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How to Pass the Postgraduate Orthopaedic Exam
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How to Pass the Postgraduate Orthopaedic Exam
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Language: EN.
Segment:0 .
Welcome once again to our Wednesday evening mentor session, the FRCS mentor session. It's a pleasure to have you all again with us today. We're very lucky to have one of our mentors. Just recently passed the exam, abdulkadir, first of all, congratulations Abdullah. Well done. I know you working hard.
Well deserved. But is what we're lucky in this scenario is that he is going to be telling us about how to pass the farces exam. And there has been some changes since I last sat and not least because of COVID. So I'm really looking forward to hearing some of these tips and advice on how to cope with this new format in the exam as well.
Please don't be afraid to ask questions. Put it in the chat box for Sam knee. One of our veteran mentors will sift through them and provide ask the questions at the end. And as always, we do have a hot seat with session in after the recorded part of this section. So please do volunteer. Send me a private message in the message group and I will take notes of who wants to be asked.
We appreciate that the exam is far away, but for you guys, I think the more active you are now, the better you will do later. OK so looking forward to this at the session with you all. Without further ado, Abdul egawa. It's a real pleasure. Please go ahead. Thank you, Sean.
It's a pleasure to be with you all. Thank you for giving me your time. So I am Abdul-Jabbar. I just passed recently my exam, and I would like to share my experience with you and give you the tips and tricks of this exam. I just first want to say that this is my own experience. It is not essentially going to be useful for all of you, but I think many points will be helpful for most of all of you.
So this talk is essentially is mainly about the part, too. However, I just quick talk about one I just want to say about one is quite straightforward. If you study, if you have the knowledge, you're going to pass easy. OK, you have with regard to your study, choose whatever the source. Personally, I choose miller, which was quite straightforward.
I studied Ramachandran for the basic science, and I just studied the MCU of the bullet, the free version. I didn't pay for any money for the upgraded version. Some people study from all the bullets. That's fine. But the main thing is that you have to study the book from the cover to the cover. Be careful that there are some rare, rare topics that you don't see frequently in your practice that comes frequently in the exam.
For example, there was quite a lot of questions from bone displeases, lot about statistics, about orthotics, prosthetics, all of these things you have to study. Don't ignore them. Don't say that these things are not common, so they're not going to come the love these points. So study the cover from the cover. I studied Miller twice or 2 and 1/2 times and repeated the mark of the bullet twice, and my school was very good in the MCU.
I passed very easily. And another trick is that I found it very useful to take a lot of time before part 1 and less time before. So what happened? Actually, I was quite lucky that my part one was canceled. I just give it six months before about one, but it was canceled. So I said, OK, I'm going to study part one, part two before part one.
All right. It was because there was a lot of time, but I found this. This technique was very useful because first of all, it helped me in part one, because a lot of topics came in the MCU came from the part two from which book. And the most important is that I was very fresh in part 2 with the knowledge. So I finished part one and then applied the next exam for part two.
I found it very useful. So my advice is that take one year before pot one study as much as you can part one. And if you can study two as well and just take a few months before you will be fresh on part 2 in part 2 with regard to the knowledge. And you have to study, I mean, you have to prepare yourself. This year will be a hard year. You have to study quite a lot.
So I use I would say that you have to study 20 to 30 hours every week. This means that you have to study every day on weekdays. You have to be on weekdays. You have to study two to three hours after you work and in weekends day. Every day, you have to study about 5 to six hours. This is for one year to prepare in advance that will sit with yourself and free yourself.
Speak to your family. That this year will be very busy. OK it's about part one with. With regard to the two, this is the tricky part. OK part two. I know a lot of people, a lot of my, my senior colleagues, they have, they are very knowledgeable, they are very senior. The studied well, but they didn't pass and they didn't.
And the reason is they didn't fill the criteria to pass. And the criteria here is not about knowledge. You have to show that you have it, you are systematic, you have a technique and you all safe. So actually, I look at I look at it the other way around, so you have to show first that you are safe. If you are not safe, you don't look safe. You're not going to score six, whatever the knowledge you have.
OK, so I actually look at around the other way around, you have to start safe. You have to show the technique. This is the easiest part. But this is the thing that going to bring you to lay the basis of your mark. OK and then you have to show that you have a depth of knowledge. And we'll go through each one of these points.
So I will start by safety. So safety is the easy thing, so I will give you an example. One of my colleagues in his exam, he was given a picture of a dislocated total shoulder replacement. So he started to panic because he didn't expect this question, OK, because he just expected like a dislocated shoulder, but it was dislocated total shoulder and it was loose and things so he thought he was starting to panic and start to rush to the revision.
The manipulation, the blah blah blah. And he forgot about the neurovascular assessment. He didn't pass this table that he didn't pass this question because he did, he didn't look safe. OK, so safety is the easiest thing to score, but it is the easiest thing to fail as well if you didn't look safe in the exam. So safety things are simple things.
