MRCPI General Medicine

You must have passed MCRPI General Medicine Part II Written within the last three years.

If this three-year period has expired, you must re-sit the Part II Written exam.

It's important to prepare for MRCPI exams and not to underestimate how long it takes to get ready. Having an understanding of how each exam is formatted will help you prepare and develop good answering strategies.

When you're preparing your study plan, make sure to refer to the documents made available below.

MRCPI Part II Clinical Exam Format

MRCPI Exam Regulations

The free GM Skills Course is under redevelopment and is not available currently. Please note that any information that you may need in relation to the GM clinical exams can be found in the MRCPI General Medicine Regulations document.

Please refer to our Information and resources page to download our latest exam policies and procedures.

If you require a visa to sit an exam, it is your responsibility to ensure the visa application is made in sufficient time before the examination date. We have no role in granting or refusing visas.

A refund or transfer will not be given if you are unable to attend the examination as a result of a visa-related problem.

Please refer to our Information and resources page to download our latest exam policies and procedures.

If the number of applications for this exam exceeds the number of places available, we will prioritise doctors on our Basic Specialist Training programme. Priority access is also given to candidates with only one attempt left. All remaining applications will then be sorted by when the applicant has passed their Part II Written examination. Priority going to those who passed it first.

If we can't offer you a place in the clinical exam, you will be placed on a waiting list and you will be offered a place if one becomes available in that particular exam.

The fee to sit Part II Clinical exam is €845 for Irish examinations and €1460 for examinations outside of Ireland.

The method of payment is credit or debit card, taken at the end of the online application process.

Don't forget, if you're working in Ireland you can claim a full refund under the HSE Clinical Course and Examination Refund Scheme.

The maximum number of times a candidate can sit any part of an MRCPI examination is limited to six attempts.

This means that you have six attempts at each component of the MRCPI exams (18 attempts in total across the three parts).

You must pass the Clinical examination within three years from passing your MRCPI Part II Written. See our Informations and Resources section for more information

All applications need to be submitted online via an application form. Please see the For Exam Candidates page for all exam updates including application links, and our Exam Calendar for upcoming exam dates.

The examination take place in the city/country noted on the website. For our Irish clinical examinations (which are only listed as Ireland) we have multiple centres across the country in Dublin, Galway, Cork, Manorhamilton and Limerick which are used on rotation due to venue/stakeholder availability.

Please note that all candidates for our Irish examinations are expected to be able to travel to any of our exam centres in Ireland. While we aim to allocate candidates to the most suitable venue, this is not a certainity due to number of candidates in the area, date requests and we may not be holding an examination in your nearest centre.

Unlike our written examinations which are usually conducted on one day, most of our clinical examinations consist of a number of examinations across a period of time. For Ireland clinical examinations, this is usually over the span of 4/5 weeks while our International examinations may be run over 1 – 2 days. The dates on our website, should cover the first possible exam date until the last possible examination date . Please be aware that these dates are subject to change as venue/scheduling issues may arise.

When you are applying for an examination, if offered a place you can be given an examination on any day that falls into the date range. Places are offered in the weeks following the exam closing date, this process usually take up to 2 weeks to complete. After accepting your place if we are in a position to offer you one, you should receive your examination date, time and venue in the weeks following this. We aim to assign candidates their examination dates and venues as early as we possibly can.

Candidate are assigned a date and venue, they do not choose one themselves. Candidates are expected to make themselves available for the examination date allocated to them.

If you cannot attend an examination on a certain date or over the span of a few days you need to disclose this information before the examination has closed. We need to know this information before the examination has closed and offers are sent. Do not wait until you have been offered a place. Please email the Examinations team via exams@rcpi.ie the request along with your RCPI ID and the reasons for your request. We will record your request and will endeavor to accommodate it, however we cannot guarantee we can fulfil all requests from candidates. This may be due to examination availability or the number of requests we receive.

Note that once you are given an examination date, time and venue, these cannot be changed under any circumstances. It is the responsibility of the candidate to ensure that they can attend the examination assigned to them. 

We have a dedicated examinations support team in our Dublin headquarters. They are there to guide you through your full exam journey, from application to MRCPI conferring. They are present at every exam and always happy to answer your questions.

Contact us at helpdesk@rcpi.ie or tel: +353 1 8639721 (open Monday to Friday, 9:00am - 5:00pm Irish time).