DHA, QCHP or SCFHS: which Gulf licence do you actually need, and how do the exams differ?
Dubai and Qatar set the identical sixteen-domain general surgery paper. Saudi Arabia sets no paper at all — it examines you out loud. A side-by-side comparison of the three, from the authorities’ own documents.
Reviewed · Pablo Lozano Lominchar, MD PhD
The licence you need is decided by where you intend to work, not by which exam you would rather sit. There is no pan-Gulf licence: each authority licenses for its own emirate or country. What surprises most candidates is that two of the three set exactly the same paper, and the third is not a paper at all.
| DHA (Dubai) | QCHP (Qatar) | SCFHS (Saudi Arabia) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Format | Written MCQ, computer-based | Written MCQ, computer-based | Oral — 2 to 4 stations |
| Questions | 150 | 150 | Not applicable |
| Time | 180 minutes | 210 minutes | Up to 30 minutes per station |
| Pass mark | 65% | 65% | 70% of the sections evaluated |
| Delivered by | Prometric | Prometric | Remotely, by live examiners |
| Syllabus areas | 16 domains | 16 domains (weights published) | 18 sections |
| Fatal-mistake rule | No | No | Yes — can fail you regardless of score |
Why Dubai and Qatar match. The Qatari blueprint cites two Saudi Commission manuals among its six references, and the Dubai document cites a Saudi patient-safety text. All three descend from the same Gulf pattern, which is why the two written papers converged. Qatar publishes percentage weights per domain; Dubai does not. Because the syllabus is the same, the Qatari weights are the best available guide to how a Dubai paper is likely to be built — but they are Qatar’s numbers, and we label them as such rather than presenting them as Dubai’s.
Why Saudi Arabia is the outlier, and the one people underprepare. The SCFHS does not certify a specialty; it classifies you as general practitioner, specialist or consultant, and it does that through an oral evaluation — two to four stations of up to thirty minutes, conducted remotely, with two to four examiners, drawn from eighteen published sections. You are told the eighteen sections; you are not told which six to eight your encounter will cover.
And the ones we do not claim to have transcribed. Every Gulf authority sets its own General Surgeon paper through Prometric: the UAE Ministry of Health, Dubai Healthcare City, the Department of Health Abu Dhabi, Bahrain’s NHRA and Oman’s OMSB among them. There is good reason to expect them to follow the same pattern, since Dubai and Qatar already did and both cite Saudi sources. Good reason is not verification. We have not located their syllabus documents, so we do not publish them as transcribed.
Questions people actually ask
Is there a single licence that covers the whole Gulf?
No. Each authority licenses for its own emirate or country — Dubai through the DHA, Abu Dhabi through the Department of Health, Qatar through the QCHP, Saudi Arabia through the SCFHS, and so on. Dubai and Qatar happen to set the same general surgery paper, so preparation transfers, but the licences themselves do not.
Which is harder, the DHA exam or the QCHP exam?
They are the same examination in content and standard: the same sixteen domains, 150 questions and a 65% pass mark, both delivered by Prometric. Qatar allows 210 minutes and Dubai 180, so the Dubai paper is the tighter of the two on time — and the Dubai figure includes registration and the introduction, not just the questions.
Is the SCFHS exam multiple choice?
Not for the general surgery professional-practice classification. That is an oral: a Multiple Case Structured Assessment of two to four stations of up to thirty minutes, conducted remotely, marked on four competence domains, and requiring a satisfactory level in 70% of the sections evaluated.