For example, if you have a trauma, you have to mention that you have to do the waitlists. If you have, for example, a femoral shaft fracture in pediatric in pediatric group, you have to mention the MRI. If you have a spinal trauma, you have to mention that you're going to be discussed with the spinal surgeon and you're going to get an MRI if you have an emergency, for example, compartment syndrome, tendon sheath, infection, dislocations or septic arthritis mentioned to the examiner that this is a surgical emergency.
So you are safe. OK this is safety. It's easy to is. Few things easy, but I tell you that under the stress. Many of us forget these things. The other point is that you have to be systematic. Guys, imagine that remember that you have five minutes to mention all the topic to go through all, all the topic.
And if you don't have a frame or if you don't have a system, you're going to lose your points. So I found the five D's of Ricci very useful to go through. So the first thing is describe the X-ray or the MRI or the picture you get the second thing after description, you say the diagnosis, then the discussion here means the history, the examination, the investigation that then decide which is the treatment.
And at the end, if you come to this point, which is either debate or diagram or evidence, I mean evidence instead of detective, then you are scoring how you are scoring seven or 8 and we'll go through each point of these. So describe you if you given this picture. You don't say that this is a made long deformity. OK no stop start to describe the findings on the X-ray say that there is an increased radial inclination, there is increasing congruence of the drug.
My top differential diagnosis is made long. This is the way you have to speak in the exam. The examiner will feel that, you know, OK, other thing in description? Elaborates more on the X ray, so here it's a picture of disease, but you say first that this is there's a sclerosis of the United bone. Of course, you have to start with, this is a radiograph of the wrist.
This is an MRI, T1 sequence or whatever and then describe that sclerosis of the bone. Don't stop here. Elaborate more. Say there's a ulnar nerve minus deformity mentioned. If there is, there is no medical arthritis. There is no boundaries, arthritis and this is a crime book. Then you give the diagnosis, and when you get the diagnosis, try to be more specific if you can, for example, this is a kind of stage three or three stage three.
OK try to elaborate more on your description. OK then the second point is diagnosis, as I told you. Try to be specific in your diagnosis mentioned the if you have classification, mentioned the classification, especially in trauma. And I found in the exam that they still asking about classification. Then the discussion. The discussion is the history examination investigation.
And investigation can be laboratory or radiological. Now in the now in the clinical and the clinical you have, this is the flesh of the clinic and you have to spend a lot of time in clinical examination and discussion. But in Viva, you need to. Speak less in the discussion part. Just mention the bullet points. Don't elaborate much.
For example, in this X ray, if this is a Kilkenny in particular coalition in clinical examination, you just say that I am going to expect that there is a fixed flat deformity stop. You don't have to say that behind what is going to be in progress, they are going to be commodities. I'm going to ask the patient to walk. You don't have to mention that you have only five minutes.
You have to go quick through this, ok? And in history, try to compartmentalize. For example, history you present can play, I mean, in other topics. To present from plane risk factor. To try to give it signpost and go through the history this way. And the last thing in discussion is investigation, make sure that you ordered all the investigations before you go to the theater, which is the decision.
So in this case, many people, because of the stress or the heat of the exam, we forget about getting the MRI or forgetting actually the easiest thing. Simple, simple thing. Other views of the X-ray. Make sure that you got all investigations before going to theater. OK then decision. Decision there are a few points.
One, don't forget about the operative management. For example, one of my colleagues, he had a 1 contractor, so he straightaway went for the operative management Limited traject to me, blah blah blah. After the after he finished the exam, we looked at him and he said, well, the patient is asymptomatic. You feel good about the operative management. And this is one point, the next point, especially in trauma.
Try to give the initial management, don't forget the initial management and defensive management. So initial management and A&E can be like pain control application of the costs admission monitor for compartment syndrome. This is. All before the definitive treatment that's going to count, it's going to show the examiner that you are systematic.
Another thing is that don't enumerate options, OK, speak like a consultant in the. If you are in the meeting or in the morning meeting, the consultant will look on the X-ray and he will say, I'm going to do that. It's not going to decide the book. He's not going to say the options are this or this or this? Except in very controversial situations that you can say the options.
OK, then you have to elaborate, elaborate on your definitive management. So for example, my biomolecular ankle fracture, don't say I'm going to go, I'm going to do all this and you stop. No, say I'm going to do the lateral side. I'm going to do a leg school neutralization plate and I'm going to use the medial side. I'm going to do after.
I'm going to do two partially three complete screws, then I'm going to check the syndesmosis. So elaborate move. Don't just say the Augusta. The last part in this scheme this is the extra amount here is a diagram of evidence or debate. So diagram.
To practice the diagrams before the exam. And the diagram should take 30 seconds to draw. And you have to practice talking while talking, and when you do something dry it dry on larger scale, don't do a small, small, small drawing this when you draw so a paper for every two a week, this will show that you are confident.
