I have just learned with amazement and indeed horror from one of the senior house officers (SHOs) that in order to proceed to the second examination (the objective structured clinical examination) candidates will need to score 78.2% in the multiple choice question paper of the MRCPsych part I exam. It does seem extraordinary that one could get 78% in an exam and still fail. Is the exam too easy or has the standard been raised too high in an attempt to ensure that roughly 50% of the applicants pass each time.

It may be a reflection of declining cognitive abilities, but the exam seems very much harder than when I passed it 20 years ago. It certainly seems that the present crop of SHOs have to dedicate themselves much more single-mindedly to the exam than did my peers.

I have seen several excellent well educated trainees be unsuccessful in gaining their membership and hence lost to psychiatry. It seems ironic at a time of great shortages of psychiatrists in the National Health Service (NHS) and indeed at a time when the NHS seems to be trying to attract any available psychiatrist from overseas to work in Britain.

One might ask whether the apparently better preparation of the candidates for the MRCPsych exam has pushed the standards unnaturally and undesirably high. Should there be a debate in the wider College membership about this?