The intercollegiate FRCS examinations are administered by two committees, the JCIE (Joint Committee on Intercollegiate Examinations, which handles domestic examinations) and the JSCFE (Joint Surgical Colleges Fellowship Examination, which handles overseas examinations). This system replaced the earlier one in which each college administered its own examinations. First the curricula were intercollegiately coordinated by the ISCP (Intercollegiate Surgical Curriculum Programme) of the JCST (Joint Committee on Surgical Training), and then the examinations became intercollegiate.
The original fellowship was available in general surgery and in certain specialties—ophthalmic or ENT surgery, or obstetrics and gynaecology—which were not indicated in the initials. It came to be taken midway through training. Each of the four Royal Colleges of Surgeons of the UK and Ireland used to administer its own examinations. The four postnominals were FRCS(Eng), FRCS(Ed), FRCS(G), and FRCS(I). The FRCS designation without further specification then referred by convention/tradition to FRCS(Eng) specifically. Today the examination and qualification are intercollegiate, although each surgeon can still choose afterward to be affiliated with one or more specific colleges. (In Canada the FRCS(C) qualification is administered by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada.)
There are now a range of higher fellowships, taken at the end of higher specialist training and often in narrower fields, the first of which was FRCS (Orth) in orthopaedics. Others include FRCS (Urol) in urology and FRCS (OMFS) in maxillofacial surgery.