Detective means here is the evidence for the I mean, I found in the whole of my exam, I was asked once about if I was able to bring one evidence, one evidence, which was the Swift trial of all of the evidence I know. So the thing is that if a lot of evidence, that's fine. But sometimes people concentrate more on the evidence more than the knowledge itself. So don't do that.
And for the evidence, there are a few things that you have to know by heart, which is the most guidelines you have to study them and out. There's no excuse about it. The nice, the nice guy, the nice guidelines, you have to study a few of them, if you can study more, that's fine. But NICE guidelines you have to study for the one for the diabetic foot, the one for the osteoporosis, the one for osteoarthritis, the one for metastatic spinal cord compression.
Also among the evidence is the Ngo results go through them. This is for the head, for the knee to the shoulder, the elbow and the ankle. And for the trials, you have to do a few of them which are quite common to come in the exam, which is the profile, the draft, the swift, the hail Baumgartner paper for DHS medal for Sophie and cuckoo for septic arthritis.
I think if these are more or less the papers that you're going to need for your exam, if you no more, that's fine. But just make sure that these papers will. Now we have to talk about the safety we have, talk about the technique, and just with regard to your knowledge, if the examiners want to make difficult, I mean difficult scenarios.
They can put two topics together lend them and then this you're going to see how you're going to answer whether this confuses you or not. For example, femoral shaft fracture in nonworking child, you have to talk about management of any eye. And don't forget to mention the management of the femoral shaft fracture. So it's two topics together will can confuse you a bit.
So practice these things. Another example atypical slap to fracture on Paget disease. So this loads of topic you have to be familiar with the budget Paget disease, you have to be familiar with slap to come traject fracture reduction non-healing. You have to be familiar with the bisphosphonates this way, and other example is uses seconded to neurofibromatosis, and actually this topic came twice to me in my exam.
So you have to be familiar with the scoliosis, how to examine the scoliosis, and the same time you have to be familiar about the new neurofibromatosis. Another thing scoliosis with Marfan syndrome have to be familiar about the both topics and be quite serious. The characteristics of both. Another example is still hip dislocation plus sciatic nerve flossing.
And actually this. This question came to me and actually the examiner traject me and I forget, forgot completely about the sciatic nerve palsy. So the question came to me that posterior hip dislocations, after eating less management and all the initial management, I took him to theater to show that I am safe and try to relocate it.
It didn't come. It didn't come, didn't relocate. So he asked me, what are you going to do? I said, I'm not going to open it because I'm not a pelvic surgeon. Why are you not going to open it? Because I don't want to destroy the approach for the pelvic surgeon. OK, you are the pelvic surgeon.
So I said, OK, I'm going to do this relocation open relocation through the posterior approach of the headband that described the posterior approach. And he said, that's it. I said, that's it. So he said, OK, what about the sciatic nerve palsy? I said, OK, sorry, I am going to explore it. So that's fine. I mean, sometimes under stress, you can forget a few things, but the examiners come from to, you know, problems.
But one of the tricks, actually. One friend told me, just try to write the question while the exam, when the examiners give you the information, write them so you don't forget them in the heat of the exam. With regard to the clinicals. You know, these there's no real patients, it's all like pictures, and I found the clinic is just Aviva concentrating more on the clinical examination.
Just in the be systematic again in the clinic. So the best way is to have the look, feel special tests. This is the easiest one way to have a system. For example, one of my colleagues who was given a rotator cuff exam shoulder examination for rotator cuff tear and he started systematic OK. And then when he turned around, the patient, he found that there's a deformity and which was quite strange.
So he started to mumble and started to lose the track, and he didn't do well in this station. And the things that don't lose to your track. So it's easy if you concentrate on examination of the shoulder. And when you say, for example, this deformity, just say, just mention it. Acknowledge it. Just say that there is a thorough Colombo's for music deformity.
There's the apex to the right and come back again to the shoulder. The look, the look, feel, move. So don't be distracted away from your system. So in the exam, I'm not going to say that you have to sleep well, you have to dress well, you have to manage your nerves. This is very important, but I have to say that guys, the exams are more difficult than you expect.
I'm sorry to say that whatever the courses, the Viva courses you attended, it's more difficult than it. Whatever the sources you studied from, there will be about four or five questions you have never, ever heard about them. And I'm not saying that to upset you. I'm saying that to sit to let you know that that's fine. This is the normal when you go into the exam, when you are in the exam, don't get stressed, control yourself.
This is very important. And if you don't answer a question or two, three, just leave them and concentrate on the focus on the remaining. It's very easy to get the monks and compensate for the five. That's easy. So I'm just saying that it is more difficult to don't get shocked in the exam.
