Written's finished

Well that was an interesting experience.

I felt happy with the SAQ. If I don't pass it will be because I simply didn't put the correct things down, not that I didn't know the subjects being asked about.

The MCQ on the other hand was a lot more tricky than I was expecting.

DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE the MCQ.

Questions on the specifics of bradykinin, atropine (and not necessarily things you would expect), diseases associated with elevated cholesterol levels were all in there, amongst others....

Good layout

One of the things that came out of the last 7 days spent doing an SAQ and MCQs every day for for a total of about 80 SAQs and about 150 MCQs. One of the benefits has been from marking those SAQs ourselves, against an "ideal answer" sheet.

I actually tried quite hard to give credit for some answers that were difficult to read, but it really was frustrating. And that's what you want to avoid the examiner feeling to get maximum marks.

Here is a much nicer answer to mark than some of my first attempts.

Note the open spaces, capitalisation and clean underlining of "MANAGEMENT" on the right, and compare with the "Blood glucose" sub-point of "Metabolic derangement" closely followed by the "Malnutrition" sub-heading, and see how different it appears.

For comparison, here is a bad layout in an answer about venous air embolism.

If you want to learn more about how to do this, then you need to go on one of Dr David Gray's Courses in Liverpool. There is NO substitute for the stress you go through on the course, such that by the time you get to the exam it will worry you less. It is, of course, done in a safe environment, and no trainees came to any physical harm except exhaustion.

Please understand that at the request of the organisers and the time and effort they put in, I can't put more information about the SAQs or MCQs on this page!

Aiming High

Well, I'm on a course in Liverpool at the moment, and it's quite interesting.
We're not sure where to aim our standard of answers, but right now we think that doing an SAQ and an MCQ a day with some, erm, interesting questions with interesting (highly detailed) answers, is pushing things a bit.
One of the things we've been hearing a lot about is Cardiac. Someone pointed out that there hasn't been a cardiac question the last couple of years. I haven't checked, but if that's the case, then there is a high probability of one coming up in the SAQ this time round.
1 week, days to go.

Another pointer from James

James pointed out, as did a lecturer on a course recently, that there hasn't been a pain question for some time in the SAQ.

Pain questions should probably be answered with the following keywords:

Biopsychosocial
Multimodal
Multidisciplinary
Time-contigent
Guideline based

somewhere in the answer.

One of the possible questions that might come up is a question about the organisation of a pain team, the reasoning being that there is a requirement in the CCT to be aware of this, and it's more or less the only thing that hasn't been asked!

Mr Angry

Recently I had the opportunity to be deeply irritated (understatement of the century) by a charge nurse. It has disrupted 2 days of my studying dealing with both the anger and the upset, and indeed the fallout from dealing with it.
My advice: "Enhance your calm" whilst studying, which may be best served by taking annual leave/study leave as my friend has done.
I wish I had.