About
PACES Buddy is a free, open-source practice partner for the MRCP PACES exam — a grassroots project built by a group of residents who were preparing for the exam themselves and wanted a better way to practise between shifts.
Not a replacement for the bedside
PACES is a bedside exam: real patients, real signs, real time pressure. No app teaches you what a spleen edge feels like, and none should claim to. PACES Buddy is for the hours you are not at the bedside — the commute, the post-call evening, the weeks when no senior is free to role-play a station. It drills the thinking layer: the examination routine, presenting findings, the viva, and the communication encounters — so the time you do get with real patients goes further.
How it works
- Pick one of 500+ name-free practice cases, or let the app pick at random.
- Describe what you examine, ask, or say — by typing, or by speaking, if you are signed in (tap the microphone and your words become text you can edit). Findings are revealed manoeuvre by manoeuvre, the way a real encounter unfolds.
- Present your findings, take the viva, and get a structured marksheet across the seven PACES skills.
Free, and not for sale
PACES Buddy is run and supported by a group of residents as a grassroots effort. It is free to use, the code is open source, and there are no plans to commercialise it. We do not currently accept donations — the way to give back is ideas, corrections, exam recalls, and code.
Make it better
- Something broken, or an idea? Use Feedback in the app's sidebar.
- A wrong answer key or an unrealistic case? Report it straight from the marksheet — every correction sharpens the case bank for everyone.
- Recently sat PACES? Your exam recall is the single most valuable thing you can contribute — send it through the feedback form or email us.
- Developer? The app's code is open source (MIT) on GitHub.
FAQ
- Which AI does it run on?
- When you sign in, you practise on a model paid for by the project. If you want a stronger examiner, add your own Claude API key in Settings — it is stored only in your browser, sent per-request, never saved on our server, and you pay the provider directly.
- Is my data safe?
- Short version: we store your account email and your study history (so it syncs across devices), your API key is never saved on our server, and there are no ads or third-party trackers. If you dictate, the recording is sent through our server to a speech provider (Groq) to be turned into text and is never stored by us — along with a couple of lines of the encounter already on your screen, so it spells clinical terms correctly. Either way, do not put real patient identifiers into the app. The long version is on the privacy & disclaimer page.
- Can I trust the answers?
- The examiner is grounded in a curated case bank and reference notes, but it is still AI and can be wrong. Treat a surprising claim as a prompt to open the textbook — and report it, so the next candidate gets a better case.
- Why is it free?
- Because we wished this existed when we started preparing. It stays free as long as the running costs stay manageable.
Contact
hello@pacesbuddy.com — or the Feedback form in the app.