Services for Affiliates and Exam Candidates

Who does this apply to?

• Royal College of Surgeons of England and Faculty of Dental Surgery: Affiliates

Please note that you will cease to be eligible for Affiliate status as soon as you gain your MRCS, MFDS, MJDF or equivalent qualification. Consequently, your membership of the Library will also cease until you pay your first subscription as a member of the College or Faculty.

• Candidates for examinations on courses run by the Royal College of Surgeons of England, the Faculty of Dental Surgery and the Faculty of General Dental Practice (UK)

Please note that your membership of the Library will expire the day after your examination is held. Please return all books on or by this date.

Use of the Library and its services is at the discretion of the Director of Library and Surgical Information Services, and is dependent on compliance with the Library's regulations.

Exam preparation

If you are an affiliate or are taking exams through the Royal College of Surgeons of England, you can access our collection of examination preparation texts, and study in the peaceful environment of the Library reading rooms. You can also use library resources alongside the specimens in the Wellcome Museum of Anatomy and Pathology.

Borrowing books

Affiliates and examination candidates can borrow up to 6 books at a time (of which 3 may be from the short-loan collection). Overdue books will incur daily fines.

The Library catalogue lists which titles the Library holds. You can also reserve books and renew loans via the catalogue. Please contact the Library (020 7869 6556, library@rcseng.ac.uk) if you do not know your catalogue PIN.

Please note that student (undergraduate) affiliates cannot borrow books.

Reference library

Affiliates and examination candidates may come and use the Reading Rooms during opening hours. Resources include extensive runs of many journals, wireless access to the Internet, plus printing and copying facilities. Affiliates also have onsite access to many of our electronic journals.

Online resources

Affiliates can access the Library's collection of online journals, as well as Acland's Video Atlas of Human Anatomy and Anatomy.tv, using their College login.

Please note that student (undergraduate) affiliates only have access to the Annals of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, the Bulletin of the Royal College of Surgeons of England and the Faculty Dental Journal.

You can also search across thousands of journals using Ovid Medline and EMBASE, setting up search alerts to email you the latest research in your area of interest. Where possible, there are links between search results and the full text of journal articles.

Document delivery

If the Library does not subscribe to a given journal online, affiliates and examination candidates can request articles via the Document Delivery service for a fee.

Literature searches

Affiliates and examination candidates are entitled to make use of the Library's Literature Search service to identify articles that may be of interest.

Candidates for the Overseas Registration Examination (ORE)

Although the ORE is not an RCS qualification, candidates may register to make use of the reference library until the day after the examination. To register, please bring your registration letter from the GDC to the enquiry desk in the Lumley Study Centre; there is a fee (currently £20) to register.