say the UK Foundation Programme Office discourages this but that the RCP encourages it.