Postgraduate Vascular Surgery: The Candidate's Guide to the FRCS

This book is billed on the back cover as a concise pocket guide to the FRCS and MRCS exams. However it is clear from the preface and content that it aimed primarily at the exit exam.

 

The book is divided into two sections. The first section, an introduction to the clinical cases reviews some common clinical exam cases. For each subject there is a case description, some background, and then a question and answer format. The question and answer format is a brilliant way of helping plan answers for the exam and works extremely well for the few chosen topics. However this section suffers from a lack of structure to it, moving randomly from one topic to another. The only advantage of this is that it does reproduce the feeling of an exam.

 

The second section Final FRCS vascular topics then takes a more traditional approach covering all the topics in a structured format over 25 chapters. The chapters are well written and up to date with the carotid chapter in particular providing a concise written and tabular summary of the major trials. Indeed the approach and content is very similar to the Vascular & Endovascular Surgery book of the Companion to Specialist Surgical Practice Series. However this book is half the cost.

 

In summary this book provides an approachable starting point when preparing for the FRCS.  It would be of particular value to trainees who do not have a vascular specialist interest. Inevitably, vascular trainees will need to supplement this reading using the source literature.