Getting Serious!

I haven't had the chance to write anything for the last four weeks or so due to moving house. We didn't have broadband for the first two weeks and dial-up internet is so painfully slow. I had to take a week off revision for the move and have only just started to build it up again. I'm ploughing through Clinical Anaesthesia/Specialties/Trauma etc which seems to be the largest section for reading in text books. I still haven't really made notes as such, apart from the odd revision card for stuff I can never remember. When I was doing the Primary, I made so many notes yet never ended up using them (I think I still have Parbrook in my note form somewhere). People will probably argue that it is the act of writing the notes which aids the learning; for some this is true. I have found that for me it is repetition of material that works i.e. reading it again and again so it finally sticks.

I have been extremely lucky with my rotation so far at the Huge Teaching Hospital, as I will have had some experience in some of the major specialties by the time the exam is reached i.e. Cardiac, Paediatrics, Obstetrics, Neuroanaesthesia, ICM. Again for me, learning by seeing cases and performing the relevant anaesthesia under expert supervision and teaching has helped me no end, especially when it comes to clinical cases. They also run regular and rather daunting viva sessions in front of your colleagues - yes, I know it makes the exam experience easier, but it still doesn't help when your colleagues realise you have forgotten everything about Malignant Hyperthermia!!

I start my Neuro ICU nights this week, so cannot really estimate how much work will get done as I have a presentation to prepare and an audit to write up as well. My aim is to finish reading Clinical Anaesthesia within the next week and then the dreaded Basic Sciences will make a return! This time I have Bricker's 'The Anaesthesia Science Book' at my disposal so will again divide my time between Physiology, Pharmacology, and Physics/Clinical Measurement using this textbook, referring to my Primary notes/Parbrook/Peck & Hill etc. I'm also starting some MCQ practice this week. There is a tendency to concentrate on the SAQs at the expense of MCQs - I don't find doing MCQs as mentally taxing as the SAQs so at least it will bring some variability into the work now.