Final FRCA Examination Syllabus

Curriculum domains

The Final FRCA Examination syllabus (Royal College of Anaesthetists Final FRCA syllabus (PRIMEX-authored, 340 LOs)) is organised into 20 curriculum domains. PRIMEX maps every domain below to study topics and learning objectives so you can track coverage as you prepare.

The 20 domains

• AIRWAY - Airway management - Assessment and prediction of the difficult airway, awake techniques, videolaryngoscopy, supraglottic devices, DAS guidelines, extubation, front-of-neck access, shared airway.
• PERIOP - Perioperative medicine & preassessment - Preoperative assessment and optimisation, risk scoring, comorbidity (cardiac, respiratory, renal, hepatic, diabetes), enhanced recovery, prehabilitation, consent, fasting.
• CARDIAC - Cardiac, thoracic & vascular anaesthesia - Cardiopulmonary bypass, valvular and ischaemic heart disease, one-lung ventilation, thoracic surgery, aortic and vascular surgery, cardiac output monitoring.
• NEURO - Neuroanaesthesia - Intracranial pressure and cerebral perfusion, craniotomy, awake craniotomy, spinal surgery, traumatic brain injury, neuroradiology, subarachnoid haemorrhage.
• OBSTETRIC - Obstetric anaesthesia - Physiology of pregnancy, labour analgesia, anaesthesia for caesarean, obstetric haemorrhage, pre-eclampsia, maternal collapse and cardiac arrest, high-risk parturient.
• PAEDS - Paediatric anaesthesia - Neonatal and paediatric physiology and pharmacology, airway and fluid management, common neonatal and paediatric surgery, pain, safeguarding, sedation.
• REGIONAL - Regional anaesthesia - Upper and lower limb blocks, truncal blocks, neuraxial techniques, ultrasound guidance, complications and LAST, regional for specific surgery.
• PAIN - Pain medicine - Acute pain management and services, multimodal analgesia, chronic and neuropathic pain, cancer pain, opioid stewardship, interventional techniques.
• TRAUMA - Trauma, burns & plastics - Major trauma management, damage control, spinal injury, burns resuscitation and airway, plastic and reconstructive surgery, free flaps.
• ICM - Intensive care medicine - Sepsis and shock, respiratory failure and ventilation, acute kidney injury and RRT, neurocritical care, nutrition, sedation and delirium, organ support, end-of-life.
• GENSURG - General, urological, gynaecological & endocrine surgery - Laparoscopic and major abdominal surgery, urological surgery and TURP, gynaecology, endocrine surgery (thyroid, phaeochromocytoma, carcinoid).
• ENTOPHTH - ENT, maxillofacial, dental & ophthalmic anaesthesia - Shared airway surgery, laser airway, tonsillectomy, maxillofacial trauma, dental, ophthalmic blocks and the open eye.
• ORTHO - Orthopaedic anaesthesia - Joint replacement, bone cement implantation syndrome, tourniquets, fat embolism, fractured neck of femur, spinal surgery positioning.
• DAYNON - Day surgery & non-theatre anaesthesia - Day-case selection and discharge, remote-site anaesthesia, radiology and MRI, ECT, cardioversion, sedation outside theatre.
• TRANSPLANT - Transplant & specialist surgery - Organ donation and retrieval, renal and liver transplant, immunosuppression, bariatric surgery, the transplant recipient.
• RESUS - Resuscitation & perioperative emergencies - Advanced life support, anaphylaxis, malignant hyperthermia, LAST, massive haemorrhage, cardiac arrest in special circumstances, can't intubate can't oxygenate.
• TRANSFUSION - Transfusion & haemostasis - Blood products and administration, massive transfusion, patient blood management, coagulopathy and viscoelastic testing, anticoagulant and antiplatelet management.
• MEASUREMENT - Applied clinical measurement & statistics - Perioperative monitoring, depth of anaesthesia, cardiac output technologies, statistics and critical appraisal for clinical practice, clinical trials.
• SAFETY - Safety, quality, ethics & management - Human factors and non-technical skills, checklists and never events, critical incident reporting, consent and capacity, end-of-life and DNACPR, management and leadership.
• APPLIEDSCI - Applied basic science - Applied pharmacology and physiology in the clinical context, drug handling in organ failure, temperature regulation, positioning, the stress response, obesity.

How PRIMEX maps to the syllabus

• Every domain above is mapped to PRIMEX study topics, so the curriculum tracker shows coverage domain by domain.
• Question banks, AI-graded SAQ practice and viva or OSCE simulation draw from these same mapped domains.
• Spaced-repetition scheduling and progress analytics surface the domains where your coverage is thinnest.

Frequently asked questions