Oman Medical Specialty Board — General Surgery licensing examination
Gulf · OM · $99, the same everywhere
This exam has its own preparation
We publish the syllabus the OMSB is actually set from — in full, free, on that page — along with the two others of the Gulf. No other vendor does: they describe the syllabus, we print it. The oral simulator runs in the Saudi MCSA format, with its four competence domains and the fatal-error rule.
How this examination works
The Oman Medical Specialty Board does two things that are worth not confusing, because they carry the same name and are not the same: it trains and certifies specialists through its residency programme, and separately it licenses practitioners already trained elsewhere who come to work in Oman. This page is about the second. Anyone looking for the Omani board as a specialty qualification is looking for something else, and the preparation offered here is not for that.
Who can sit it
Its syllabus IS published and we have transcribed it: the Omani Examination for General Surgery carries twenty weighted categories, and the board states its purpose plainly — it is used as eligibility criteria for employment in Oman. A hundred single-best-answer questions in two hours thirty, a 65% pass mark, a 220 US dollar fee, delivered by Pearson VUE with results in 24 hours. It is the most different syllabus in the Gulf: it does not follow the sixteen domains of Dubai and Qatar but another taxonomy, where breast and hepatobiliary carry 10% each and where transplant, bariatric surgery and biostatistics score separately — none of which appear in the others. Each category may vary by up to five percentage points.
Checked against the body itself on 4 September 2026. Procedures change; if this no longer matches what you were asked for, write and tell us.
Examination structure
What we have written against this syllabus
These are the domains as Oman Medical Specialty Board publishes them, not our summary of them, with the number of questions we hold against each. A domain we have not covered is shown as zero rather than hidden.
| Domain | Questions |
|---|---|
| OEGS-01 Breast surgery p. 2, §V | 900 |
| OEGS-02 Hepatobiliary p. 2, §V | 1,050 |
| OEGS-03 Lower GIT (appendix, colon, rectum and anal canal) p. 2, §V | 1,151 |
| OEGS-04 Endocrine surgery p. 2, §V | 900 |
| OEGS-05 Surgical oncology, abdominal wall and soft tissue tumours p. 2, §V | 850 |
| OEGS-06 Acute abdomen p. 2, §V | 400 |
| OEGS-07 Hernia surgery p. 2, §V | 300 |
| OEGS-08 Upper GIT (oesophagus, stomach, small intestine) p. 2, §V | 950 |
| OEGS-09 Bariatric surgery and management p. 2, §V | 100 |
| OEGS-10 Subspecialty (vascular, paediatric, plastic, lung, mediastinum) p. 2, §V | 300 |
| OEGS-11 Surgical complications p. 2, §V | 250 |
| OEGS-12 Transplant principles and management p. 2, §V | 49 |
| OEGS-13 Trauma, systemic response to injury p. 2, §V | 400 |
| OEGS-14 Principles of pre/postoperative evaluation and management p. 2, §V | 250 |
| OEGS-15 Surgical critical care (haemodynamics, oxygen transport, shock) p. 2, §V | 450 |
| OEGS-16 Biostatistics, epidemiology and critical appraisal p. 2, §V | 100 |
| OEGS-17 Haemostasis and use of blood products p. 2, §V | 500 |
| OEGS-18 Medical ethics, professionalism and legal responsibility p. 2, §V | 250 |
| OEGS-19 Principles of anaesthesia and pain management p. 2, §V | 250 |
| OEGS-20 Surgical infection p. 2, §V | 550 |
4,900 distinct questions map to this syllabus. A question counts once per domain it serves, so the column adds up to more than the bank.
Common questions about this examination
What are the parts of the OMSB examination?
Oman Medical Specialty Board sets 1 component: Omani Examination for General Surgery (OEGS) (a written multiple-choice paper, 100 questions, 3 hours).
How many questions are in the OMSB examination?
100 across all written components, as published by Oman Medical Specialty Board.
What does the OMSB syllabus cover?
20 domains published by Oman Medical Specialty Board: Breast surgery, Hepatobiliary, Lower GIT (appendix, colon, rectum and anal canal), Endocrine surgery, Surgical oncology, abdominal wall and soft tissue tumours, Acute abdomen, and others.
Where is the official OMSB syllabus published?
Oman Medical Specialty Board publishes it at https://omsb.gov.om/home/infoPage?id=53. Our question mapping is taken from that document, domain by domain.
What is the OMSB examination like?
The Oman Medical Specialty Board does two things that are worth not confusing, because they carry the same name and are not the same: it trains and certifies specialists through its residency programme, and separately it licenses practitioners already trained elsewhere who come to work in Oman. This page is about the second. Anyone looking for the Omani board as a specialty qualification is looking for something else, and the preparation offered here is not for that.
Who can sit the OMSB?
Its syllabus IS published and we have transcribed it: the Omani Examination for General Surgery carries twenty weighted categories, and the board states its purpose plainly — it is used as eligibility criteria for employment in Oman. A hundred single-best-answer questions in two hours thirty, a 65% pass mark, a 220 US dollar fee, delivered by Pearson VUE with results in 24 hours. It is the most different syllabus in the Gulf: it does not follow the sixteen domains of Dubai and Qatar but another taxonomy, where breast and hepatobiliary carry 10% each and where transplant, bariatric surgery and biostatistics score separately — none of which appear in the others. Each category may vary by up to five percentage points.
Is there a question bank for the OMSB?
This one. 5,000 single-best-answer questions across the whole of general surgery, each with the reasoning for every option rather than only the correct one, written by a consultant surgical oncologist. It is written to the discipline, not transcribed from the OMSB blueprint — general surgery is general surgery wherever it is examined, and we say plainly which boards we have mapped and which we have not.
What level are the questions for the OMSB?
2,051 of the 5,000 — 41% — sit at the hardest level. For a licence like the OMSB that matters differently than it does for an exit board: this is not measuring a residency curriculum but clinical breadth to practise, so what fails candidates is rarely the hard subspecialty question and usually the on-call one that was assumed known. That is why the Gulf bank is cut to the published syllabuses.
What does preparation for the OMSB cost?
One payment of $99 for 180 days, the same from wherever you pay — there is no country pricing. It covers the whole bank, the oral simulator and the timed mock papers. Nothing renews and no card is kept on file afterwards. Fifty questions are free with an account, so you can judge the level before paying. All three Gulf syllabuses are published in full and free, whether you buy anything or not.
Every answer above is taken from the examining body’s own published document, not from our reading of it.
Other examinations in Gulf
- Dubai Health Authority — General Surgery licensing examination — Dubai Health Authority
- Qatar Council for Healthcare Practitioners — General Surgery licensing examination — Qatar Council for Healthcare Practitioners — Department of Healthcare Professions
- Saudi Commission for Health Specialties — General Surgery classification examination — Saudi Commission for Health Specialties
- UAE Ministry of Health and Prevention — General Surgery licensing examination — Ministry of Health and Prevention (northern emirates)
- Dubai Healthcare City Authority — General Surgery licensing examination — Dubai Healthcare City Authority
- Department of Health Abu Dhabi (formerly HAAD) — General Surgery licensing examination — Department of Health — Abu Dhabi
What the access covers for this examination
One access, one price: the whole bank, the timed mock papers and the oral simulator in the Saudi MCSA format. For this examination it also means the published syllabus, which is on that page in full and free whether you buy anything or not. One payment, no renewal, and the same price wherever you pay from.
180 days
$99
Up to 6 oral stations a day, examiner-led and marked by domain. The courses that prepare the Saudi oral charge for a single mock viva.