Other point in the exam. Is that you have to show you soft skills? What what I mean is that the management skill, the communication skills, for example, I question came to one of my colleagues he had given canal central. So he mentioned that he's going to get an MRI to look for a space occupying lesion. The examiner said that there is a space occupying lesion. What are you going to do?
The patient is symptomatic. I'm going to do release of the Grand Canal. So you are in the now and you open the game canal and you found that there is a lesion of aggressive lesion coming from the nerve itself. What are you going to do? So the answer here is that actually, no one knows. I mean, my colleague didn't know what to do, but the answer is show you soft skills, which is first of all, say I'm sorry, I should have elaborated more on the MRI.
But now I am in theater. I'm not quite sure, but I will get help from one of my senior colleagues or I'm going to describe and call the tumor center and then say the option. I am not quite sure the options are either to excise the lesion, but I don't know whether it is malignant or benign or the other option. The safe option is just to take a biopsy and close everything and come back to come.
Come, come back to this case later. So if you don't know, that's fine. No problems, especially in the advanced cases, but show some thinking high order thinking. And if you say something in the exam and the examiner told you, are you sure? It's more likely that you said something wrong. So step back, think about what you said and start again.
That's fine, no problems. If you say something wrong. Say, I'm sorry, I retract what I've said, I'm going to start it again. No problems. Go, sometimes if you say something wrong, the examiner can take you completely out of, out of, out of your pathway and take you somewhere you don't know.
For example, in my exam, I said there was a degenerative lumbar deformity. And I said, what investigation? I said MRI, anything before MRI. So and full list by next week, so I said I dig a hole for myself. So he said, why you? I mean, he tried to prompt me to. I think the answer was to get a flexion extension X-ray to look for stability.
But I said full spine MRI. And then he started to prompt me why and I said to look for I didn't find anything to say, but I said, I'm going to I'm going to look for the surgical balance, so I dig another hole for myself, what is said to balance? Then I start to wonder what is positive sagittal balance? What is the importance of positive side to balance?
What is the importance of negative societal balance? And I didn't do well in this, in this, in this question because I think I took myself away where I should have said, I don't I'm not quite sure what is foregoing my right instead of saying something. And nonsense. I shouldn't have said. Now a other point, if you don't know something, if you are not quite sure about something, say I am not sure, but I think it may be this way.
So don't be overconfident. Do if you say something something false and you don't have insight. This is some problem with safety. And as I told you before, I try to compartmentalize your answer, so start with the pre-operative. For example, in management of budgets, disease say management will be pre-operative or corrective post-operative or, for example, examination of the case of septic arthritis.
It will be general and local examination or other example will be patient factor of surgical factor implant factor in some of the basic science basic science. So try to compartmentalize your answer. This will give you more marks. And before the exam, guys, prepare yourself, you have to study, you have to work hard for the exam, you have to study a lot of time and you have to practice practice, practice.
This is very important. I have to find a study partner with you one or two, at least. So one, at least two or three maximum. I was surprised that some of my colleagues they called me one month before the exam that I'm talking about part two, that they didn't have a partner with them. And I think in my opinion, I think there's no way around to have to have a steady partner to practice with.
A new hospital try to practice on the cases you see in the clinic on call, I was surprised that I tried to do carpal tunnel examination one month before the exam and found that there were a lot of defects in my clinical examination. Try to practice with a senior colleague or with your consultant. And without saying, I found that this group, this false is meant to group was very useful for me during the doing my preparation.
Thank you for them. Other point is the basic science, basic science is a gift is really a gift. You can score very high in the basic science and compensate for other stations and basic science because we are not familiar with it. We find that it is. It is difficult in the start, but once you study it once and twice, it will be the easiest part in the exam is the easiest way to score.
Plus, basic science is the anatomy you can't be a safe surgeon without being good in and have to study the anatomy very well, and this is for part two and and for part one and part two. It's very important is that don't panic control yourself, I mean, the exams is difficult, you can lose some question, you're not going to answer all questions, but that's fine. Forget about them. Try to think about the next station.
And last thing is failure. I hope all of you pass from the first time. But if you fail, I mean, I know it is a terrible experience. You will start to hate yourself. You are going to feel that the life in a stop your work, your career, going to talk to your family, life is wasted, you're going to feel all of that. But I have to say that this is normal. This is physiologically OK.
I would say that. Forget about. Don't open the book for two weeks. Try to be good with yourself. Don't be tough with yourself. Or go go, hang out with friends, do something to get out of the stress and return back to your again to your study, but think about why you failed. Where was the problem?
Is it your knowledge? Is it your technique? Is it something about luck? Speak to your senior colleagues. Speak to the consultants. Usually, you're going to find that only that I should have done this instead of this, I should have done that instead of that. And in my opinion, if your knowledge is good, it's easy to work on your technique in one or two months.
