All doctors who are willing to practice medicine in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, either as general practitioner, or specialist, are required to pass this Saudi Medical Licensing Exam, SMLE. This exam can be taken worldwide through Prometric centers.

General Practitioner

For general practitioner, this is a lengthy exam, consisting upon 6 hours, and divided into 3 sections. Each section contains 100 questions, with a total of 120 minutes duration. You can take two scheduled breaks between section one-two, and section two-three, with a pool total time of 45 minutes, to be divided between these two breaks, based on your preference.

Below is the general breakup for different sections in SMLE exam;

First section is of Internal Medicine MCQs, which is relatively tougher then the remaining two sections. Therefore, don’t get stressed, if you are not doing well in this section. Second and third sections of Gynecology and Surgery, can be relatively easy if you are prepared well.

You should try to achieve 70% passing score as a whole in these sections. The higher you score, the better your chances of matching into your desired specialty. After obtaining a pass score in the SMLE, each candidate is eligible for two further attempts, to improve their marks, for the purpose of attaining a better opportunity for residency selection.

Specialties

Saudi Licensing Exam for specialties, such as Obs & Gyne, General Surgery, Internal Medicine, Family Medicine, Pediatrics, Cardiology, Dermatology and others, consists upon specialty related questions.

Each of these specialty exam, consists upon 200 MCQs with 4 hours duration, having passing score of 60% for registrar and 70% for senior registrar.