Egyptian Board Plastic Surgery

Candidates should expect a combination of multiple-choice written papers, written or essay-style questions, and oral examination including clinical case discussion. The exact mix, number of papers and sequencing are set by the examining body and can change between sittings, so check the current format on the official body's website before you plan your revision.

It is a specialty exit-level examination, so difficulty reflects the expectation that you can practise independently across the whole syllabus, not just your subspecialty interest. Most candidates need several months of structured revision alongside clinical work. Breadth is the usual challenge: aesthetic, craniofacial and hand topics are often the least recently revised.

Retake rules, permitted attempts and any waiting period between sittings are administrative matters determined by the examining body and revised from time to time. They are not fixed constants. Consult the official body's published regulations or contact its secretariat directly for the rules that apply to your cohort.

Duration, number of stations or papers, and the passing standard are set by the examining body and published in its current regulations and candidate guidance. Rather than relying on second-hand figures, obtain the current numbers from the official website or your programme director, since these details are periodically updated.

Start with basic science and principles, because wound healing, flap physiology and graft biology underpin every later answer. Then move to reconstruction and burns, followed by aesthetic, craniofacial and head and neck. Keep hand surgery running throughout as short regular sessions. Finish with ethics, safety and evidence-based practice, which are easy marks but easy to neglect.

The common failure is jumping to an operation without a structured assessment: history, examination findings, investigations, differential, then a plan with alternatives and consent issues. Examiners also probe complications and how you would manage them. Practise presenting cases aloud in a fixed structure, and always state why you rejected the other options.

For each major case, write a one-page summary covering the indication, the alternatives considered, the flap or technique chosen and why, the anatomy at risk, and the postoperative course. Reviewing these before the oral examination gives you concrete examples to reason from, which is far more convincing than reciting textbook lists.

Yes. The syllabus treats aesthetic surgery as core content, and reconstructive cases frequently require aesthetic judgement about symmetry, scars and contour. Topics such as rhinoplasty, breast surgery and body contouring appear in the written and oral components regardless of your intended subspecialty, so do not skip them.

Only the official examining body can confirm eligibility criteria, application windows, fees and examination dates. These details change and are published on its website and in candidate circulars. Your training programme director or the board secretariat can also direct you to the current documents.