Ultimate Finals List - Advice

Ultimate Finals List

Random advice garnered from the askdoctorclarke website

Writtens
 - They are all RANDOM but not too bad. For instance we had this questions on J curves on an ECG, apparently re Hypothermia. I’d just happened to see it in the Cheese and Onion that morning, very lucky. Some questions were ok, eg. practical things like how long someone should fast before an operation etc

 - The med school repeat questions they have put up on Moodle, so learn those well and do them the day before exams for easy marks. I also think they use questions that are similar to the commercial SBA question books and websites out there, so it is worth doing those. I didn’t do many SBA books, although I did pastest and onexam websites religiously- not sure if they helped much. My friend who I revised with kept asking me questions she had struggled with from books and lots of similar questions came up- although in the exam I could never quite remember what the answer was! Either question setters are unable to be original, or they are purposefully copying questions cos they are lazy or want to give us a better chance of passing. Another possible explanation is that maybe its just core curriculum that examiners set questions on which is somewhat limited! It really helps to speed through questions if you have seen similar situations before as they are often assessing principles rather than factual recall.

 - There were lots of data interpretation questions and a fair bit of orthopaedics. Pharm was generally ok. Microbiology was horrible, especially the pictures but it wasn’t worthwhile revising all of communicable diseases for a few picture questions. I’d also ignore the pathology books and read a decent path book with colour photos  as they are very dull and you won’t remember anything from them anyway. I studied mine for weeks and it didn’t seem to help at all, I would have been better off reading the cheese and onion. Some pictures, an ecg, an x-ray come up although we did have one text definition of what chronic inflammation in the stomach looks like which was lifted directly from the pathology book but that was really just common sense re the inflammatory cell types expected.

 - The pictures in the exam were pretty impossible. One slide was nicked off UTAH path quizzes. That’s it, the rest were just random guess work! Some questions were really tricky, perhaps relying on epidemiology? Stats came up, more easy marks.

 - My recommendations for the writtens would be check the common conditions in the log book, rare conditions are not just small print but barely feature AT ALL, so don't waste your time, and don't forget to look at common ENT and ophthalmology.

OSCEs
 - The exam in no way tested the depth of my knowledge, it just wanted to check I had the basics needed to be an FY1, ie. Simple practical stuff like filling in drugs charts or giving a referral!! I must have done ok with these as I passed but it wasn’t because I’d prepared well for them, I just had to adlib in the exam, which made me believe my answers were incorrect. Examiners also give you clues. Ie. If they repeat a question, its not cos they are hard of hearing, its due to them giving you a second chance to change your answer which is Wrong! Also, they try to help and will say “are you sure there is nothing else you want to add.” This makes you feel like a wally if you know you’ve missed something, but can’t remember what it is- but you will still probably pass the station, so don’t get disheartened. It might even jog your memory.

 - My advice would be to complete your history and examinations fully and then look the examiner in the eye and tell him/her what you think without making anything up. Then you have most of the marks and it doesn't matter if you have got the diagnosis wrong.

 - Got told off for running commentary - don’t do it to a surgeon.

 - The neuro / MSK stations had a box of neuro based toys in them which i didn’t think i needed to use.

 - Time was very short on most of them so by the time you'd finished the examination you barely had time to present and that was it. One thing that is quite odd about the long stations is that some examiners let you talk through the exam, and in fact encourage it because you're short of time, and others absolutely refuse to let you. This can be very off-putting as it's not standardised and everyone seems to make up their own rules... Hmm.

 - Take a FULL history, you have 5 minutes before station starts to read the scenario and write whatever questions you may want to ask so use this time efficiently to write down differentials etc before you have even taken the history.

- The examiner jumped over and covered the patient when I had finished and was washing my hands - I felt really bad as I was going to do it in about 10 seconds, but he got there first and gave me a raised eyebrow so I just apologised to the patient.