The RCS fee is unjust and wrong!

The Royal College of Surgeons recently notified its members with: 'Reluctantly, as recommended by Council and ratified at the June 2012 AGM, the College has had to increase subscription fees for the forthcoming membership year'.

They claim that the benefits of this extortionate fee are: 1) Use of the post-nominals MRCS, FRCS etc.; 2) Access to College Annals, e-journals & Anatomy.tv; 3) Online portfolio.

The Royal College of Physicians do not charge a completion fee or an annual membership fee. You only pay if you want full membership (i.e. benefits). Post nominals are free to use. Furthermore, e-journal access is available to all of us through the NHS trusts we work in so there's no benefit there. Finally surgical trainees have to use and pay for ISCP as their recognised portfolio. So the college one is useless.

As you can see, the claimed benefits are of no use to the majority of us. While we have put these points to various people at the college including the chief executive, we have not received any constructive dialogue apart from standard talk about costs and inflation.

Therefore we are asking you, our fellow surgical trainees and members to lend your support to this petition and hopefully get the RCS to reconsider their position and abolish this ridiculous fee for those members who do not want any "benefits". The use of MRCS has already been paid for in the exam fee and other colleges do not charge for post-nominals. Please kindly spread the word amongst yours and our colleagues. Thank you

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