The MRCP exam disaster’s hidden cost for women
On 20 February 2025 nearly 300 doctors were told they had been given the wrong results for Part 2 of the Membership of the Royal College of Physicians (MRCP) UK exam which they had taken nearly a year and a half earlier. Of the 1451 candidates who sat the paper, 61 found out that they hadn’t failed as they had been led to believe, and months of further revision and re-sittings of the exam had been unnecessary. Meanwhile 222 candidates who thought they had passed the exam were told that they hadn’t. This group is now facing the prospect of returning to intense revision to re-sit the exam with uncertainty about their future career progression. But the consequences for these doctors are much greater than a further exam attempt.12 The Federation of UK Royal Colleges of Physicians, responsible for designing and delivering these exams to assess competence and professionalism of medics in training, administers three sittings (or “diets”) of MRCP Part 2 per year. With this routine, you’d expec
