Thinking of starting a PLAB Study Club?
There are already study clubs running in different ways in different parts of
the country. So if you are thinking of setting up a study club, you don’t have
to reinvent the wheel. You might want to visit one of the groups that
already exists (contact Jo Constable at the BMA for a list). And you might
like to read one or two tips and wrinkles that I wish someone had told me 2
years ago, when I first entered this field.
What is a study club?
Study clubs fulfil a number of different purposes for their members:

Morale and social support by providing a regular meeting place for
doctors facing similar problems

An opportunity to meet British health professionals and learn about the
NHS

Study activities - group practise of PLAB questions and presentations to
update medical knowledge - given by members themselves, the facilitator
or outside speakers

Books to borrow - IELTS books, medical textbooks, PLAB question books

Access to PLAB 2 equipment

Help with CV preparation and interview practise

Assistance in finding clinical attachments

References from a UK source

Financial assistance for PLAB 2 fees, transport costs and some courses.
What do we need to start one?
Most clubs have a facilitator, who is usually (but not always) a British health
care professional. The facilitator is needed because getting into work in the
NHS requires more than simply studying clinical medicine. Club members will
have lots of questions about the NHS, and there will also be lots of cultural
issues (for example around consent, confidentiality and ethico-legal matters)
that differ from country to country. Members need to learn about these
differences, even though they are not directly tested in PLAB. Don’t
underestimate the facilitation time that will be required. I found a two hour
study club required a full day of my time, when preparation and one to one
advice was taken into account.
The club needs somewhere to meet regularly. A lending library of books is
useful, and you will need PLAB 2 equipment to allow members to practise
venepuncture, cannulation, catheterisation etc.
You will need funding. Potential sources include the local primary care and
hospital trusts - if they will not provide financial backing, they may offer
rooms or library facilities; the strategic health authority - find out who is
responsible for recruitment and retention of overseas trained medical
personnel; and the department of health - you will have to bid for funding.
Once you have had a bit of publicity you may find that other donors come
forward - individuals, local Rotary clubs or church groups may offer help.
You may also appreciate support in the form of volunteer time. Consider
recruiting local medical students or drama students to act as patients for
PLAB 2 practise. The medical defence unions can provide some interesting
speakers on medico-legal matters. Tap in to the educational activities on
offer from your local postgraduate medical deanery, local hospitals and
primary care trusts. Seminars for general practitioners and their staff are
often pitched at the right level for the PLAB candidates. These also offer
an opportunity for the refugee doctors to meet British doctors, often in a
social setting over a pre-lecture meal.
If you choose to invite outside medical speakers to the club, you will need to
prepare them in advance, so that they understand the group’s needs. A one
hour talk on a consultant’s pet research topic is unlikely to be appropriate.
By providing speakers beforehand with a few sample PLAB questions to use
in their teaching session, you will help them to pitch it at the right level.
And ask for feedback from club members as to which speakers were
interesting and should be invited again.
Should we start one mixed level club or several separate clubs?
A mixed level group - with doctors studying for IELTS, PLAB 1, PLAB 2 and
preparing for work - may not seem a logical mix, because of the difficulty of
catering to the very different needs of the students. But, in fact, it can
work quite well if the members are free to dip in and out as they feel
appropriate. Those further on in their studies provide a useful source of
advice and inspiration to those who are only just beginning. Even those with
relatively little conversational English can often manage some PLAB 1
questions as medical English is easily recognisable, and this can give this
group a morale boost. In a two hour club in Liverpool, we split the session
between some PLAB 1 questions and some PLAB 2 practice stations - both on
a theme that we had chosen the previous week. Everyone could prepare and
join in and the club proved very popular.
If you prefer to split the club into separate PLAB 1 and PLAB 2 groups, you
need to be sure that you have enough students at each stage to make the
session work. There is nothing so dispiriting as trying to run a club with only
one member. If you don’t have enough members at an appropriate level for a
PLAB 2 club, instead of trying to provide everything yourself, you might try
and fund individual doctors to go on intensive courses that are available in
London, Birmingham and Manchester.
Those who have passed PLAB and are looking for clinical attachments or jobs
must not be forgotten. They need as much if not more time, for help with
CVs and interview preparation. Some of this will need to be on a one to one
basis, so you need to take this into account in your planning.
Should we include all overseas trained doctors?
Whether or not to open up the club to all overseas doctors will depend on a
number of factors, and there is no simple answer to this question:
Including overseas doctors may be helpful if you have only a small number of
asylum seekers and refugees locally, as there is a critical mass below which
your club is unlikely to succeed. In addition, many overseas trained doctors
have contacts in the UK and already have a good idea of what is needed to
get into work in the NHS. This helps to fire up the whole group and a bit of
healthy competition can encourage studying.
However, some funding comes with restrictions and may dictate how you run
the club. You could choose to charge a small membership fee to non-asylum
seekers (for access to books and PLAB 2 equipment) to overcome this
problem. An additional issue to consider is the ethics of encouraging
overseas doctors - many of whom are from the developing world - to come
and work in the UK. And don’t kid yourself, by providing help you are
encouraging them. Also if you only have a restricted number of contacts to
help provide clinical attachments, then you might want to limit these to
asylum seekers and refugees only.
Whatever your decision on this issue, be prepared to justify yourself as you
are likely to be challenged at some point.
How will potential members hear of the club?
You will want to advertise the club through the local agencies working with
asylum seekers and refugees - NASS housing providers, Refugee Action,
ESOL and IELTS providers, local health care providers (many Primary Care
Trusts now have special services for asylum seekers and refugees). Once
you are up and running, local papers and local radio can be very helpful in
advertising your existence through good news stories. In addition, word of
mouth will soon increase the numbers coming to a successful club.
Remember the principles of adult learning:
Beware the old tradition within British medical education of “education by
humiliation!” The club should provide a safe environment where students are
allowed to make mistakes and learn from them.
Students should be actively involved in deciding what it is that they want to
learn. They should have the opportunity to prepare in advance of each
session - if you are going to cover PLAB questions on cardiology next week,
let members know, so that they can read around the subject and come with
their questions for clarification. Working systematically through questions
around a single theme is likely to be more productive than tackling random
questions each session, and will encourage students to organise their
thoughts.
Students should be encouraged to develop good study habits, recognising
their own limitations and learning where to find the information they need.
The most worrying doctors are those who do not recognise when they don’t
know something. I use textbooks in the club when I am uncertain, and
encourage students to do the same.
Finally - the club should be fun. If it isn’t fun, you aren’t doing it right!
Consider having social activities from time to time - mixing refugee doctors
with native English speakers for a meal, ten pin bowling or some other
‘cultural‘ activity.
Produced by:
Pip Fisher
REACHE