Fellowship of the Royal Colleges of Surgeons
Fellowship of the Royal Colleges of Surgeons is a professional qualification to practise as a senior surgeon in Ireland or the United Kingdom. It is bestowed on an intercollegiate basis by the four Royal Colleges of Surgeons, Royal [College of Surgeons of Edinburgh]. The initials may be used as post-nominal letters.
Several Commonwealth countries have organisations that bestow similar qualifications, among them the FRCSC in Canada, Royal Australasian [College of Surgeons|FRACS] in Australia and New Zealand, FCS in South Africa, FCSHK in Hong Kong, FCPS by College of Physicians and Surgeons Pakistan in Pakistan and FCPS by College of Physicians & Surgeons of Mumbai in India.
The intercollegiate FRCS examinations are administered by two committees, the JCIE and the JSCFE. This system replaced the earlier one in which each college administered its own examinations. First the curricula were intercollegiately coordinated by the ISCP of the JCST, and then the examinations became intercollegiate.
The original fellowship was available in general surgery and in certain specialties—ophthalmic or ENT surgery, or obstetrics and gynaecology—which were not indicated in the initials. It came to be taken midway through training. Each of the four Royal Colleges of Surgeons of the UK and Ireland used to administer its own examinations. The four postnominals were FRCS, FRCS, FRCS, and FRCS. The FRCS designation without further specification then referred by convention/tradition to FRCS specifically. Today the examination and qualification are intercollegiate, although each surgeon can still choose afterward to be affiliated with one or more specific colleges.
There are now a range of higher fellowships, taken at the end of higher specialist training and often in narrower fields, the first of which was FRCS in orthopaedics. Others include FRCS in urology and FRCS in maxillofacial surgery.
Membership of the Royal Colleges of Surgeons
The MRCS examinations are also now intercollegiate.Fellows
The original 300 Fellows of the Royal College of Surgeons of England include:- Marcus Beck
- John Badley
- John Abernethy
- Robert Keate
- Richard Partridge
- Joseph Jordan
- Sir Ernest Marshall Cowell
See :Category:Fellows of the [Royal College of Surgeons of England] for more examples of Fellows.