FCPS Part-I study materials
FCPS Part-I study resources

FCPS Part-I study guide

FCPS Part-I · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.

FCPS Part-I is the first examination step toward Fellowship of the College of Physicians and Surgeons Pakistan, a postgraduate medical qualification awarded by CPSP, a body based in Karachi with regional centres across Pakistan and abroad. The credential is intended for medical graduates who are entering or preparing to enter CPSP training programmes; the College publishes a separate prospectus for each specialty, and the exam is administered under the Examinations Department. CPSP's public pages do not publish a single syllabus for Part-I. Instead, the College states that eligibility criteria and the pattern of theory and clinical examinations are given in the specialty prospectus on the trainee E-portal and in revised notifications, so candidates should treat the prospectus for their chosen specialty as the authoritative description of what the exam covers. The FCPS Part-I study guide has 4 sections and about 1,267 words.

01

Basic and Clinical Sciences Relevant to the Specialty

The paper integrates anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, pathology, pharmacology, microbiology and behavioural science into single-best-answer items. Most stems are short clinical vignettes, and the basic science is the discriminator.

334 words, about 2 min
02

Specialty-Specific Basic Sciences

This section tests the basic science underpinning your chosen discipline rather than the whole of medicine. If you are entering surgery, expect embryology of the gut, fascial planes and nerve-vessel relations.

340 words, about 2 min
03

Clinical Problem-Solving and Applied Knowledge

Vignette-based items test whether you can move from a problem representation to a prioritised differential, choose discriminating features and act on red flags. The exam rewards Bayesian reasoning: post-test probability depends on pre-test probability and the likelihood ratio of the finding, not on the test result alone.

309 words, about 2 min
04

Investigations, Therapeutics and Patient Safety

Items ask you to choose the next best investigation, interpret a result in context, prescribe safely and recognise systems errors. The recurring theme is that a test is useful only if it changes management.

284 words, about 1 min