All ESMO full members who are not yet certified are invited to participate the ESMO Examination. The Examination is organised each year during the ESMO congress or the ECCO conference. The time allocated is two hours. The questions cover all tumor sites and treatment modalities. Although the majority are of clinical or therapeutic nature, approximately 10 questions focus on non clinical fields such as epidemiology, tumor pathology or cell biology.
All participants receive, by confidential mail, a detailed analysis of their results.
The level of difficulty of the examination was progeressively increased during the first years. Since 1994 the level has been kept stable. The rate of failure is lower for questions A and B and higher for questions E, requiring not only knowledge but also understanding, and questions K with four possibly right answers. The first session of the ESMO multiple choice examination in Medical Oncology took place in London 11 years ago during ECCO 5. In many European countries the ESMO certification is either required or recommended in order to become a member of the national society of medical oncology.