RACS GSSE study guide
RACS GSSE · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
The General Surgery Skills Examination (GSSE) is an assessment referenced within the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (RACS) examinations area of the College website. This page is an independent study resource. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or operated by RACS, and it does not reproduce RACS examination material. The official GSSE page on the RACS website returned a "404 Page not found" response when checked on 2 November 2026, so this introduction deliberately makes no claims about the number of questions, the exam duration, the pass mark, the fee, the retake policy, or the validity period of results. Those details could not be verified from the retrieved source text, and they are recorded as needing review rather than guessed. Because no verified syllabus was available, the study material on this page is organised around the broad domain of General Surgery, covering the applied basic sciences and clinical reasoning that underpin safe surgical practice. Topics on this exam: General Surgery. The RACS GSSE study guide has 1 section and about 349 words.
01General Surgery: Core Principles for the GSSE
The single most examinable skill is triage: separating the patient who needs resuscitation and theatre from the one who needs investigation. Work through airway, breathing, circulation first, then assess the abdomen. Resuscitate before you investigate - a hypotensive patient with peritonitis goes to theatre after damage-control resuscitation, not to CT. Remember that analgesia does not mask signs and should not be withheld.
349 words, about 2 minMore study resources for RACS GSSE
- Practice questionsA 24-year-old man has a 2 cm freely mobile indirect inguinal hernia.
- FlashcardsShock index. Heart rate divided by systolic blood pressure.
- Cheat sheetATLS primary survey order: catastrophic haemorrhage control, Airway with cervical spine protection, Breathing and ventilation, Circulation with haemorrhage control, Disability (GCS/pupils), Exposure with prevention of hypothermia.
- Key termsAnastomotic leak. Failure of a surgical join between two hollow organs, allowing luminal contents to escape into the abdomen or chest.
- Study planMap the General Surgery syllabus into a checklist of every major topic area and mark each as confident, shaky, or unknown.
- Common mistakesThe GSSE uses best-of-five and extended-matching formats where several options are individually true; candidates trained on single-best-answer undergraduate exams treat the first true statement as the answer and stop discriminating.
- Exam-day guideBring the original, current photo identification in the name you registered under.