MDC exam preparation for foreign-trained doctors

For doctors trained abroad, our free registration guide lays out the route as documents, a six-month clinical attachment, two exam stages and then permits. Use its pathway finder to see which steps apply to you.

The most detailed public description of the exam we found is a news report from March 2019, quoting the MDC Registrar. Treat these points as a snapshot, not as current rules:

• The pass mark was reported as 50 per cent across about six disciplines.
• The format was reported as multiple-choice questions, problem-solving sessions and orals.
• The exam was reported to be held twice a year.
• For the February to March 2019 sitting, 68 of 225 candidates passed (a 30.2 per cent pass rate). The Registrar said more than half of candidates had failed each year for 19 years.

In that same report the Registrar attributed the failures mainly to weak knowledge of basic science and the other medical disciplines. Whatever the exact format is when you sit, that is a clear signal about where to spend your time: build the basic science foundation first, then the clinical disciplines, and only then start timed practice.

A second lesson is local context. A doctor who trained abroad has often seen few of the conditions that dominate Ghanaian practice. Revise the common conditions in Ghana, such as malaria, sickle cell disease, hypertension, diabetes, tuberculosis, HIV and obstetric emergencies, against Ghanaian guidelines as well as the textbook you studied from.

Adjust the lengths to the date of your sitting and to your own weak areas.

1. Weeks 1 to 4: list the disciplines the MDC examines (check the current notice), rank them by how weak you are, and rebuild the basic sciences behind them: anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, pathology and pharmacology.
2. Weeks 5 to 8: work through the clinical disciplines one at a time. For each, cover the common presentations, the investigation you would order, and the first-line management used in Ghana.
3. Weeks 9 to 12: practise under exam conditions. Do timed multiple-choice sets, write out problem-solving cases from history to management plan, and rehearse oral questions aloud with a colleague.
4. Every week: spend one session on the questions you got wrong and write down why, then revisit them a week later.

Start with sources you can trust, then add practice material.

1. The MDC itself (mdcghana.org): notices, application requirements and exam dates. Nothing else outranks this.
2. The MNEMOS Medical Registration Guide: free, and every step is cited to the official documents.
3. Ghanaian guidelines, such as the Ghana Standard Treatment Guidelines, together with your core textbooks.
4. MNEMOS lecture videos: clinician-taught, free with an account, organised by specialty and topic.
5. Practice questions: be careful with unofficial "past questions" shared in groups. They may be out of date or wrong, and the MDC does not endorse them.