SLMC ERPM study guide
SLMC ERPM · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
The Examination for Registration to Practise Medicine (ERPM) is the assessment the Sri Lanka Medical Council (SLMC) uses in the pathway by which medical graduates qualify for registration to practise medicine in Sri Lanka. The SLMC describes itself as the national regulatory authority responsible for maintaining standards of education, professional conduct, and ethical practice among registered healthcare practitioners in Sri Lanka, and it regulates medical, dental, and allied healthcare professionals to protect patients and maintain public confidence in healthcare services. Candidates are typically graduates of foreign universities, since the SLMC's student and graduate pages separate "Graduates of Sri Lankan Universities" from "Graduates of Foreign Universities", and the ERPM sits alongside the parallel dental examination (ERPDS) within the Council's Exams section. The SLMC does not publish a subject-wise syllabus or domain weighting on its home page, so this page cannot tell you what proportion of marks comes from medicine, surgery, paediatrics, obstetrics and gynaecology, psychiatry, or the behavioural sciences. What the Council does publish is process material: "ERPM Revised Guidelines 2025", the results notice "ERPM Pass List - August/September 2026 - Listed According to Order of Merit", and a degree approval step - "Opening of Degree Approval Portal For ERPM and ERPDS Exams 2027" with a deadline of 27 November 2026, 4.00 p.m. Preparation should therefore start with the current ERPM Revised Guidelines 2025 and the degree approval deadline, not with rumoured formats. Topics on this exam: Medical knowledge and clinical practice (content not enumerated by the source). The SLMC ERPM study guide has 1 section and about 384 words.
01Medical Knowledge and Clinical Practice (SLMC ERPM)
The Medical knowledge and clinical practice domain is the core clinical paper of the SLMC Examination for Registration to Practice Medicine (ERPM). It tests whether you can take a short vignette - a presenting complaint, a set of vital signs, a few investigation results - and produce a safe, prioritised management plan within Sri Lankan practice conditions. Question writers weight conditions by local burden: dengue, leptospirosis, typhoid, tuberculosis, snakebite and organophosphate poisoning, alongside diabetes, hypertension, ischaemic heart disease, asthma and childhood diarrhoea. You are rarely tested on rare syndromes; you are tested on the common condition handled correctly.
384 words, about 2 minMore study resources for SLMC ERPM
- Practice questionsA patient with type 1 diabetes develops sweating, tremor, palpitations and confusion.
- FlashcardsAnaphylaxis first-line drug. Intramuscular adrenaline 0.5 mg of 1:1000 solution into the anterolateral thigh, repeated every 5 minutes if needed.
- Cheat sheetShock is defined by inadequate tissue perfusion, not by blood pressure alone; hypotension (SBP <90 mmHg or MAP <65 mmHg) is a late and insensitive sign, so use lactate, urine output, capillary refill, and mentation as perfusion markers.
- Key termsAnaphylaxis. A severe, rapidly developing systemic hypersensitivity reaction that compromises the airway, breathing, or circulation.
- Study planMap the full SLMC ERPM syllabus against your own clinical strengths and gaps, producing a ranked list of weak content areas.
- Common mistakesCandidates prepare clinically and treat medicolegal items as general-knowledge questions, so they default to intuition; the exam instead tests specific statutory duties and consent doctrine, where the intuitive answer is often the legally wrong one.
- Exam-day guideBring the original, unexpired ID in the name you registered with.