So if you have the opportunity, don't wait for another year for the exam just to book the next exam and work on your technique. If you have the knowledge. Of course, if you have the victim, the knowledge, you have to spend more time. But the easiest thing to bring in the exam is safety. Safety is easy, then the technique you can practice the technique in one or two months and you will be absolutely fine.
The knowledge will take most of the time, and that's why I'm saying try to. Book the set the bar too straight away after part one. So you are more fresh with the knowledge. I hope all of you pass and good luck for all of you. And any questions for that? Thank you very much, Abdullah.
Once again, I've noticed a common theme through the three years. We've been doing this 3 and 1/2 years now. Every every person that's given a talk on how to pass the exam have said the same things. Basic science, absolutely key technique and safety. Would you agree that literally those three are the priorities in terms of how to press the party? This is, in many times is the deficient is the deficient part and a lot of.
So for example, I know one of my colleague, he's a senior hip surgeon. He do. He does loads of hip and knee replacement. And you will be surprised that he didn't pass the arthroplasty question. Not because of his knowledge, but he was not able to get the technique. He was not able to convey his knowledge in five minutes.
Yeah, absolutely. So, Hussam, first of all, I'd like to welcome Abdullah Hanoun and kashif, both veteran mentors who just joined us a little bit late into the program. They'll have labor questions as well. So Hassan, would you do we have any questions? Yes, we have few. So the first question is from Charlie.
He said how to make a balance between directly jumping to the most obvious thing in the X-ray to save time. But on the other hand, being systematic, starting by describing the view and modality of the imaging. It's a bit tricky, but I mean, the buzzword is to practice, practice and practice and practice. Your description shouldn't be more than 30 seconds.
You don't have to mention everything in the don't have to mention everything in the X ray, but at least the like 80% of the findings, to be honest, I found some examiners that wanted me to describe that this is a px ray of the knee showing this and this and others were fine. They didn't. They didn't bother about the basic, the very basics, the very basic things.
So it's sometimes tricky for, for example, a vulgar knee with osteoarthritis. So you don't have to mention that this is to say this is a weight bearing X-ray showing advanced arthritis with fungus deformity. There's bone loss, the ligaments laxity, the subluxation all done. This is less than 20 seconds. But if you start saying that there is a narrowing of the joint space, there is also two fights.
There is epicondyle sclerosis. There is a cyst. These this is residual for a level. So you just need to speak like a consultant when you are in the trauma meeting or in the morning meeting, the consultant will comment on these things. Yeah so if I would expand a little bit of this, I've been told when I was taking the exam to strike this balance, just to look at the X-ray and then like, yeah, this is an AP reality graph or a photograph of the rest AP and lateral.
The most striking feature over here that I can see is sclerosis in the unit area, which put the kind of disease on the top of my differential diagnosis. Having said that, it could be blah blah blah blah, whatever you want to say after that, but you made the examiner. Some of them, once they hit the crime book, they would stop you there and then you will move on. So this buzzword of the most striking feature is, or I am concerned about this.
So and then move on. OK, sorry about that. Next question is from someone, Mahmoud. How to reach the balance between knowing the topic well and being concise in five minutes. Answer so I mean. And many occasions the examiner will help you. So, for example, if the examiner needs the management out, he will push you toward the Amendment.
And, for example, sometimes actually, he can tell you that the history of the history and clinical examination findings straight away, straight away. So I mean, the five minutes is made to be suitable to give all the answer sometimes, which I found in this exam that some question the examiner didn't want the management.
He wanted something else. For example, he showed me. A loose Charlie help which and he said to me, this is infected, so initially I said, OK, that's a good question. I'm going to go about the vision, the evidence for the vision, the two stage of vision, all of that. But he completely took me, took me from this path and start to talk about what is the core, the risk factors for infection, general and local.
What is diabetes? What how does it affect how, how it can cause infection? What's the HP want to see? What's rheumatoid arthritis? And this was in the adult path table. So the I found that five minutes is usually enough and the examiner will push you towards the path. It's usually the management, but in general, he will push, push you towards the path he wants to hear from you.
Good, I could I also intervene with a small comment on this? So what I find most commonly as to why a person finds they've run out of time is not because they have, they have not covered the topic, it's they've covered the topic in a very poor format. So the classical scenario is, for example, let's just put up something the forearm fracture on an eight-year-old boy, ok?
What tends to happen is the person who's not prepared for the exam and has a technique issue will ask the examiners questions. The questions they'll ask is what time did it happen? Is he fasting, is he not fasting? Is there hour recess when you about is there neurovascular injury? Oh Yeah. Is it open and the exam will tell you the patient's in pain?
Can you move on to management? What you then go is, or I will assess what compartment syndrome is there? Compartment syndrome? OK, and now you've wasted a minute to a minute and a half talking nonsense when in 10 seconds, you can cover this. This is about bone forearm also in the traditional media in an eight-year-old boy demonstrates it on the APM lateral X-ray.
