For several years members of the University Department of Psychiatry and post-membership trainees have organised an informal exam workshop for the final part of the Membership examination of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. This is in addition to existing postgraduate courses in the Region. The workshop concentrates on examination technique rather than on teaching the basic knowledge required. Trainees from within the Mersey Region due to sit the June or November sittings of the final MRCPsych are invited to attend by formal and informal means and the workshop is currently held on a weekly basis over six weeks. According to guidelines laid down by the College, the majority of trainees have access to postgraduate training at a university department of psychiatry; usually by day-release courses. However, these vary widely in their immediate relevance to the Membership examination; and the amount of experience in examination technique. Consequently, several residential pre-examination training courses and workshops that give this experience have flourished.

In 1986 I was awarded the Squibb Travelling Fellowship by the Royal College of Psychiatrists. The funding this provided, combined with funding provided by the Henry Hutchinson Stewart Scholarship in Psychiatry awarded by Trinity College, Dublin, enabled me to spend a three month period in the summer of 1987 at the Children's Hospital Medical Center, Boston, doing research in the area of emotional adjustment in adolescents with chronic physical illnesses. The research will be the subject of a future paper. The purpose of this communication is to outline some of the steps en route between winning the Fellowship and starting on the project at Children's Hospital. The amount of paperwork involved was time consuming, confusing and, at times, overwhelming, and I hope that other doctors planning to travel to the United States to carry out research will benefit from my expeience.