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Core Surgical Training (CST)

Practise the whole CST interview out loud.

Practise portfolio, management and clinical stations out loud. Follow-up adapts to your answers while reviewed clinical cases keep the medicine consistent.

Full paid Interview programmes are coming soon. Try one free practice per account across interview routes, with follow-ups and saved feedback on typed or dictated answers.

Try one free interview practice Explore spoken practice Read the free guide
Illustrative surgical team working in an operating theatre.

Practise the full CST interview

Focused preparation across the interview domains that matter most for Core Surgical Training (CST).

View interview format

Portfolio & presentation

Turn your evidence into concise answers that show ownership, impact and readiness for Core Surgical Training.

Management & professionalism

Work through leadership, teamwork, difficult situations and professional judgement with follow-up that tests your reasoning.

Acute clinical assessment

Structure the first minutes of an unwell surgical patient clearly and recognise the immediate threat.

Prioritisation & escalation

Explain what must happen now, what can wait and when senior surgical, anaesthetic or critical-care help is needed.

Communication under pressure

Give concise spoken answers that make risk, priorities, ownership and next steps easy for an assessor to follow.

Full interview coverage
Responsive AI voice
60 reviewed clinical cases

From preparation to practice · Coming at launch

Prepare with a programme. Rehearse with an interviewer.

Learn how to approach the questions, develop your own evidence and improve your answers. Add a live AI interviewer when you want to practise the conversation out loud.

Your preparation programme

Core Preparation

Learn the approach. Build your evidence. Improve your answers.

More than a question bank: a structured workspace to turn what you know and what you’ve done into stronger interview answers.

  • Understand the question. Explore specialty questions, cases and study guides where available.
  • Example bank. Develop your own leadership, teamwork, teaching and QI evidence, ready to use across different questions.
  • Type or dictate. Get structured AI feedback on your answer, then make a focused improvement.
  • Keep building. Return to saved answers, examples and feedback as your preparation develops.
Explore the preparation programme A complete preparation programme in its own right.

Everything in Core, plus

Core + Live AI Interviewer

An interviewer, ready when you are.

A live AI interviewer on demand. It asks, listens and responds to what you actually say, helping you practise a natural conversation and handle the next question.

  • Follow-ups that respond to you. Handle the next question based on the answer you’ve just given.
  • Rehearse without hints. Interview Mode gives you a realistic mock, with feedback afterwards.
  • Get coaching when you want it. Coach Mode helps you refine an answer with feedback and focused retries.
  • Fit practice around your day. 120 shared voice minutes for coaching and interviews, alongside the full Core programme.
See the live interviewer Opening at launch. Explore the current interface below.

Spoken practice · Coming at launch

One AI interviewer. The whole CST interview.

Practise portfolio, management and clinical stations aloud. Follow-up tests your reasoning, while reviewed scenarios keep the patient details consistent.

  1. Hear the question or case

    The AI interviewer delivers portfolio, management and clinical prompts aloud, so you practise the spoken interview rather than a text version of it.

  2. Answer naturally

    Use your microphone and respond in your own words. The interviewer listens to the content of your answer rather than matching a memorised script.

  3. Follow-up that fits the station

    Portfolio and management questioning can adapt to your answer. In clinical cases the AI reacts in real time while the reviewed patient facts stay clinically consistent.

  4. Coach it, then test it

    Coach mode gives spoken feedback, challenge and retries. Interview mode removes the coaching and keeps feedback until the mock is complete.

Current Core Surgical Training (CST) spoken practice interface with an illustrative conversation.
Current product interface · Sample content

Built around your evidence

Personalisation should change the questions, not just your name.

The preparation context is deliberately specific to this interview route. The aim is to help you choose, explain and defend your own evidence rather than memorise someone else's answer.

  1. Your surgical experience and portfolio evidence

  2. Audit, QI, teaching and academic achievements

  3. Examples of leadership, teamwork and difficult situations

  4. Your own clinical and management reasoning

Current published format

Portfolio plus management and clinical stations.

The latest fully published CST interview structure uses two online 15-minute stations. Portfolio assessment is now part of the interview process.

View official CST interview guidance

CST recruitment is changing, including portfolio criteria for 2027. Check the official guidance for your cycle.

  1. Management & Clinical station: one management scenario plus two clinical scenarios, with five minutes for each question.

  2. Portfolio station: a prepared three-minute presentation, two minutes of questioning, then two portfolio questions.

  3. Current scoring explicitly considers safety, judgement under pressure, communication, clinical knowledge and portfolio/presentation performance.

Free recruitment guide

Preparing the application as well as the interview?

Check the requirements, gather your evidence and prepare your next answer.

Two ways to practise

Learn with support. Then remove it.

Coach mode

Coach the whole CST interview.

Coach Mode can challenge portfolio and management answers freely within the CST rubric, give spoken feedback and help you retry. In clinical cases it stays responsive while keeping the reviewed patient facts consistent.

  • Refine portfolio and presentation answers
  • Pressure-test management and professional judgement
  • Repair clinical reasoning, prioritisation and escalation
  • Retry with immediate spoken feedback

Interview mode

Run the CST interview without coaching.

Interview Mode tests portfolio, management and clinical performance without hints. Follow-up adapts to what you say; clinical cases preserve the reviewed scenario while the conversation remains live.

  • Adaptive portfolio and management questioning
  • Five-minute spoken clinical scenarios
  • No hints or rescue coaching during the mock
  • Structured feedback after the interview

Core Surgical Training · Launching soon

Practise the full CST interview out loud.

Get to know the format and work through original preparation questions while spoken practice prepares to launch.

Read the free guide