← All medical school resources
SPECIALTIES
Surgical Training
Training pathway in surgery in the UK — Core Surgical Training, the MRCS, and higher surgical specialty training.
Surgical training in the UK begins after the Foundation Programme with Core Surgical Training (CST), a two-year competitive programme covering general surgery, vascular, urology, trauma & orthopaedics, ENT, plastics, and paediatric surgery. Successful candidates then apply for higher specialty training (ST3 entry) in one of the nine surgical specialties recognised by the Royal Colleges of Surgeons.
The Membership of the Royal College of Surgeons (MRCS) is the postgraduate diploma that must be completed before progression to ST3. Like the MRCP, it consists of multiple parts: a written paper testing applied basic and clinical science (Part A) and an OSCE-style clinical assessment (Part B). The MRCS is awarded jointly by the four UK Royal Colleges (England, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Ireland).
From ST3 onwards, trainees follow specialty-specific curricula leading to a CCT and entry to the GMC's Specialist Register. Specialty fellowship examinations (FRCS-related diplomas in each specialty) are taken in the final years of higher training.
Current authoritative resources
About this page
This page is one of a set of medical school and medical careers resources on chrispaton.org, replacing the category landings of New Media Medicine (newmediamedicine.com), an early digital health blog and UK medical school applications community I ran between 2004 and 2014. The original New Media Medicine forum threads — user-generated content from that community — are not republished here; this is original framing written to help current applicants find authoritative information. Always confirm details with the official sources linked above before acting on them.