I would, of course, presuming this is a closed injury, neurovascular intact and no evidence of any and/or compartment syndrome, I will proceed with analgesia, splinted and plan to have this patient done on the next morning or this. If the examiner wants to talk to you about compartment, syndrome or any, they'll stop you and say, we didn't say there's no. OK or we didn't say there's no compartments or we didn't say it's open or closed injury, so that means go back to that topic.
But in 10 seconds, I have now moved on to management. Absolutely Yeah. It's the same for adults. Assuming there are no medical comorbidities that would need optimization and/or management before taking to theatre, the patients not only need blood thinners, you can add that extra line and you're there. OK does that make sense? Guys, it's a technique issue.
Most of the time, if you're finding, you're not having time. Can I please take add one extra point again, which will help that helps actually both, if you know, to if too much. And if you don't know enough, it works both ways, which is what you've mentioned, Abdullah, which is to have a skeleton. So if you want to talk about a big topic and you know that you cannot cover the whole topic that works mainly for basic science, then have a safe in your mind pre-op and post-op.
Just you mentioned that now, even if you did not manage to cover everything and you cover a bit of each one, they have to give you the mark for it and they will lead you down the way that they want the question to go forward. For example, if they want to focus on the pre-op or the inflammatory causes or the whatever, then they will go back and ask you about it. But by mentioning the main names, number one, you've gained the marks for everything.
You put your minds at ease and you got them. You know you are on the way to going deeper later. And again, it works if you don't know much, then at least you gave yourself a bit of time to think. Yes Yeah. It personally happened with me also, it's like in my exam, this is a very complex polytrauma. And I thought he would ask me about the blood transfusion on this anyway.
It tends to be like you fracture dislocation of the hip. And I said, yes, you assuming that the patient has been assessed and managed, according to the Atlas protocol. And this is a closed injury and there is no other injuries. He said he has other injuries, but I will tell you later. And then we carried on, carried on, carried on. And then the thing that you don't forget that he told you there is another injury.
So you will go and ask about it again. And in my case was he has a fracture of the tibia and fibula of the leg. So and that was about what to do first and all this and it's about off of damage control versus just treating everything. And that the thing was asking after fixing the hip to put ex fix after fixing the hip is a patient still stable or not.
So he just said stable and was easy. Just I will. I will put I am Neal if the patient is still stable. So it is about this assuming and he will stop you if he wants materials. Did you use for part two? So part two, you. Maybe they will. There's no one source enough for the power to.
So I mainly used the quick. I supplemented them with. Second thing. Miller and third thing, I use the concise book. But this was the order of course, I had some notes from one of my friends, some scribbling here and there, but the answer is there is no book can give you the full knowledge for four two, you have to use multiple sources, but make one source as the main source.
The sauce that you use and the problem is you might not find the right sauce for you. So you may end up going through two or three different sauces, so the bullets postgraduates concise or whatever. I don't particularly care what is important is you find what is suitable for yourself. For me, we didn't do I couldn't read postgraduate orthopedics because I just couldn't read it, and I found Miller really difficult to read, as well.
But that's me. OK, so I prefer to use Ramachandran for my basic science and author bullets and multiple internet websites on the basic science stuff because I always found it wasn't enough to understand the topic so other people will use. And of course, I use my reference books. Some of them are outdated, by the way the. The over people who read Miller books, I think, would be perfect.
So if you're asking, my advice is actually go to the library, go pull out those books and see which format suits you. It's very easy to go into all of the bullets and look at the format there. And decide if that suits you. I'm not going to make any recommendations. I don't think anyone's mental should make recommendations for a person unless they know that person really well. I mentioned, do you all agree or disagree?
Yeah, please disagree. It's the absolute right. Thank you. And I explain something, my philosophy, which is very close to your philosophy and the reason for the book, to be honest, is to give you a skeleton. I like this word to give you a skeleton whereby which topics to cover so that you don't miss one topic from the exam.
As long as there is a book that tells you these are the things you need to cover that is enough. And to be honest, the best way is not to read the book. You use the book as a basis for discussion with your core exam colleagues who are preparing with you. So you are not reading. And that's why when people ask me this question, I go on a lecture because people have different concepts they want.
They want to read a book, memorize it and go for the exam. That is completely the wrong approach. The approach is you want something to tell you today. We will be group studying basic arthroplasty of the knee. And you go and read whatever you want to do and then come and discuss it with your colleagues, cover all aspects of it. Imagine what questions that can come in the exam and prepare for them.
This is how you read. It's not the book. And that's why every time someone asks me that I give them a lecture, I can, I can. I also add that you need to write some notes. So every page you read for them. I started from the miscovich, the postcard. That is good, but it's very extensive. And sometimes there's a lot of repetition there.
