Does the Intercollegiate Membership of the Royal College of Surgeons (MRCS) examination predict ‘on-the-job’ performance during UK higher specialty surgical training?

D. S. G. Scrimgeour (Lead / Corresponding author), P. A. Brennan, G. Griffiths, A .J. Lee, F. C. T. Smith, J. Cleland

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    21 Citations (Scopus)
    151 Downloads (Pure)

    Abstract

    Introduction: The Intercollegiate Membership of the Royal College of Surgeons (MRCS) is a mandatory examination to enter higher surgical specialty training in the UK. It is designed to help to ensure that successful candidates are competent to practice as higher surgical trainees. The annual review of competence progression (ARCP) assesses trainees’ competence to progress to the next level of training and can be interpreted as a measure of ‘on-the-job’ performance. We investigated the relationship between MRCS performance and ARCP outcomes.

    Materials and methods: All UK medical graduates who passed MRCS (Parts A and B) from 2007 to 2016 were included. MRCS scores, attempts and sociodemographics for each candidate were crosslinked with ARCP outcomes (satisfactory, unsatisfactory and insufficient evidence). Multinomial logistic regression was used to identify potential independent predictors of ARCP outcomes.

    Results: A total of 2570 trainees underwent 11,064 ARCPs; 1589 (61.8%) had only satisfactory outcomes recorded throughout training; 510 (19.9%) had at least one unsatisfactory outcome; and 471 (18.3%) supplied insufficient evidence. After adjusting for age, gender, first language and Part A performance, ethnicity (non-white vs white, OR 1.36, 95% CI 1.08 to 1.71), Part B passing score (OR 0.98, 95% CI 0.98 to 1.00) and number of attempts at Part B (two or more attempts vs one attempt, OR 1.50, 95% CI 1.16 to 1.94) were found to be independent predictors of an unsatisfactory ARCP outcome.

    Conclusions: This is the first study to identify predictors of ARCP outcomes during higher surgical specialty training in the UK and provides further evidence of the predictive validity of the MRCS examination.
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)669-675
    Number of pages7
    JournalAnnals of the Royal College of Surgeons of England
    Volume100
    Issue number8
    Early online date5 Oct 2018
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Nov 2018

    Keywords

    • ARCP
    • Clinical performance
    • MRCS
    • Predictive validity

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • Surgery

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