The talk I wish I’d had in early
first term
Also known as...
The 10 things I hate about you
The schedule for today
• Basic Information on Exams & The Ten Things
• My exam experience. What may be relevant to
you.
Point 1: Exam format
April 26th:
Epidemiology
and Society
and Health
January
29th:
Formative
Exam
April 15th:
CMS
Summative
20th June:
Anatomy
Summative
14th June:
Clinical
Comm.
26th June:
Support
Systems
24th June:
Regulatory
Systems
Point 1: Exam Background
Formative:
• Consisted of just one exam last year
• About 50% of our year failed it!
• Good way to monitor your progress, but no sweat if it doesn’t go well as it doesn’t
count!
CMS:
•Generally the scores are very good in this exam as you have 3 weeks of Easter holidays
to revise
•2 people have failed this exam first time since the course began.
•One last year had been unwell for 4 weeks beforehand and barely made it to the
exam room.
Epidemiology and Society & Health
• It takes a maximum of a week to learn Sociology
• Hint: I didn’t see many graduates attending the sociology lectures
• Leave this until the Easter break.
•I am not aware of a single person who had a resit in this.
Point 1: Exam Background
Clinical Communication:
• No one failed, 10 minute inteview with a patient
• You get plenty of practice at this throughout the year
Anatomy:
• 6/66 in our year failed, all passed resits
• Most (apart from me) very close to passing
• One person spent too much time doing light opera and simply didn’t learn
enough
• Will explain the approach to this later in the presentation
Regulatory Systems:
• Similar numbers of retakers, all passed the resit
Support Systems:
• Again, similar numbers of retakers, all passed the resit.
Point 1: From the recent GE review
The message: Everyone passed last year. That should definitely make you feel more
confident!
Point 2: FOCP: Foundations of Clinical
Practice & PBL: Problem Based Learning
• No need to worry about these.
• FOCP: you meet twice a term. You are assigned a
patient in groups of two and go and have tea with
them for a couple of hours once a term.
• FOCP: you need to write a 1500 word essay in
second term. We had to do ours on the patient
experience. Not hard, you can do it in a weekend
(unless you seriously struggle with essays).
• PBL: problem based learning. You work through
clinical cases. Not demanding.
Point 3: How much revision time
•
•
•
•
15th December to 2nd January Christmas Break
23rd March to 15th April Easter Break
Revision period: starts 1st June with last exam on June 26t
Important point: our year social reps organized a boat party
on the day the exams finished. Ideally organise it the day
after exams, as everyone is pretty tired.
Disclaimer
• Remember the next points are suggestions
rather than commandments!
Point 4: Anatomy
• The afternoon clinical lectures might not contain much relating to
the learning objectives, which are almost entirely what you are
examined on. Some will be relevant (esp. Mary Roddie’s) but some
will not match up to the learning objectives.
• I was told this in first term by the year above and wondered ‘how
could a lecture not be directly relevant to our syllabus?’
• Lectures are more relevant to learning objectives in first term
(anatomy of thorax and abdomen)
• Then begins to become more clinical and not directly related to the
syllabus
The lesson: Be discerning: check the learning objectives and compare
it to the lectures!
Point 5: ICSM Notebank
• An online notebank which would have saved me a lot
of time, mainly on writing out the anatomy learning
objectives.
• Good quality notes.
• Password protected. Contact Academic Officer Ken Wu:
icsm.ao12ge@imperial.ac.uk
• The link:
http://www.icsmsu.com/exec/education/notebank/
Point 6: Useful teaching
resources for Anatomy
•
The best text is Moore & Dalley’s ‘Clinically
Oriented Anatomy’. It has very useful ‘blue boxes’
which answers a lot of the clinical related anatomy
learning objectives directly. If I’d known about this
at the start of the year it would have saved me a
lot of time.
•
The best images to visualize things are in Gray’s
Anatomy for Students. Why is this important? See
next slide.
•
Best concise reference book for the month before
exams: Instant Anatomy Second Edition by
Whitaker & Borley.
The lesson: Read the blue boxes in Moore & Dalley.
For quick reference use ‘Instant Anatomy.’
Point 6: Anatomy
• ‘A picture paints a thousand words’
• What worked for me: to be really sure you knew a particular bit
of anatomy was if you could draw it out. When I found out I
had a retake, one of my friends told me to draw everything out.
• It worked. I doubled my score to high distinction level in my
retake.
Point 6: Anatomy
• Example to the right: you
need to be able to draw this
out schematically, including
anterior-posterior and
superior-inferior relations etc.
This is the kind of Anatomy
question you will get in the
exam.
NOTE: this seemed impossible to
me at first!
P.S. think clinical: e.g. what
structure might an duodenal
ulcer erode into?
Point 6: Why draw?
• Exam Q: ‘What is immediately superior to the
omental foramen?’
Answer
•
•
•
•
Superior: Liver
Anterior: lesser omentum
Posterior: IVC
Inferior: duodenum
The lesson: For my retake, I learnt to draw out the
previous three diagrams.
Point 6: Why draw?
• Q: What cranial nerve does
NOT run in the lateral wall of
the cavernous sinus?
A: easy question if you can draw it out
(you don’t do head & neck anatomy
until final term, but it’s a good
illustration of the point).
Point 7: Question Banks
•
Grad Med Society: they provide the questions during summer term nearer your
exams. Contact education officer Aazim Siddiqui (pictured below left).
•
Michigan Online Anatomy Quiz:
http://www.med.umich.edu/lrc/coursepages/m1/anatomy2010/html/courseinfo/mich
_quiz_index.html
•
Blackboard: has online self tests.
Point 8: Do Something To Unwind. You
need a break.
In the interests of anonymity, a montage of
highly entertaining photos were removed
from this slide for the notebank.
Point 9: Request the weighting of
marks for each exam
• E.g. Support Systems
• You can then revise tactically
• Using the lecture notes alone is suitable for
physiology
Point 10
Results: Available about 10 days
after the last exam (June 26th is
Support Systems)
Results
One hour after I got my re-sit results
• Every time I did poorly in an exam, there was
something wrong with my preparation. It
wasn’t that I didn’t work hard enough.
• I want you to avoid the basic mistakes I made
so you can have a summer holiday!
What did I do wrong?
• Regulatory Systems: Got the dates mixed up and thought it
was Systems first. Had to learn one third of the course in 24
hours. Not fun. SO CHECK AND RECHECK THE DATES OF
YOUR EXAMS.
• Anatomy mistakes:
(1) Decided to go through Gray’s Anatomy rather than
Learning Objectives. Missed out a lot of important basic
knowledge (‘freebies’).
(2) Sat staring at images rather than drawing them out.
(3) Missed out key learning objectives (the limbs).
(4) Didn’t know about the ‘Blue Boxes’ in Moore & Dalley
book.
See you Anon!