MRCS Part B Revision · Procedural and technical skills
Excision Of A Naevus — MRCS Part B Procedural and technical skills
By Dr Richard Miller, MBChB FRCS · Reviewed
Excision Of A Naevus is a procedural station. Two of the seventeen examined stations in the MRCS Part B OSCE are procedural. The procedural stations ask you to perform a practical task, usually on a model, while explaining what you are doing and why.
What you need to know for the Excision Of A Naevus station
Excision of a Naevus
• Wash your hands
• Introduce yourself to the patient
• Explain the prodecure, check with the patient which precise naevus it is she wants removed (may be multiple) and ensure written consent is completed
• Draw your incision around the naevus with an adequate resection margin (3-5mm)
• Take a No 10 scalpel blade using an artery clip or needle holder and attach to scalpel
• Prep the area and infiltrate a local anaesthetic field block
• Test that the block has worked after allowing time
• Use forceps and the scalpel to carefully cut around the naevus and excise it
• Place the naevus in a pot
• Carefully dispose of your sharps
• Take a non-absorbable suture and close the wound using interrupted sutures
• Dispose of the sharps
• Dress the wound
Excision of a Naevus
• Wash your hands
• Introduce yourself to the patient
• Explain the prodecure, check with the patient which precise naevus it is she wants removed (may be multiple) and ensure written consent is completed
• Draw your incision around the naevus with an adequate resection margin (3-5mm)
• Take a No 10 scalpel blade using an artery clip or needle holder and attach to scalpel
• Prep the area and infiltrate a local anaesthetic field block
• Test that the block has worked after allowing time
• Use forceps and the scalpel to carefully cut around the naevus and excise it
• Place the naevus in a pot
• Carefully dispose of your sharps
• Take a non-absorbable suture and close the wound using interrupted sutures
• Dispose of the sharps
• Dress the wound
What are you asked at the Excision Of A Naevus station?
The station runs to 6 questions over nine minutes. A prompt the station repeats — against each marker on a specimen, for instance — is listed once here; the model answers are in the question bank.
- Please introduce yourself to the patient and gain consent
- Describe how you would excise a naevus. You might like to practise on a banana or wound pad after this.
- Please fill out a pathology form. What would you like to know
- What would you do if the skin edges would not approximate?
- What follow up would you arrange?
How is the procedural and technical skills station marked in MRCS Part B?
The two procedural stations are marked differently from each other. Procedural skills with a patient carries 8 marks for clinical and technical skill and 4 each for knowledge, communication and professionalism. Procedural skills, technical, performed on a model rather than a person, carries 12 for skill and 8 for knowledge, with no communication or professionalism marks available.
FAQ
What does the Excision Of A Naevus station ask?
It opens with "Please introduce yourself to the patient and gain consent" and runs to 6 questions over nine minutes. The two procedural stations are marked differently from each other. Procedural skills with a patient carries 8 marks for clinical and technical skill and 4 each for knowledge, communication and professionalism. Procedural skills, technical, performed on a model rather than a person, carries 12 for skill and 8 for knowledge, with no communication or professionalism marks available.
What procedural skills are tested in MRCS Part B?
Two of the seventeen examined stations are procedural: one with a patient and one purely technical. Candidates most often report suturing, abscess incision and drainage, catheterisation and chest drain insertion.
How is a procedural station marked?
The station with a patient carries 8 of its 20 marks for clinical and technical skill and 4 each for knowledge, communication and professionalism. The technical station carries 12 for skill and 8 for knowledge, with no communication marks.
Should I talk while I perform the procedure?
At the station with a patient, yes: a third of the marks there are for communication and professionalism, and they are gone if you work in silence. At the purely technical station those marks do not exist, so the technique itself is what counts.
How many stations are in the MRCS Part B OSCE?
Seventeen examined stations of nine minutes each, with a minute to read the task before each one. Two preparation stations and at least one rest station bring the circuit to about twenty, and the exam takes about three and a half hours.
What is the pass mark for MRCS Part B?
There is no published pass mark. The cut score is set separately for Applied Knowledge and Applied Skills, for each circuit, by borderline regression. Published pass rates across the 2024/25 diets ranged from 51% to 66%.
Can I fail a station and still pass?
Yes. There is no rule about how many stations you may fail: the cut score applies to your total mark in each component, so a weak station costs the marks you lost on it and strong stations elsewhere can make them back. Applied Knowledge and Applied Skills are passed separately and must both be passed at the same sitting, so a strong anatomy performance cannot rescue a weak communication one.
Dr Richard Miller, MBChB FRCS
Station summaries are reviewed against the current intercollegiate MRCS syllabus and the published marking blueprint. Guidance changes between diets: check the royal colleges' own pages before relying on a date, a fee or a threshold.
Practise this station
The question bank carries the model answer to every question above, with the rest of the procedural and technical skills stations.
More procedural and technical skills stations