Kate Laver's Primary FRCA Guide
Part 1: MCQ/SBA
My revision (for exam in June)
February
• Read West in theatre during lists (probably read it 3 times)
• Read Al-Shaikh in evenings and did self-test questions at end of chapter
several times
March
• Skim-read Peck and Hill once
• Read about major drugs e.g. adrenaline, noradrenaline etc in slightly
closer detail for main points e.g. which receptors etc
April
• Read the physiology section of Fundamentals (read each chapter e.g.
CVS physiol, renal physiol) a few times and then moved on to next
• Read Lote’s book in conjunction with the renal physiol chapter in
Fundamentals
• Signed up to PasTest online for MCQs and SBAs (3 month subscription,
about £60, very very useful I thought)
May
• Attended Coventry MCQ course (very good, and harder than the exam I
think)
• Started using PasTest website
• Did the MCQs in equipment and West books in theatre
June
• PasTest website every evening
• SBA book questions from Coventry course in May
• Looked up any answers I got wrong in more detail in textbooks and reread that section
• Probably didn’t do much reading in this month as was all MCQ/ SBA
practice
• Exam
Books
Respiratory physiology – West
Essentials of anaesthetic equipment – Al-Shaikh
Fundamentals of anaesthesia – Smith and Pinnock
Pharmacology for anaesthesia and intensive care – Peck and Hill
Basic physics and measurement – Davis and Kenny
Principles of renal physiology – Lote
A-Z – Yentis
MCQ/SBA practice
PasTest MCQs/ SBAs online (website)
SBAs in anaesthesia – Mendonca (book)
Courses and teaching:
Coventry Primary MCQ course (2 days)
Primary FRCA weekly teaching at QE
Part 2: OSCE/Viva
My revision (for exam in Jan):
November
• Started with physics, equipment and statistics
• Read Davis and Kenny cover to cover (some people hate this book but I
think once you get into it it is very (probably too) detailed and offers good
pictures and explanations, but is very dry.) Interspersed with using frca
and howequipmentworks websites for any explanations I didn’t
understand
• Kept going through the book and would write brief explanations of how
things work, or say it out loud in my head
• Practiced drawing diagrams of anything that came up in the physics
book
• Explained things like A-lines etc to consultants in theatre
• Did physics soe questions on frca website
• Used Dr Podcast book to practice answering questions out loud (the
stats bit is especially useful)
• Also used stats section in Fundamentals and practiced writing out the
mini equations for sensitivity, specificity etc
• Drew brainstorms for the different types of statistical tests and stuck
these up around my house
December
• Physiology
• Re-read Fundamentals’ physiology sections several times. Practiced
drawing and labelling any diagrams or graphs that came up in each
section until I could think of one off the top of my head, draw it and
explain it
• Picked out specific parts of the neuro and pain chapters as they were far
too detailed. E.g. just learnt the tracts for pain and the nociceptors and
fibres (main stuff only as time was short)
• Did frca soe questions on physiology
• Attended Coventry viva/osce course (quite useful, mainly for the osce
practice as I hadn’t done half the revision for the viva’s yet so it was a bit
pointless doing those)
• Used Dr Podcast book to practice answering questions out loud
January
• Pharmacology
• Drew lots of tables comparing different drugs from the Peck and Hill
book, e.g. one side of A4 for B-blockers, one side for diuretics, one for
sympathomimetics etc – practiced covering the columns up and
remembering what was in each box
• Focussed mainly on commonly used drugs and the main ones in each
group. The drugs where there was only a sentence or so written about
them, I ignored.
• In theatre I picked out drugs and gave a short speech about them to
myself
• Used Dr Podcast book to practice answering questions out loud
• In-hospital viva practice mornings
• 1 week leave before exam for last minute revision (as it is very hard to
do any revision in the day at work)
• Exam
Books
Respiratory physiology – West
Essentials of anaesthetic equipment – Al-Shaikh
Fundamentals of anaesthesia – Smith and Pinnock
Pharmacology for anaesthesia and intensive care – Peck and Hill
Basic physics and measurement – Davis and Kenny
Dr Podcast scripts for the Primary FRCA – Leslie, Johnson and Goodwin
(my favourite book)
The Primary FRCA SOE study guides 1 + 2 (Masterpass series) –
Wijayasiri, McCombe and Patel (although I bought these, fully intending to
read them, I never got round to opening them)
I didn’t find A-Z very helpful as it lacked lengthy explanations that the
other textbooks seemed to contain, but I know other people found it very
useful as a quick reference
Courses and teaching
Coventry Primary OSCE/VIVA course (2 days) (December)
In-hospital viva practice 4 mornings a week for half an hour, 2 weeks
before exam
Consultant viva practice during lists
Russell’s Hall OSCE/VIVA day (January)
Half-day OSCE practice in-hospital
Websites and audio
Anaesthesia UK
YouTube (for neuro examinations e.g. cranial nerves)
www.howequipmentworks.com
Dr Podcast