TL;DR. St Emlyn’s is an excellent supplement, not enough alone for the FRCEM SBA. Use it for trauma, resuscitation, critical appraisal (the CANs podcasts), recent landmark trials and the wellbeing/leadership material — areas where it is genuinely best-in-class FOAMed. Pair it with a structured SBA question bank, the RCEM Learning blueprint mapping, and a guideline-focused resource (NICE/RCEM clinical standards) for the SLO1 stable-but-complex block, paediatrics (SLO5) and the governance/management questions (SLO7/12). Treat the on-site FRCEM Revision Guide as a curated portal — it is mostly OSCE-orientated and the SBA chapter is a links page rather than a topic syllabus. See also our guide to whether the RCEMLearning podcast is useful for the exam. See also our guide to revising RCEM guidelines as the primary source.
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St Emlyn’s (stemlynsblog.org) is one of the most cited FOAMed resources in UK emergency medicine. If you are sitting the FRCEM SBA you have almost certainly been told to read it, listen to the podcast, or use its FRCEM Revision Guide. The honest question is narrower than “is it good?” — it obviously is. The question is whether it is sufficient on its own to pass a 180-question, blueprint-weighted paper. This article maps what St Emlyn’s actually covers, against the RCEM SBA blueprint, and tells you where it shines and where you will need to look elsewhere.
What actually is St Emlyn’s, and who is it written for?
St Emlyn’s is a UK-based emergency medicine blog and podcast founded by the Manchester/Virchester team — Simon Carley, Iain Beardsell, Rick Body, Natalie May and an extended faculty including Liz Crowe, Salim Rezaie (via REBEL EM crossover) and many others. It has been publishing since 2012 and is one of the founding pillars of the FOAMed movement. The content sits at the intersection of clinical EM, critical appraisal of the literature, and the cultural/leadership/wellbeing side of the job. The audience is broad — trainees through to consultants and prehospital clinicians — but the editorial voice assumes you already work in an ED.
Importantly, St Emlyn’s is not structured as an exam syllabus. It is a working clinician’s blog whose content happens to be relevant to FRCEM revision. The site does have an explicit exams hub at /exams/ and a dedicated FRCEM Revision Guide, but as you will see, the bulk of the revision guide is OSCE-focused. The SBA chapter is principally a curated list of links rather than a topic-by-topic syllabus.
How does St Emlyn’s content map to the FRCEM SBA blueprint?
The FRCEM Final SBA is 180 questions, blueprinted against the 2021 RCEM curriculum. The dominant weights are SLO3 (Resuscitation, 22%), SLO1 (Stable but complex, 19%), SLO4 (Injured patients, 19%), SLO5 (Paediatrics, 17%), then a long tail of SLO6 (procedural), SLO7/12 (governance and leadership), SLO8 (safeguarding) and SLO10/11 (research, QI and patient safety). If you have not seen the full split, read our companion piece on the FRCEM Final SBA blueprint topic weighting first — the rest of this article assumes those numbers.
The table below maps St Emlyn’s output against that blueprint based on a current read of the site (as of May 2026): the front-page categories, the tag archives, the podcast back-catalogue and the FRCEM Revision Guide contents page.
| Blueprint domain | Weight | St Emlyn’s coverage |
|---|---|---|
| SLO3 — Resuscitation (incl. trauma resus) | 22% | Covered well. Trauma Team Leader (TTL) series, prehospital and major trauma deep-dives, sepsis, post-arrest care, REBOA, ECMO, RSI evidence, traumatic cardiac arrest. Probably the strongest single area on the site. |
| SLO1 — Stable but complex adult | 19% | Covered lightly and unevenly. Strong on cardiology (chest pain, troponin, syncope), reasonable on tox and ENT, patchy on dermatology, endocrinology, GI/hepatology, haematology, infectious disease, MSK (non-traumatic), nephrology and ophthalmology. This is the single biggest gap. |
| SLO4 — Injured patients | 19% | Covered well at the resus end; thinner on the bread-and-butter SLO4 (minor injuries, hand injuries, ankle rules, paediatric fractures, ophthalmic trauma). OSCE chapters of the Revision Guide help here. |
| SLO5 — Paediatrics | 17% | Covered lightly. Some excellent PEM posts (Natalie May era, sepsis, head injury, bronchiolitis) and useful Don’t Forget The Bubbles cross-links, but not a systematic PEM syllabus. The 31 PEM questions on the paper need a dedicated PEM resource. |
| SLO6 — Procedural | ~6% | Covered well for OSCE (the Revision Guide Chapter 9 is excellent); for SBA-relevant procedural decision-making (NIV, adult/paediatric sedation, LP, pericardiocentesis, escharotomy) coverage is partial. |
| SLO7 / SLO12 — Complex situations, leadership, governance | ~8% | Covered well qualitatively, lightly for SBA. Excellent reflective content on leadership, end-of-life decisions, conflict, wellbeing — but SBA questions test knowledge of GMC guidance, Mental Capacity Act, DoLS thresholds, complaints process. You will need to read the source guidance directly. |
| SLO8 — Safeguarding & vulnerable groups | ~3% | Covered lightly. Some posts on domestic abuse, mental health and substance misuse; OSCE Chapter 5 is useful. For SBA you need RCEM safeguarding guidance and NICE NG76/NG56. |
| SLO10 / SLO11 — Research, QI, patient safety | ~6% | Covered exceptionally well. The Critical Appraisal Nuggets (CANs) podcast series (12+ episodes on randomisation, blinding, bias, ITT, NNT, predictive values, likelihood ratios, semi-structured interviews) is essentially purpose-built for the critical appraisal questions on the SBA. The monthly papers round-ups and TBS-2026 best-papers post are also high yield. |
The pattern is consistent: St Emlyn’s is strong where its authors do front-line resuscitation, prehospital and research work, and lighter on the long tail of SLO1 sub-specialties and PEM that the SBA spreads marks across.