It's a good book, but has its own problem. It's a very extensive it's 900 pages and yet is not complete. So I used to every page you go through, you have to every page you have to summarize it in about five lines. So when you come back, you have when you revise, you can't revise the whole book just to revise have knowledge in your mind. But exactly as Abdullah said, just to revise the skeleton, what what?
What are you going to say? I will give my input. Sorry, Abdul, I used to write everything, and I never, ever went back and read it every time. Having gone through this exam. And I passed the fourth time, so every time I was writing my notes and I never, never went and read it again anyway, I took it. I still do it because it is like saying it again.
Yeah, my way, as one said and everyone said, we are all different, so I don't like reading, actually. I like listening more and we are lucky now with the help of FARC as mentors and many, many other activities around now after the COVID that we have a lot of these webinars recorded webinars with summaries and concise.
The subject from FARC s point of view. So my way, I would say I would read once I read Miller once, so I feel that I read everything I read just before the first part I read, which once. And after that, I found four part one is that. MCU answers is what I am now studying, so I try to practice MCU, whatever, if I'm right or wrong, I will read the answer and from there it will stick here.
For the second part is the small books because whatever I've read them, but it's quick is too much and it doesn't. It is difficult to bring it in the exam in five minutes. But these books question books is actually concise. The answer? So as Abdullah said. Abdullah is bringing it just making Kessler fold and a system structure in your mind. What is required?
What you should answer? And I have been told. Never, ever tried to remember more than 3 and everything that's called the power of free, so any causes, any differential diagnosis, basic science, anything remember three. And that's it. The most important. So as you can see, you're here for different techniques so far.
I'm sure cashapp has a different opinion as well. So we're going to stop there. I really do appreciate everyone has a different technique for studying and everyone has a good way of studying. You have to do what is right for you. I'm asking which book and so on. Don't take our word for it. Go to the library, find open the books you want and study the technique that suits you.
OK that's all that matters. Yes do you find a book that suits you or a source of knowledge that suits you? As your go to knowledge, but it doesn't have to be reading book cover to cover as being demonstrated by a couple of the mentors here. OK, does that make sense? By the way, we are not advocating skeleton knowledge, we are getting skeleton answers to OK.
Please do appreciate that. OK a next question. OK, so these questions again, I think the answer will be the same, but let's put it on how many mock exams before the actual exam. And the other question related any courses recommended or a must? And the third question, actually, with regards to practice question for part one is also sufficient, I feel these questions are related to that one, but I would let Abdullah.
Yeah so I'll start with the last question. Also, in my opinion, I found the free version. Is enough. I did it twice, I didn't pay for anything. And there's about 3,500 questions, and just for completeness, I did about three or four years of the ukit, but I didn't like it is not written very well. But I just did like two or three years just to because it is similar to slightly similar to the exam style.
But it's not going to give you any knowledge is not sitting very well. This is my opinion. This is so this is about this is a lot. Yeah, the other question is the courses. I was a bit unlucky because it was in the COVID time. So low. All the courses I applied it. It, I didn't.
I didn't. It was canceled. But I'll say, I'll say to you. One thing that we want to get the most of the course, you have to be prepared about it. So I studied well. And at the end I did the course. Don't go it, don't go to the course and you don't know anything.
View a if you want to get 70% or 80% of the course, you have to be very well prepared in advance. So do do you have to do one Viva caucus, at least? So I did one Viva calls. I did one clinical examination course. I did general knowledge, cause I think causes, I think the awful causes this is what I didn't do much and I found I found that this was sufficient. But the idea is that I was prepared well before the polls.
How many mock exams before the actual exam? One what do you mean, mock exams? You never had access to mock exams like five like Viva or clinical examination. You mean like writing or something like that, like the one you do, the one you do. OK all right. I see.
As we can, of course. Yeah Oh my God. Yeah no, sorry. I thought there was someone offering full mock exam type thing from because I didn't. I haven't seen anything like that. I'm going to go and look a little bit more different to Abdul again, just because I want to show you that there is a huge difference.
I found also bullets. I paid for the conversion of bullets. I found amazing for knowledge. And you launched your question when you answer the questions, you learn the knowledge behind the questions really well, but the phrasing, the knowledge made it very difficult for me to do the part one. When I went to the UK as my next one, I found it clicked in my head the way they asked the questions and what the meaning behind the questions, the higher order thinking because the auto bullets tend to ask the questions in a very they give you a pretty much correct me if I'm wrong, unless something has changed.
But they still look the same to me. They ask you the question in 3 or four line. They give you the full parameters of everything and then give you five answers which one won, two of which are probably reasonable, but the other two are not, and one is completely out of, I think, well in the Air Force's exam. They will literally give you one line. Sometimes it's even four or five words.
And the answer is not the question, but the meaning behind the question and the higher order thinking behind the question, which is very hard to describe unless you go through the UK, as Abdullah said, it's more closer to that format. If you go through the UK or if you go for Farsi as UK vibe. So UK part one ones go through those books, you'll see them the way they've asked. Those questions are very different to the way the police have asked the questions.
