I agree. I did 3 months solid work for the MRCGP and just passed. The work was
irrelevant, despite the RCGP's list, to the exam. When will they stop
imitating the worst excesses of the other colleges. GP is fundamentally
different from technical specialities.
Paul

----------
From:  [log in to unmask] on behalf of Andrew Herd
Sent:  16 October 1996 23:01
To:  [log in to unmask]
Cc:  [log in to unmask]
Subject:  Re: College exams do not measure fitness to practice

In-Reply-To: <[log in to unmask]>
> In contrast,the MRCGP exam is one with a long track record and
> certainly leads the other College exams in terms of internal assessment
> of
> validity.  All exams have a built in limitation - they measure ability
> to pass exams.  Associating this with competence as a clinician is
> difficult.
> I have seen no good evidence that the current arrangements for summative
> assessment are able to achieve this.  At least the College exam does not
> pretend it it a measure of competence - it is a marker of excellence.

I have to say that I have never had any confidence in MRCGP as a measure
of anything except the ability to fork out a couple of hundred quid. Good
doctors who work hard fail it for no reason and people like me do sod all
and manage to pass it, which is unfair. It has always been a mystery to
me why the College thinks the exam is so wonderful - when I took it, some
of the answers you were expected to make to the MCQ were actually the
wrong ones! The most famous question was one on assessment of head injury
in a drunk, a situation in which a head injury is impossible to assess!
Given the fact that almost everyone passes it, and the way the failures
are so unpredictable, I have always wondered why everyone continues to
set such high store by it. Compared to the other higher professional
exams, which really test your knowledge, MRCGP is the equivalent of the
11 plus.

FX: provocative mode off

Andrew

--------------------------------------
Dr. Andrew N. Herd MRCGP
GP, Journalist, and Medical Adviser to Durham Health Authority
[log in to unmask]
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