Is the on-site FRCEM Revision Guide an SBA syllabus?
Short answer: no — and it does not claim to be. The St Emlyn’s FRCEM Revision Guide has 10 chapters. Chapters 2–10 are all OSCE content (history-taking, communication, psychiatry/safeguarding, system examination, MSK, resuscitation, procedure and teaching stations). Chapter 1 — the SBA chapter — is a single page that contains an exam overview, tips and tricks, a courses/book list and a long collated-resources section with links to adult and paediatric guidelines. It is genuinely useful as a launchpad, but you cannot revise the SBA cover-to-cover from that chapter alone. Treat it as the contents page of a curated library, not as the library itself.
What does St Emlyn’s do better than almost anyone else?
- Critical appraisal. The CANs podcast series is the single best UK FOAMed resource for the appraisal questions that appear in the SLO10/11 block. Ten-minute episodes on randomisation, blinding, ITT, RR/AR/NNT, predictive values and likelihood ratios are exactly the level the SBA tests.
- Landmark trial commentary. Monthly round-ups and the annual “best papers” post (TBS 2026 is the current one) keep you current on trials examiners are likely to draw vignettes from — for example, recent RSI trials, prehospital anaesthesia evidence and major trauma trials covered in the last 12 months.
- Trauma team leadership and resus. The TTL series (currently at tip 12) and the prehospital posts are unmatched.
- Voice and depth. Authors are practising consultants and professors. The reasoning is shown, not just the answer — which is exactly the skill the SBA rewards (best of several plausible options).
- Wellbeing, leadership and the human factors of EM. Important professionally, occasionally directly testable in SLO12.
Where will you need to look elsewhere?
- A question bank. St Emlyn’s has no SBA-style question practice. You need a dedicated bank — that is non-negotiable. There is no substitute for timed five-option SBA reps under exam conditions.
- Systematic SLO1 coverage. Dermatology, endocrinology, GI/hepatology, haematology, nephrology, ophthalmology, ENT. Use RCEMLearning’s curriculum-mapped modules or a structured textbook for these.
- Paediatric emergency medicine. Don’t Forget The Bubbles is the obvious companion for SLO5.
- UK guidelines. NICE NGs, RCEM Best Practice Guidelines, JRCALC, Resus Council UK — the SBA tests current UK practice and examiners write questions directly off these. St Emlyn’s discusses them but does not replace them.
- Governance and law. GMC Good Medical Practice, Mental Capacity Act, DoLS, Mental Health Act sections. Read the primary documents.
How do real candidates use St Emlyn’s in a revision plan?
The pattern that comes up repeatedly in r/doctorsUK and r/emergencymedicine threads on FRCEM resources is the same: St Emlyn’s is named as a core background resource — the thing that builds clinical reasoning over months and years — but candidates who pass first time consistently also report doing a question bank to volume, supplementing with RCEM Learning’s curriculum-mapped modules, and reading current NICE/RCEM guidelines in the eight weeks before the paper. The candidates who report struggling are usually those who relied on FOAMed alone (any FOAMed, not specifically St Emlyn’s) without the question-bank reps and the guideline grind.
A workable split, three months out:
- Daily (20–40 min): One St Emlyn’s podcast on commute or dog-walk. Bias towards CANs episodes and monthly round-ups.
- 4–5 times a week (60–90 min): Timed SBA bank, in 30–50 question blocks, reviewing every answer including the ones you got right.
- Weekly (90–120 min): One systematic SLO1 sub-domain (e.g. one week dermatology, one week endocrinology). Read RCEM/NICE primary source, then look for any St Emlyn’s posts on the topic for reinforcement.
- Weekly (60 min): One PEM topic from DFTB or RCEMLearning PEM module.
- Weekly (30 min): One critical appraisal CAN or one TBS-2026 paper.
Is St Emlyn’s still updated frequently enough to be current?
Yes. The blog publishes multiple posts a week, the podcast runs monthly round-ups (Ep 291 was January 2026; the May 2026 RCEM Annual Conference coverage was three consecutive daily posts), and the TBS papers post is updated annually. The site is actively maintained and citing it in 2026 will not date your knowledge. The one caveat is that older posts (anything pre-2020) may pre-date the 2021 RCEM curriculum and current NICE guidance — check the modified date and cross-check against current guidelines before relying on a specific clinical recommendation.