The flip side is I have met many of the mentors and many of the guys who've passed. We've said all they've done is used offer bullets. And so I'm not telling you again, this is the same thing, people ask these questions and they think we're giving you Bible answers or Koran answers or Talmud answers or whatever your book is. It's not. That it's all about what suits you and what works for you.
And if something's not working. Explore the other options before it's too late, ok? And it's better to start much earlier. I would say action is bullets is for more like knowledge, but informal questions. So if you didn't read the question the answers, then you would not benefit from all the bullets that much. You call it, it doesn't come with that much of explanation and papers and in the answer, but it is a format that you will go.
So if it's me, I'll go. Two bullets first read the answers, even for the correctly answer that I did. And then close to the exam, I will do you call it. And this is the real measure. If I talk about mock exam, this is my mock exam, actually not the study. I mentioned that also, bullet has something unique to it, which you don't find in any other book, which is after the answer.
You would find a discussion where people did not like the answer that was given, and they were saying, why did you do this and how come? How about if the question was that this I found even more useful than the questions above or even the answer? This discussion is the thing that would make you think. Beyond just a simple question, because these questions will never come like they are in the real example.
So you will never see the same format, but by reading the discussion, it would open your mind. So once again, guys, it's Abdullah is right. Hassan is right. And Abdullah is right. I'm probably very wrong. No, I don't see that there are different viewpoints on all of this. So once again, I cannot reiterate this enough.
Start early with your study and start exploring the different methods of what you might already know. What works for you? Terrific then go look for the books, courses and interviews that suit you or the knowledge where it suits you. But these questions are not easy, and if you're asking me to name the courses, I can name 100 courses.
But my advice is talk to somebody you know well enough that knows you. That will tell you which one will benefit you. And the courses change every few years, and there are some which were really good two years ago, which are not good now and vice versa, some which have become extremely expensive compared to others. And you get the same amount. You remember you have a budget as well, so you have to think along those lines as well.
We, of course, are biased, and we say our Wednesday sessions are really worthwhile, and if you volunteer for the hot seat, you will benefit maximally from these when this Wednesday sessions. But that's of been biased if there is no more questions. One more. Before before we move to the next question, may I mention something, please guys for the courses?
It depends on where everyone says that it depends on what your background and where are your weaknesses and you need because you need these courses to cover your weaknesses. For me, there wasn't enough. The mentor group was not well established at the time, so I went for one course at the beginning before even starting the reading just to see what is this exam?
What does that mean? What do I need to do to prepare for it? And I would recommend for people who don't know where they stand. OK, to do one course, right at the beginning have a course that covers everything, have a flavor of everything. See where your weaknesses are. And then plan for a year ahead of all these courses.
OK, so this would help. But for the time being, I feel that our mentor group, because we do it every week and we do every week, you know, the weekend we have these courses. So that would probably complement and make you not need this. But you know, this is something you have to think of. I'm sorry, Sharon, if I may say something, if you don't mind. Welcome, sorry.
How are you doing, sir? Thank you for joining us. Absolutely I've been here for some time. I mean, I can't. I cannot emphasize. I agree totally with Abdullah. I mean, two weeks ago, I thought in the Nordic fastest course. It is exactly what we're doing. It every week.
It is a huge sum of money that we pay for all the courses just because we do, just because we're doing it free of charge every week. Doesn't mean that we're not doing any less jobs. I mean, it is all it is all online now. This particular minute. And it is. The knowledge at first was I did the Viva bit for about half a day, exactly the same thing.
And I think if I were to do the exam all over again, I would attend to every week just practicing Viva get shattered. See how it goes after six months and take it from there. I think we're doing an amazing job not to flatter ourselves, but I think that's what I would do. OK, thank you. Thank you so much, sir. I appreciate the flattery, but you're not getting any extra marks for that.
The so last question back to the clinical. So this is for everyone, I think Eureka carpal tunnel procedure. You discover the swelling from flexor tendon sheath finish reading the question and we're not answering this. We're going to end with this. I'll ask this question and you see who asked it. He's going to answer it.
OK OK, so we'll get him to answer it in the session. This is actually an exam question, potentially. Yeah you're like, yeah, don't bother. No, because it's a group like a very clinical. We're not going to answer it. It's a good question. We treat it as a. Abdullah, have you anything else to add Abdullah there?
No, I think that's it. OK, really good talk as you can. Really stimulating. And also, I love your technique of the disease. I think that is very clever. So I think if there's any take-home message here that is it really well done. This will be put on the YouTube channel.
I, as always and as always, you are very welcome to volunteer for the sessions afterwards, but we're not recording that. So thank you to everyone, including a good showing from the mentors. We will see you again next week. I'll stop recording here.