Unfortunately, over the last couple of weeks, house-hunting has taken preference. As well as viewing various properties, our house has had to remain in show-home like state i.e. much cleaning and tidying. So not a lot of exam preparation has occurred. My optimistic aim is to start working next week - although I'm still struggling a bit to motivate myself - especially for the evenings. I've managed to get hold of a copy of Core Topics in Pain and have also downloaded the Final syllabus and printed it out. I found it extremely useful during the Primary to have lots of practice questions grouped together by topic, so that when I came around to revising a specific subject, I could practice the relevant questions to supplement my knowledge. I've decided to do the same with the Final. Past Exam papers can be downloaded from the RCOA website here, and I copied and pasted all the questions from the exam section of AnaesthesiaUK here and here, and then organised them by topic. It was an exceptionally tedious process but I know it will help me in the long run. I have decided upon a plan of action - I've nearly completed my Cardiac & Paediatric Rotation, so will start revising both of those as they are relatively fresh. Then I'm going to move onto Obstetrics, as I seem to be on a permanent Maternity run at present! I also think I'm going to do practice MCQs and SAQs as I go. T minus 4 days to go!!

Bulletins & Articles

Whilst wrestling with mortgage lenders on the phone and listening to the inevitable "your call is important to us", I started downloading various articles and bulletins which have been extremely useful in preparing for the Final in the past. Excellent material is found both in the Bulletins of the RCOA (back-issues can be downloaded from here), and also from the Continuing Education in Anaesthesia, Critical Care & Pain journals. To download back-issues of these, go to the archive; you will need to register if you haven't done so already using the subscription number that came with your BJA subscription when you first joined the RCOA. Go to My Account in the top left-hand corner of the archive page and fill in your details. Then, go back to the archive page and download the issues you require. I downloaded all the articles in pdf form from 2001-2005 that I didn't have and sorted them into subject. The plan will be to print them all out and make a folder which I can take to work and read during (really long lists) tea breaks!