The Membership Exam part 1 (MCQ and SBA) was held in January, June and September this year. These exams were conducted on line with proctoring and thanks to the team at the College of Anaesthesiology led by Ruth Flaherty ran very smoothly.

A preparatory course was run in October and this was the first time this had been held since 2019. Dr Orla Murphy (SAT 6 and examinations fellow) did a huge amount of work writing and organising questions for this course.

Electronic marking using iPads was trialed for the preparatory course for the OSCE component and was very well received by examiners.

The iPads were used for marking for all OSCE stations in the exam in November. All OSCE questions have been written as interactive stations with an examiner questioning the candidates on the topics selected. We hope to introduce the electronic marking using the iPads for the SOE next year.

The new examination regulations will be implemented this month (December 2023). There is one change of note: if a candidate passes the MCQ paper, it will be held valid for three years, after which time if the MCAI OSCE/SOE has not been passed, the MCQ must be re-taken.

I want to thank all the experienced examiners and the first time examiners who attended OSCE/SOE exams this year and I hope they will continue to exam in the membership exam.

Dr Suzanne Cronly, Dr Adriana Nizam and Dr Katie Padfield have stepped down as assessment leads. I wish to acknowledge all their hard work during their terms. They have been replaced by Dr Sinead Egan (OSCE lead), Dr David Devlin (Physiology SOE) and Dr Pierce Geoghegan (SBA lead). Dr Peter Hooker and Dr Fauzia Bano continue as MTF lead and pharmacology SOE lead.

I also wish to thank Dr Gareth Morrison who assesses the quality of the exam and completes all metrics for the exams.

Thank you to the examiners who write exam questions, help with standard setting prior to the exam as well as examining.

Finally a huge thank you to the CAI examination staff- Ruth Flaherty, Orla Doran, Eoin Lumsden and Sophie Rattigan.

I’m looking forward to meeting you all for our next in person exam in April 2024.

“Huge thank you to our dedicated examiners.”