Nail Orthopaedics was originally created by a group of trainees who were looking for quality resources to help prepare for the exam, and realised few representative questions were available! So once the exams were out the way, we set about creating the best possible question bank. We took our experiences from the exam resources available when we were down the deep dark revision hole, and the exam syllabus and combined this with expertise from academics, statisticians, a bioengineer and an anatomist. We recruited the help of subspeciality experts to review content and finally reached a level we were happy with.

This is not motivated by profit, the set up and running costs will take several more years to recoup, it is about improving the experiences of registrars preparing for their exit exams. The resource is always evolving, thanks to your feedback and our team of editors.

Nail Orthopaedics provides questions that replicate your exam as closely as possible, with focused explanations to aid recall and direct further study. We’ve covered the whole syllabus and we’re passionate about improving the efficiency of your learning. We know you'll love the resource, and it will substantially improve your chance of success.

How to use this resource

There is no substitute for practice questions when preparing for a multiple-choice question exam. The style of the FRCS Orth Part 1 is likely different to exams you’ve taken in the past. There is nuance and uncertainty, with multiple plausible answers. It is difficult to focus the mind adequately to fully memorise all the required material, particularly that not encountered or utilised on a daily basis in clinical practice.

The breadth of material to learn is what makes these multi-choice exams challenging – and indeed, sometimes questions come up which require relatively detailed knowledge of a very niche topic. These are hard to predict, and invariably no amount of trawling through resources is going to help you remember these specific facts. This is where practice questions come in.

Practice questions force you to focus your mind on a particular topic. They test your knowledge of the subject, but there is also an intrinsic technique to answering the FRCS Orth questions. After dedicated practice you will recognise patterns and understand what the question is looking for. Moreover, you may remember niche facts that are sufficient to answer a question correctly, even if recall of the topic overall is limited. Ultimately this exam, like all others and despite attempts to test a deeper understanding, involves an element of game-playing. Focused preparation will usurp broad, unfocused reading around a topic.