HPB Surgery
EBSQ Examinations

Standards & requirement for EBSQ examination

The Fellowship of the European Board of Surgery in HPB Surgery) is obtained on passing Part I (Eligibility) and Part II (Examination) of the European Board of Surgery Qualification examination.

Eligibility assessment

This year the Eligibility test is done in two parts.

• First part of the Eligibility assessment process :

Applicants must fill out all fields of the application and pay the Eligibility fee in order to pass the first part of the Eligibility assessment. The payment of the Eligibility fee is a mandatory step for your application to be taken into account by the Eligibility Board.

• Second part of the Eligibility assessment process :

Those who are successful will receive a Medbook code to create an account on the www.Medbook.com platform. They will have to enter all the requested information and to inform their URL Medbook profile on their EBSQ application form, so that the Eligibility Board can consult it and proceed to the second and final part of the Eligibility assessment.

The applicant will be informed of the acceptance or rejection of his/her application in due time.

Candidates who pass the second part of the Eligibility assessment process will be asked to pay the Examination fee (600 euros) to finalise their registration for the EBSQ examination. The payment of the Examination fee is a mandatory step for your application to be finalized and taken into account by the Examination Board.

Eligibility criteria

To apply to the EBSQ examination in HPB surgery, a candidate must fulfil the following requirements for eligibility:

1. The applicant must have completed surgical training and :
   1. either is a board certified surgeon in a UEMS member or associate member country, and has accomplished the HPB surgical training in one of UEMS member countries
   2. or is a board certified surgeon from outside of European Union countries, but has obtained a temporary license in a UEMS member or associate member country and has accomplished the two years HPB surgical training in a UEMS member or associate member countries.
2. The applicant must have a minimum of 2 years of training in HPB Surgery after surgery board certification. The training can be obtained in separate parts as long as these are contained within a 4 years period.
3. The candidate must have produced at least two peer reviewed paper as a first or second or senior author in the field of HPB Surgery.

The candidate must have a total of 20 credit points (CPs), as per the Credit Points document.

The candidate must have performed at least 50 major HPB procedures independent of a kind. As an example of major HPB procedure, major liver resections mean 3 or more segments of liver. The details of required HPB procedures are indicated in the Logbook requirements document.

Supporting information & documents to submit along with the exam application

As support to their application, the applicant should produce the following documents, the first is to be downloaded  from this website (template hereunder) and filled out :

For the first part of the Eligibility assessment :

• Proof of Training in HPB Surgery in a European Center
• 2 letters of recommendation from trainers (HPB training performed in Europe) 
• A completed updated CV
• Certificate of national board certification in surgery
• Application Form duly completed and signed (download the template hereunder)
• A scan of your ID card or passport with your photo and your name in Latin letters

For the second part of the Eligibility assessment :

• The URL link of your MEDBOOK profile (codes will be provided to the 20 first applicants ounce they have submitted the previous documents and passed the first part of the Eligibility assessment)

Documents to download

The Examination is held once or twice a year and takes place over a single day.

Examinations in HPB are only offered in English

The written exam (multiple choice questions) takes place at the same examination centre and on the same day as the oral exam. Candidates should bring their own laptop, as the examination is conducted on the UEMS online examination platform. The fact that a candidate does not have a laptop should not prevent them from taking the exam, we will ensure that a laptop is provided.

The oral exam consists of 3 consecutives 30 minutes sessions. Each session consists of two or three clinical cases discussions. Clinical cases are presented in a digital format with patient’s history and imaging.

Examiners will ask specific questions based on patient’s data, surgical technique, controversies and available clinical trials on the subject.

The exam includes the questions from the following areas:

• HPB anatomy
• HPB Physiology
• Medical aspects (non-technical skills)
• Liver
• Pancreas
• Bile Duct
• Portal Hypertension
• HPB Minimally Invasive Surgery

The examination can be repeated up to 3 times in 3 years in case of failure (ie: maximum 3 attempts in total).

Pass mark

The “pass mark” of the written exam is different every year. It is calculated before the exam using international standard-setting procedure (Anghoff Scoring) and depends on complexity of the questions. Calculated values are usually (not always) between 68-70%. Percentiles based system (Cohen) is not used.

A candidate successfully passing the examination will be qualified as: Fellow of the European Board of Surgery in HPB Surery (F.E.B.S. HPB Surg) and is provided with the relevant certificate. The Fellowship of the UEMS is a significant high-level indication of professional competence and excellence. It basically reflects the ongoing important European standardisation, harmonisation and quality assurance process in medicine.