So — is St Emlyn’s enough on its own for the FRCEM SBA?
No, but that is true of any single resource. The honest verdict: St Emlyn’s is the best UK EM blog and a near-mandatory part of an FRCEM SBA revision plan, but it is a clinical-reasoning resource and a critical-appraisal resource, not a syllabus. Use it as the foundation layer — build a question bank, structured SLO1 sweep, PEM resource and guideline reading on top. Candidates who pair St Emlyn’s with those three things consistently report it pays back the time invested several times over.
FAQ
Is St Emlyn’s free?
Yes. Every blog post, every podcast and the entire FRCEM Revision Guide are free. The team funds the site personally and explicitly states it takes no institutional money, grants or sponsorship. See also our guide to the best free MRCEM revision resources.
How often does St Emlyn’s publish?
Multiple blog posts per week, a monthly podcast round-up (current as of Ep 291, January 2026), plus extended series like TTL tips (now at tip 12) and the Critical Appraisal Nuggets podcasts. Conference coverage (RCEM ASC, IncrEMentuM, TBS) is published in real time during the conference.
Should I read every St Emlyn’s post in the run-up to the SBA?
No. With multiple posts per week going back to 2012 that would be tens of thousands of pages. Prioritise the CANs podcasts, the most recent 6–12 months of monthly round-ups, the TBS 2026 best-papers post, and use the tag archive to drill into specific blueprint topics as you revise them.
Does the St Emlyn’s FRCEM Revision Guide cover the SBA topic by topic?
No. Chapter 1 is the only SBA chapter and it is structured as exam advice plus a collated links page rather than a topic syllabus. Chapters 2–10 are all OSCE-focused. Treat the Revision Guide as a curated portal to other resources, not as a stand-alone syllabus.
Is the St Emlyn’s podcast suitable for SBA candidates?
Yes — especially the Critical Appraisal Nuggets (CANs) series and the monthly round-ups, both of which are aimed at the level of clinical reasoning and evidence interpretation the SBA tests. The 20-minute monthly round-up format is well suited to commute revision.
Where do St Emlyn’s and RCEM Learning overlap and differ?
RCEM Learning is the College’s own curriculum-mapped learning platform, structured around the 2021 RCEM SLOs and explicitly designed for exam preparation. St Emlyn’s is a peer-led clinical blog with deeper, longer-form treatment of specific topics and unmatched critical appraisal content. They are complementary: RCEM Learning gives you the systematic blueprint sweep; St Emlyn’s gives you the clinical reasoning and current-evidence layer on top.
Does St Emlyn’s cover paediatric emergency medicine (SLO5) adequately for the SBA?
Not on its own. There is solid PEM content (sepsis, head injury, bronchiolitis, paediatric resuscitation) but not a systematic PEM syllabus. PEM accounts for 17% of the SBA — pair St Emlyn’s with Don’t Forget The Bubbles or the RCEMLearning PEM modules for the SLO5 block.
Is St Emlyn’s biased towards trauma and resus?
It does over-index towards trauma, prehospital and resuscitation relative to the SBA blueprint. That is a strength for the 22% SLO3 block but means you should not use St Emlyn’s as your only resource for the 19% SLO1 stable-but-complex block, which spans 17 sub-specialties.
Does the site have OSCE-specific revision material?
Yes, and it is the best free OSCE resource available. Chapters 2–10 of the FRCEM Revision Guide cover history-taking, communication, psychiatry/safeguarding, system examination, MSK, resuscitation, procedure and teaching stations. Use it heavily for OSCE prep.
Will reading St Emlyn’s help me think like an examiner?
To an extent — many of the authors are RCEM examiners or have been. The CANs podcasts in particular train the kind of “best of several plausible options” reasoning the SBA rewards. But you still need question-bank reps to internalise the SBA stem-and-distractor pattern.
How does St Emlyn’s compare to international FOAMed (REBEL EM, EMCrit, LITFL, Don’t Forget The Bubbles)?
St Emlyn’s is the most UK-practice-aligned of the major FOAMed sites and therefore the most directly transferable to FRCEM. REBEL EM and EMCrit are excellent for evidence and critical care but US-context. LITFL is strong for procedural and tox reference. DFTB is your PEM companion. For FRCEM SBA specifically, St Emlyn’s + DFTB + RCEM Learning is a reasonable FOAMed-centric core.
Can I cite St Emlyn’s in an SBA answer reasoning chain?
The SBA does not ask for citations — but the underlying logic St Emlyn’s teaches (the trials, the appraisal, the guideline interpretation) is exactly what justifies the single best answer. If you can explain why the right answer is right in St Emlyn’s-style reasoning, you are at the level the paper is testing.
Facts last verified .
Next step: If you want a full blueprint-mapped revision plan for the FRCEM SBA — covering question banks, systematic SLO1 coverage, PEM, governance and the highest-yield CANs episodes to listen to in order — see the rest of our FRCEM resources at emfinalexams.com.
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